Welcome to real competition!

Real competition - in a wildly growing sport

If the Nation's Triathlon is any indication of where the sport of Triathlon is going we should all invest.
In last year's event there were 2,400 finishers.  This year - 3,933!  Last year the top time was 2:01:50.  This year - 1:55:55.  So the best time dropped by almost six minutes!  The average time dropped from 3:10:31 to 3:02:40.  WOW!  That is a nearly 8 minute drop in average time.  So, the new guys that showed up brought some game.

In my age group the number of competitors went from a robust field of 68 men to 160!  I'm pretty sure some of them had elite athletic pedigrees.  Two guys in my age group passed me like a freight train on the bike (at least I beat them out of the water) and they were not looking back.  They were playing a game with which I am unfamiliar! The top age group time dropped from 2:21:36 to 2:11:58 - nearly ten minutes. I might be able to find another 10 minutes in this old body of mine, but it's clear that I am probably never going to find 25 (which is what I'd need to take off my time to win, 15 to get on the podium)! 

One happy athlete! 

On the other hand, I'm not discouraged.  Being a top athlete was never the goal.  The goal was to be able to say that I am an "athlete" again - with a straight face.  I think that goal is accomplished.  If you had asked me back in January if I would be happy to be in the top 10-11% of finishers at a premier Olympic distance Triathlon like the Nation's the answer would have been - "Are you nuts?  There's no way!"
This season has exceeded my expectations in a grand way.  I feel great and hope that the effort has inspired someone in some way that makes their life better.  It has certainly improved mine.

Race analysis (17th of 160):

I was quite pleased with my performance at the Nation's Triathlon.  In light of my comments above, I'm pretty satisfied with being 17th in a field of 160 athletes in my age group.  Overall, I was fairly close to the goal I set for the event - time-wise.  All of the splits for swim, bike, run were fairly close or better as a whole:
Swam in 25:56 against a goal of 30:00 (probably cut myself a break on that one).  Still pretty happy with my level of competitiveness in this discipline.  Swimming with the leaders!
Cycled in 1:12:34 against a goal of 1:10:00.  Since I averaged 20.5 mph, I may have miscalculated the goal since my plan was to try and average 19 mph.  Relative to my competition, this is still by far my weakest discipline.  Something to work on over the winter.  I wonder if there is such a thing as "thighroids"?  My legs are just too darn skinny.
Ran in 48:56 against a goal of 49:00.  Slightly faster than my goal.  With a little work my run times could get into the right zone to be competitive. 
Transitioned in a total of 6:26 against a goal of 3:50.  This was my biggest "miss". The fact that they dramatically expanded the size of the transition area (244,000 sf.!) certainly was a factor in that.  Could have probably saved 30-60 seconds if I hadn't got lost finding my bike.  It was a long run from the swim "in" to the bike "out" and then from the bike to the run. 
Overall: 2:34:50 against a goal of 2:32:50.  So, the transition thing really hurt - but it was the same transition for everyone.