The Burley Spudman - I did it

Today I did the Burley Spudman triathlon.  The last time I did the Spudman was 2008.  A man in the heat ahead of me had a heart attack and drowned, and so they cancelled the swim and changed it to a duathlon for my heat. I registered, but missed out in 2009 and didn't register in 2010.  I wanted to do it again and see if I could reach my goals so in January I registered and today was the big event.

My goals are the same as they were three years ago.
1.  Don't die
2   Finish the event in under three hours
3.  Finish the run in under 1 hour

However, last time I tried, I was three years younger.  Now I'm a senior citizen.  I'm also not quite as active as I was three years ago, I'm trying to hang in there, but the 'JOB' takes more of my time than I would like.  I haven't been able to train as much.  So far this year, and before today's event, I've biked 252 miles, ran 45, and swam .15.  That's a whole lot less preparation than what I would have liked.

I don't have my official times yet, but inspite of the lack of training, I think I achieved all three goals:
1.  I'm still alive
2.  I believe that I was just under three hours, however I did take a lot longer than usual in the transistions.  I hurt my left foot last week just as we were beginning the hikes at Zion National Park.  It is still pretty tender, so I wanted to make sure that I had my foot properly protected for both the bike and the run.
3.  I finished the run in 57:43 (unofficially).

Once I get my official times, I'll compare it with my goals and my other years times to see if I've improved.  I feel like I did about the same on the swim - Just keep my head afloat and I'll make it to the exit point.  However, I feel like I was a bit sluggish on the bike.  My bike-o-meter quit working and I haven't replaced it yet.  Without being able to monitor my times, the only thing I could really concentrate on is trying to pass or at least stay even with the folks just ahead of me.

The run was the event I wanted to focus on.  In the past years, after doing a swim and bike ride, it was really hard to do the run.  This is the first time in five tries that I've had my run under 60 minutes.  Needless to say, I'm happy with the results.

Me and my bike, After the finish

The race was a well organized event.  From my perspective it went very smoothly even though the number of participants and spectators was huge compared to my memory of past events.

7 Aug 2011 Update
I retrieved the official results yesterday.  There were 40 finisher's in 55-60 year group.  I came in at number 27.  Swim time:  23:03;  Bike time:  90:53;  Run time:  57.42;  Overall time  176:07 ( 2:56:07).  So I met all three of my goals.

Historically, my times are as follows:
Year                   Swim                    Bike                    Run                      Total
2005                  27:43                     77:55                 64:14                   2:49:53
2006                  23:59                     87:50                 87:22                   3:29:11  (calf muscle injury)
2007                  23:50                     72:39                 61:50                   2:47:09
2008                                                74:56                 59:13                   2:16:41  (duathlon)
2011                  23:03                     90:53                 57:42                   2:56:07

Note:  Some of the segment times in different years included the transitions and some did not.  So the numbers listed above are not truly accurate of the real segment times.