Second tri, in a nutshell

I know none of you were losing any sleep over this, but a short follow-up to my personal quest for redemption, which began back in June after my first attempt at a triathlon fell, well, flat:

Today, in the novice race at the Lake Norman YMCA sprint triathlon -- 750m open-water swim, 13.3-mile bike, 5K run -- I finished 69th overall out of 225 male participants. (Full men's results here; women's here. For Saturday's open race results, go here.)

My goal was 1:30 ... my official finish time was 1:28:50. Boom. I was a mid-packer on both the swim and bike, but was the 39th-fastest on the run course with a 23:09. Another highlight: Forty-five second bike-to-run transition -- fastest of all 225 athletes. (I don't have bike shoes or clipless pedals, so I biked in my running shoes with cages. SPRINTED out of the transition area. Would have been even faster, but I momentarily forgot I still had my helmet on!!)

At one point, my chain came off the crankset on a hill as I was trying to go from the bigger to the smaller ring (lost maybe 15 seconds getting it back on). And I had a flash of panic about halfway through the bike course, when I hit a bumpy patch and I thought for an instant my front tire had gone flat.

But this was a huge success overall, and when I crossed the finish line just before 8:30 this morning, that big ol' monkey finally climbed off my back. Even better than sweet redemption? I had a BLAST.