It was a mid Saturday morning and I just cleaned up the garage for my Father. As I got done with everything, I got ready for the 2 hour trip to Ventura to race the next day for the Breath of life:sprint distance race. I told my father that I was departing for the race and he told me to be careful. I could tell that he was worried but I wasn't. I packed everything into my Jeep for the Journey with one thoughts in my head: LOOK FEAR IN THE FACE and DON'T GIVE IN!!!

As I arrive at my friend Todd's house in the city we unloaded everything out of the Jeep and we hung out at the house for an hour. then we went on the computer and looked at the course and it was not as bad as I thought as it was at SFT (Strawberry Fields Tri) 3 years ago and we looked at the course ourselves mapping out what I am going to be up against for the showdown ahead(my own showdown).

We went into town to do some wine tasting and looked at other places in the Ventura area and we picked up Todd's dog which is a shaggu chiwawa and we drove home and settled again only to go see the movie Nacho Libre for 1.5 hours. After that I got some Baby Oil for the wetsuit for the transition and for me it was off to bed.

I woke up at 5:30 a.m. in the morning and we packed up the gear and the bike into Todd's car and drove to the race. He dropped me off so he can take care of some business as I got my racepacket equipped withmy race # and race chip. As I was getting ready I found out there was a race Mtg about the course so I splashed the oil on the skin and easily slipped into the suit. Peace of cake.

The Olympic distance(1.5k S,40k B, 10k R) started first. When I looked at the course, it was longer that I thought and I said to myself: F--- me! those swimmers were out there as far as I thought. It almost lookeed like an IRONMAN course in my opinion I would not be able to make it.

Now the sprint course(.400 m S, 13.1 m B, 3.1 m R) I thought that I was jolted with enough power(50,000 watts) to get through the 1st stage. I was dead wrong. I stayed to the back of the pack so that way the faster swimmers would not stomp all over my ass toward the begining and as I entered the water i ran out of Breath quickly. I couldn't believe it. Here I was thinking that I was a invincible swimmer and all of a sudden the joke was on me. I carried on to every lifeguard that told me to hang on and hang onto the surfboard. I was swimin doggie style most of the way but then at the last turn I freestyled it to the sand. I got to the transiton area to retrive my bike aftewr I slipped out of the suit.

As I got on the silver bullet I saw that suddenley that my screws fell out of my shoe so I carried on and rode. It was a very scenic route going south going into Oxnard where they had the SFT 3 months ago and I was getting into the home stretch. Back into the transition area I told the director that I could not twist my foot out of the pedal. He helped me out and once again I carried on.

the run was not that bad though. It was the same course that I saw yesterdat with Todd and I kept running and walking. Maybe it was because I swallowed a little bit of Ocean during the swim but I did not loose the fluid. I completed the run and 10 minnutes later Todd greeted me and could not believe I made it. We hung out with all the other racers for a little bit and I got ready to pack up the gear and go to his place to hit the showers.

As I got refreshed I called the folks and told them I got through with no problem at all. My father was relieved that I made it through. As I got home he told me I dodged a bullett that day. Maybe so but I wasn't scared. I put those Fears to rest but the next race for me is going to be Malibu and It's time for me to put in some serious Ocean swimming for now on and for the races to come.

Your Teamate Rob "Balls to the Wall!!" Norwood