I think this past weekend was our first really nice weekend of the summer. I’m lucky to have a wife who green-lighted my trip to Caseville. Saturday I packed up the explorer with camping gear and my race gear. I headed out on side roads in the afternoon and was setting up my campsite in the early evening.

I stayed one night at the Sleeper State Park and it was awesome! Although there were a lot of people, the campground didn’t seem too crowded… the camp sites are a very generous size. After struggling to set my tent up and working up quite a sweat, I changed my shirt and headed to The Thumb Brewery for packet pick up. As I was getting my bib, I found out racers received free chips and salsa at the brewery.

I couldn’t pass up free chips and salsa and also had a delicious Italian hoagie. I headed over to a gas station to pick up a quick snack for after the race and made my way back to camp. Back at the campsite I read the first couple chapters of “Training with Power”. It was getting close to sunset and I decided I would take a tour of the campground. I also wanted to get a shake-down ride in, my road bike was giving me shifting problems and I hadn’t had a chance to ride it after I made some adjustments the night before.

I took a slow ride and noticed there were a couple hiking trails. After I was satisfied with the shifting performance, I headed out on a short trail that went through the woods from one end of the campground to the other. I saw a lot of squirrels, toads, and even a whitetail deer! Oh and there were mosquitoes… lots of mosquitoes. Across the road from the campground was a beach campers could access via sky-walk.

I made it to the beach just as the sun was coming down through the clouds. I stuck around for a little while, snapped a photo, then made my way back over the sky-walk. When I got back to camp, I realized a flashlight might have been a good idea… I downloaded an app for my phone that used the flash from the camera as a pseudo flashlight and that worked well enough.

The bathrooms at the campground could use some updating, but they weren’t horrible. I got back to the tent, organized my gear for the race and climbed into my sleeping bag pretty exhausted. I was just about to fall asleep, when I could hear big booms off in the distance… someone was setting off large fireworks.

I slept pretty well, although I was awoken around 3:00 am by some lady talking on the phone. All I managed to make out was hot dog buns and raccoons getting into them (sounded pretty serious!)

I was awake just before my alarm went off (6:00 am) thinking about what I should do next… it was chilly and hard to get out of the sleeping bag. I eventually rolled out of bed around 6:30ish. I had a clif bar for breakfast and before I knew it, it was 7:00 am and I was in my tri-suit, heading towards the race start. Being this close to the race was pretty much awesome, I think it was about a 5 minute drive.

I got to transition, set my gear up and headed over to body marking and chip pick-up. After getting numbers written on my arm, I put sunscreen on and that pretty much allowed my wetsuit to smear off the numbers… oh well!

After checking on my gear, I made my way back to the car for a few fig newton’s and the rest of my water. The athlete’s meeting was hard to hear for some reason, but I did manage to catch the important parts for the sprint race.

The water was calm and clear and the temp was 68 degrees F, perfect swimming conditions! The swim passed by some sand bars and made it interesting. A lot of folks were walking these parts, but I figured this is a swim, not a walk and managed to front-crawl the whole way.

Without any wind to contend with I was impressed with how straight I swam. I was able to sight off other swimmers while breathing instead of slowing down to look ahead. For not having much swim training this year, I think I did a pretty good job on the swim.

I walked the sandy beach from the swim exit and was able to get my cap, goggles and watch (which I did not lose in the lake :)) off and my wetsuit down around my waist. I got to the sidewalk and started to jog into transition.

Having issues with the timing chip and wetsuit at the last race, I quickly took the chip off and my wetsuit slipped off without any trouble. I put my bike gear on and ran towards bike out and past the mount line.

I kept it in an easy gear until we were out of the park and on the road. I shifted to a harder gear and started to hammer. I wanted to make up for my poor bike leg during my last race… with this in mind, I was able to set a PR on the bike course!

I finished my Tailwind Nutrition (lemon flavored) as I was heading back into the park. I quickly dropped my bike off, slipped on my running shoes and headed out for the run. The plan was to do 11:00 min / mile and my starting pace was in the 8:00 min / mile range. I started to ease up a little and talked with a fellow racer for a bit. He went up ahead and my pace started to hover around 10:30 min / mile.

I had a good run for me (my weakest discipline) and ended up finishing with an average of 10:34 min / mile. Looking back at the HR data, I might have been able to push a little harder, but was happy to finish with a sprint at the end!

While waiting for transition to open, I sat in the sun to dry out. I was in the right place at the right time and was one of the first few people they let into transition (one or two people at a time). I loaded up my race gear and made my way to the campground.

Not wanting to get all sweaty after taking a shower, I decided to tear down camp in my tri-suit. I did get a comment from a camper passing by asking, “is this a new event in the Ironman, are they timing you?” I managed to reply with a Yeah, he laughed and sped off. After showering, I started the hour and forty minute trek back home. I got caught up with the family and unpacked the car.

Susan’s folks are in town for the week, so we got to go out for dinner last night. We went to Michigan on Main and it was pretty neat, we sat outside in downtown Frankenmuth; where we could watch the busy bustling of visitors and could hear live music being played on a stage near by. It was definitely a great weekend!