Confirming what I know

This WAS likely going to be my greatest post ever, but, as luck would have it, when I pressed "save," Blogger actually interpreted that to mean "don't save... and in fact, delete what you saved the last time you pressed 'save'... no, wait, on second thought, make that delete everything but your first sentence."

So you only get my frustrated second attempt, which means shorter and less amusing.

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The Skylands Sprint went about as good as could be expected. Some observations:
-People don't know how to swim straight (or I don't, but I'm people, so my statement still counts).
-Northwestern NJ is really hilly. I think the bike course had 50,000 ft. of vertical gain... at once. Some people were walking their bikes up one of the hills. I did not, but I was in danger of falling over at one point.

This race confirmed what I've known for a while: I can't compete on athletic talent alone, since I don't have any talent. My only shot at being competitive is to be at the peak of my fitness.

A comparison: I was racked next to a guy who was also at Ironman Lake Placid. He too hadn't done anything since that race. Before the race, we joked that this might be an unpleasant day.

He came in second in our age group (just outside of first), and somewhere in top 25 overall. My best possible placing on the day was likely to be third in the AG. Ultimately, I was racing for fourth. I finished fifth and 101st overall.

So there you go.