Triathlon at Retirement

This is a mountain bike race largely on the Vasa trail. This year I settled for 45km, which is half distance. Last time I did this distance was in 2019, my time then was 2h 26 min. In early August, I did several training runs on the trail and my splits were not anywhere near those needed for my previous competition time. Weather in Sweden has been the opposite of USA and most of Europe, with the rainiest July and August for at least 30 years. I have never seen the local lakes and rivers so high. Of course, that made the bike track really muddy at some parts. The organizers have made a good job of improving the track, so overall it was not too bad but there were difficult patches. Competition day was lucky with the weather, a rare day with little rain! This time, I knew my approximate finishing time and I was placed in start group 2. I got off well and raced past many bikers without extra effort. In the well-known climb "Lundbäcksbackarna" I felt I was doing well. But somethin

Mixed sprint relay is a competition form I really enjoy. There are two men and two women on every team. All team members do a super sprint triathlon each; 300m swim, T1, 5km bike ride, T2 and finish with 1.5 km run. First relay leg is always done by a male, leg 2 a female, leg 3 a male and a female finish. Start is communal, so first to finish line by 4th team member win. Age groups are done at 10-year intervals, so I compete with my team in the 60–69-year age group.  It is short, it is speedy, positions change all the time, it is exciting. This was my fourth relay competition and every time I have had mostly new team members which makes for new friends. I was on Team III USA 60-69; I think we had 6 or 7 teams in this age group. I had leg 2 and there was a lot of anxiety before we could enter the exchange area. Information of where to go was substandard, huge audience crowds and closed roads made it very difficult to navigate. I, and many other stressed athletes finally found our way a