The "moose"

Okay, so my triathlon friends know about the famous, " mooseman" triathlon/festival that is happening next weekend in Bristol, NH. 3 years ago next weekend I sat on the beach at Newfound lake and cried like a baby, afraid to go into the water, afraid that I wouldn't be able to complete the swim, on my very first attempt at a 1/2 ironman. I went up with a good friend of mine ( new friend) April and I cried like a baby, let the nerves get the best of me and didn't do the race. She rocked it by the way, I just drove her car all the way home feeling sorry for myself. Anyway, I digress, its been 3 years now and I am back on the beach looking out onto the water and realized that I've grown up a lot over the last 3 years and have a " few" races under my belt now. However, I'm not racing this course this year, I'm just here to check out the new 1/2 ironman bike course with my friend Keri who is going to race it next weekend.

The original 1/2 ironman course was a two loop course as well with some decent hills and challenges, it certainly wouldn't be considered easy and usually one doesn't come to the " Moose" to PR unless its your very first race. Well this year, Ironman took over Mooseman and now for some reason they changed the course for the 1/2 ironman and kept the Olympic course the same which is what I trained on 3 years ago. Today Keri and I were going to bike the two loops of the new course, run ~ 10-15 minutes and then swim in the lake. It all happened and it went very well, however, the course is no joke and " the climb" which I will call it was worse then anything I climbed at IMLP.

In just a few short words, the course starts out the same hugging the lake, which has its fake flat and your watts are already climbing even though you think your on flat ground, as you bear to the right after about 6 miles you enter the 3 1/2 mile climb. It goes up the you get a 50 meter reprieve, you climb, and climb and climb and climb, until the very end where you hit a 16% incline for about 200 meters and then you crest the top of the hills. After that you have a few smaller climbs, nothing major and then a huge decent for about 4+ miles on very narrow roads that aren't in good condition, so be aware. The rest of the course has you on rte 3a which you can get good speed but then you enter some of the similar aspects of the previous course and you get another big climb ( just shorter) and then you make it back to Wellington State Park to do it all over again. I was very glad I had my compact and my 11/28, I do wish I had one more gear left though. The second loop was a bit easier because I knew what to expect and how to attack the climb. I definitely had a lot of Lactic Acid build up but eventually it worked it self out. After the ride we ended in the parking for just a quick T-run and then headed to the lake for a swim.

For the swim, newfoundlake is beautiful and chrystal clear, its a bit cold so I debated on which wetsuit to wear, I started with the shorty, ended up with my long sleeve on and then wished I had my short sleeve on when I was swimming. Its a beautiful swim course and fast, however it will be cold.

All in all ( I won't divulge my overall speed for the course today- sort of dispicable) however after a my race on sunday I haven't really had a down day and over the last two days not including today Ive done 3 hrs of biking and 16 miles of running, so I'm guessing my legs were a bit tired today. I'm not making excuses coachie, I'm just saying.

Anyway, it was a great day and I got back in time for my kids. Keri is a blast and again we had tons of fun.She is totally going to rock the Moose next week, I just wish I was there to watch it. Maybe next year I'll get my chance to race and make ammends to that fateful day 3 years ago. Good luck to all the athletes competing next weekend, strategy and being conservative on the bike is all I can say.