Yesterday I did my last triathlon before Ironman Hawaii.  Located just outside of Stillwater, Minnesota, the Square Lake Long Course Triathlon was a great race to be a part of.  I was also excited to race here because my friend Ben Daufeldt from college was doing his 1^st ½ Ironman and I was happy to see him achieve his goal! It was titled the “long course” triathlon (a little shy of the ½ IM distance as the bike was 54 miles) because there was a shorter course (sprint) race the day before.  Nikki and my dad did the sprint race while my mom and I cheered and babysat and yesterday I took on the longer distance race.  It’s not a big fancy race you might find profiled in any of the big magazines, but it was more of a small grass roots race where everybody knew each other.  Yet it still seemed to produce a hard and challenging course staged in the beautiful location of Washington County.  As far as my goals for the race went, I certainly wanted to win it, but then again you just never know what will happen.  My body has been feeling better in the last month or so as I was suffering a few small injuries earlier in the summer.  The swim went very well and I came out of the water first with a 2-3 minute lead.  After about 20 miles or so on the bike I was passed by one pro triathlete but still kept pushing on.  I finished the 1^st loop in good time and started the 2^nd loop pushing my Trek TTX up some pretty challenging hills.  I was catching some of the other waves still on their 1^st loop and saw numerous Trek’s and I counted about 5 other TTX’s.  I am assuming because we were so close to the Trek factory in Wisconsin perhaps??? Another thing I noticed was lots of road kill, more than I have ever seen in a race.  Here’s the breakdown:  2 Raccoons, 2 Skunks, 2 Turtles, 1 Hawk, 1 Snake, 1 Frog, and 1 Opossum.  Painting a pretty picture?  Anyway, I stared the run feeling great and thought I finished in 2^nd overall until I saw that one other age grouper beat me by 20 seconds who left in a later wave..oh well…  I ended up 3^rd overall and had a great time racing! 

See you in Kona,

Tim