Smith Mountain Lake Sprint Tri
Saturday May 08th 2004
This sprint tri at SML was my first race of the year, and boy did we arrive in style. We all stayed at Kurt's family house, which was situated on the corner of a shallow cove that provided a spectacular view of surrounding water. About a 40-minute drive from the park where the race took place, it was actually quicker by boat--and that's just how we travelled. We rented your typical party barge for our aquatic transportation, so as everyone else was fighting for parking and making their way to the transition area, we simply relaxed in the boat for a 30-minute ride, docked right next to the swim start, and casually strolled our way to the race. Already the day seemed more like a party than a race.
It was Laura's first triathlon, and she had a great time with it, as did we all. It was of course not without our normal antics--Magnus, a veteran racer, put on his wetsuit backwards, so I had to help him peel it off as other racers walked amusedly by. It reminded us of when he put on his spiderman costume backwards at last year's halloween, and we almost couldn't stand it. The poor Swede can't get any breaks. . .
But of course despite our amateur behaviors and spectacles, we still made a collective killing in our respective divisions. Dan List took 3rd overall of course; Mike took 1st in our age group, I took 5th, followed by BK and then Magnus; and Laura, showing her natural talents and potential, took 4th in her age group. However the show was stolen by a guy by the name of James Bales, who beat second place by about 3 minutes. We literally never saw him coming since he started in the second (or third?) wave. How old was that kid, 18 or something?
