Ready for the Nation's Triathlon!

The final event of my first season in the sport of Triathlon is on Sunday morning!  It will be fun to look back through this blog to remember how far I've come to get to this point.  I'll wrap up the blog with a few thoughts about that, but for now I'm thinking about this event.
My overall objective for Sunday is just to soak in the atmosphere around competing in one of the largest events at what has to be the finest venue in the sport at the Olympic distance. The opportunity to swim from the base of the Lincoln Memorial and then ride and run through our nation's most famous landmarks is really awesome to me.
Competition-wise, I'm feeling like I can really just give it everything I have.  It is my "A" race that I have been shooting for all year.  I know I'm capable of going the distance - so, I'm planning to "lock and load".  There will be no ounce of effort left beyond the finish line.  My goal?  I want to finish in the top 3 for my age group.  Reasonable?  Probably not, given the strength of the field - but why not go for it? 
There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month about how athletes over 50 should really focus more on participating rather than "competing" - keep the heart rate below 120 and all that.  I hope my competition read it.  It talked about how after so many years of competing our bodies are all breaking down and we shouldn't press them so hard.  My secret is that I took the last 30 years off!!  BOO YA!  What a great strategy I've been quietly plotting!  It only seems fair that I have an advantage now after watching my peers get bigger and stronger than me in our teens - I was a late bloomer.

Here's the goals rundown:

Swim - 30 minutes or less.  Not sure what to expect from the current in the Potomac, but hopefully it will help as much as it hinders.
Bike - 1:10 hours.  Where I need to be to be near the leaders.  That might be tough.
Run - 49:00 minutes.  Should be able to go under 8 minute miles.
Transition - 3:50 minutes.  This should be my easiest way to lower the time.  I'm going to try a faster transition technique to the bike that should be worth at least a minute.
Overall - 2:32:50 hours.  That would have been third in 2008.

I will be posting "Tweets" over the weekend that you can see on this blog (top right hand corner).  Stay tuned!  If you are in the DC area and want to find me or Jodie the best place to look is the "transition area" (there will be about 2,000 bikes there - you can't miss it).  Click on the Nation's Triathlon logo above to get more spectator information.