On July 15th, my family and I started our voyage to Nantucket for the weekend. I had never done any of the races on the island before, but Nantucket is a special place to me. With the exception of the last 2 years, I had been going there every year since I was in 3rd grade with one of my best friends. My wife had never been to the island and it was a great opportunity for my family and I to get over to the island.
Our boat to Nantucket wasn't until Thursday, but Kristen and I thought it would be nice to stay on the Cape Wednesday night so we didn't have to rush on Thursday morning. So we got a hotel in Sandwich which we got to around 8pm. It had 2 queen beds so we thought we could let Calvin (our 2.5 yr old) sleep in the other bed. Since he still sleeps in a crib out home, this turned into a HUGE mistake. I'm not sure if he was too excited or what, but he essentially didn't sleep all night. I ended up taking him to a playground at about 5:15am after my wife and I taking turns trying to get him to sleep most of the night. There was a sign at the playground saying that it didn't open until 6am, but with how tired I was at that point, I told myself I'll take the risk of getting arrested so my wife wife can at least get a little sleep. :)
The rest of the day was quite a struggle as Calvin was exhausted. We did our best to accommodate him on the boat ride over, but he definitely struggled. Needless to say, my wife and I were very happy to get to the island and get Calvin down for a nap in the Pack N Play. I got to have dinner with some of my hometown friends who were on the island for a bachelor party. It was great to see them and it made me realize how far I have come in the past 8-9 years. If it was even 7-8 years ago, I would have been right there with those guys getting extremely drunk. I definitely miss hanging out with those guys, but I'm very happy to be a family man that didn't have a sip of alcohol the entire time I was on the island.
Luckily we did get a good night's sleep on Thursday night and Friday wasn't too bad. I had a great dinner with my clients and fellow NEMSers that were doing the races over the weekend. I was excited to race some short course races and it had been a couple years since I had raced a short course race. I knew there were going to be some great, short course focused athletes racing, so I would have my hands full.
Saturday's sprint race went pretty well. The swim was a bit long and had an interesting route. The bike was tough and I'm not used to pushing power numbers like that for 13 miles. Nonetheless, I had a pretty solid run and was able to take 3rd overall. One of my clients, Lucas Pozzetta, took the win and SMOKED me by over 5 minutes! I knew he was going to beat me, but holy cow, I wasn't ready that kind of a beating. :) Nonetheless, I did win my age group and beat second by just under 7 minutes so that was good. Here I am on the run.
Sunday was a lot more of the same, just an Olympic distance race. The swim went better, but my legs felt pretty beat on the first lap of the bike. Nonetheless, I pushed through and felt much better on the 2nd loop. The run went pretty well, though I moved into 3rd pretty quickly into the run and 2nd was a was ahead of me so I didn't end up pushing it quite as hard as I should have. Either way, I was able to take 3rd overall again and win my age group. Lucas won again and beat me by over 11 minutes! However, I won my age group by over 14 minutes which was good. Here I am on the bike and crossing the finish line.
Overall, it was a fantastic weekend. Peak Triathlon Coaching/NEMS athletes did extremely well! All the PTC athletes won their age group which included Frank Mulcahy's first trip to the top of the podium. Lucas dominated all weekend and it was amazing to see how far he has come over the last few years. He has worked very hard and I am extremely excited to see how he does at Nationals. Clients Nate Thomas, who's Ironman Mont Tremblant training is going well, Jim Piper, who is now prepping for Timberman and Ironman Maryland, did great and won their AG's both days. I am extremely proud to be their coach! Here is a pic of us after the race.
Thanks for reading! Next up...Timberman 70.3 next month. :)