POW! SOCKO!

Right in the kisser! Actually, right in the eye socket.
I happened to be in CT for a couple baby showers this weekend, so some of my ESPN Tri Team buddies (Erik, Mandy & Scot) talked me into doing one of my favorite triathlons; Hammerfest in Branford. I’ve done this race three years in a row, and am proud to be a part of the charity (The Myelin Project) and support some wonderful people.
Hammerfest is a sprint tri (.5 mile swim, 13 mile bike and 3.9 mile run) and starts with a chilly dip in the ocean, then a beautiful run/ride along the CT coast.

Since I headed out from AZ without any of my gear, Mikey D from TriSport Media hooked me up with all his gear. I love his Cannondale bike, and was really close to picking one of those up before I bought my Specialized Tarmac. Mandy showed off her new Cervelo P2C which she rocked the ride on. I’m not going to complain about MIkeyD’s “Jammer” aero bars, but suffice to say I’ll never get a pair.

The conditions were a little drizzly and cool, in the 70′s at the start. Waves were 2-3 feet and choppy, so the swim was a bit rough. We were in wave 2, and the swimmers who started first had some issues. Because of the chop, once you were in the water it was really difficult to spot the buoys and several folks were waaay off course by the time my wave hit the water.
I ran as far in as possible before I dove in, and we all fought the waves to get into a rhythm. About 10 strokes in, I got absolutely clocked right between the eyes with an elbow, knee, fist, foot or a big bluefish (prolly not the last one).

Have you ever been slammed in the face by a sucker punch that you never saw coming? That’s what this was; and I totally saw stars. My first thought was: “sh*t, I think I got knocked out!” Then I realized I was still awake, so my next thought was “sh*t, I think I broke my nose!” I checked my schnoz, then I tried to find out where my goggles ended up. My mind flashed a Bugs Bunny cartoon (Duck Season?) when Daffy’s bill gets smacked to the back of his head; my goggles were somewhere on the left side of my noggin. I popped them back in place, but they were full of salt water — not fun, but I was able to make out the sea of bobbing swim caps in front of me and did my best to keep moving in the right direction.

My momentum kept the swimmers behind me off my back, but it took few minutes of blind thrashing before I had a chance to clear my goggles. The cold water actually took the pain away from my face pretty quickly, and I was able to focus on the race. I actually forgot about the smack a few minutes later, and didn’t realize I had a shiner until Mandy spotted me at the finish line. The picture above was when I got home, it actually swelled up and got darker by the time I got to our baby shower. When my wife asked if she could put some makeup on it, I knew it must’ve been ugly.

Funny part is, I had a great time at Hammerfest!