So I finished the NYC Tri over the weekend. What an amazing course! The swim is a point to point. The bike course has a few hills but still mananges to be very fast. The run presents a few challanges but is also a very good route. The transition zone was HUGE!!!. My area was inside of two baseball fields with about 1500 other bikes. It was kind of intimidating at first, but once I took a look at the race route in and out of the transition it was not so bad. I took a jellyfish to the face on the swim (which also was a PR swim at 24min). That stung a little, but I got over it. T1 was really really long (like 4 min) but I had to run about 400 yards just to get to my bike. It was also about 80 degrees at the start of my heat. Very hot day in NYC. In the end, I finished 9/61 in the age group qualifing me to the Lifetime Fitness Amateur Championship in Dallas TX. This is the second national event of the year I have qualified for. Pictures from the event will be posted here and my website. This profile has limited space, so I recomend checking out www.matthewappleton.com later this week for more pictures.

Not sure when my next race is going to be at this point. I have started hard training to get ready for nationals and am working on figuring out how I can get to Dallas Tx. Updates will be posted here and my website.

Sorry for the delay in writting this...I have been very busy with training and work lately.

So i finished the half in 5:56 the other weekend. That was slightly off the time of 5:30 that I wanted. I had to stop cycling for a little durring the race because of very hard rain that lasted about 15minutes. I think that without this delay, I would have had no problem making the 5:30 goal. The morgantown course was awsome, especially the bike portion. I did not find it as hilly as the race directors had said. I auctually had my fastest bike split of the year there even with stopping for a period of time. I feel I am becoming better at the cycling portion of the race. The run sucked. The hill that was on that course was easily the worst I had ever ran up in my many year of competitive running. It was bad enough that myself and everyone around me had to walk up it. That said, the directors should seriously consider making a new run course.

 

In other news, I  QUALIFIED TO NATIONALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am planning on attending in Portland Ore in september. Look for more info to come.