2014 Vineman Monte Rio

This past weekend I drove up to Monte Rio, CA to race the 2nd annual Vineman Monte Rio.  Here's the race report...I swam, biked, and ran as fast as I could and that was good enough to get me the win in a time of 1:55:45. Now that the boring part is over, I'll share some pictures from the race courtesy of Jeff Kapic. Since this is my blog I mainly linked to photos of myself but if you want to see the full gallery from the race it can be found here.

As the sun rises, the starting chute for the swim is illuminated along the Russian River.

The run course takes athletes on a bridge over the Russian River at the start and end of the run.  Things were calm early morning before the race started.

I stayed at the Village Inn & Restaurant which was across the river from the swim start and about a half mile from transition. Very convenient!

The Vineman races are notorious for having spots during the swim where it is shallow enough to walk.  The river levels were even lower this year due to the drought that California is experiencing.  As a result, there was an approximately 200 yd section at the end of the swim where the water was knee deep and the only real option was to run/walk through it. This provided an excellent opportunity to capture that cool running with water splashing in the air photo.    

I'm going to go ahead and say that the Vineman Monte Rio bike course is way more beautiful than the Vineman 70.3 bike course. Good thing there are pictures because all I remember was staring at the pavement 40ft ahead of me.

Go ahead and criticize my bike fit. It's bad but I'm working on getting it fixed...

The bike course takes you out to the town of Jenner near the coast and then back to Monte Rio.  Here I'm heading back to Monte Rio behind the motorcycle escort.

Still heading back to Monte Rio...

Still on my bike...

No run photos of me, but here are Andrew Bauer and Yu Hsiao duking it out for 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

Update....Here's a photo of me running. Looks like I either need a haircut or a hat.

I'm done. Yay! Race splits:

Swim - 18:43
Bike - 59:11
Run - 34:51
Total - 1:55:45

I chose to wear my OG Oakley Frogskins that I have had since I was 10 years old.

Post race shooting the breeze.

Congratulations to Laura O'Meara and Christine Gould for taking home 1st and 2nd overall female, respectively.  We took home some HUGE bottles of wine thanks to Rodney Strong Vineyards!  Also, thanks to Compex and Timex for the additional schwag!

Finally, thank you as always to TriSports.com for your continued support and Honey Stinger for providing me with the fuel to race fast.

Next up is San Diego International Triathlon on June 29.