June 5th was the first of Matt's 2011 triathlons. Buffalo, Minnesota was bursting with people as over 1,400 people congregated at Buffalo Lake for the Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons. Last year, there were maybe 500 people who entered the Brainerd one. This was almost 3 times that many!
Once the raceday begins, the next heat begins 2 minutes [or was it 3?] after the one before it. The reason is to decrease the chaos in the water, and to spread out the swimmers along the course.

Matt's heat getting ready for their start. He is adjusting his goggles, along the left edge of the tree, in a black full body wetsuit. See him?

And they're off!

Matt finished the 1/4 mile swim in 5 minutes and 40 seconds. Since I don't know anything about how fast is fast, let's just say that his Tri group, and Matt himself were impressed and pleased with the time. He's an awesome swimmer! I'm proud.


Then came the transition to the bike. We wove our way through the crowd on the beach and arrived at the transition area just in time to see him take his bike out of it. We ran to the top of the hill and saw him start the bike portion. Poor triathletes come out of the swim and then have a hill right off the bat that they have to go up.

He was feeling good!

40 minutes later, he came around the hill after 13.3 miles and made his way back to the transition area to change into running shoes.

Then, he was off again to run the 3 mile course.

We [my parents came down with me to cheer Matt on!] and Matt's family secured a spot by the finish line so we could watch him come in. My dad spotted a pretty tiger swallowtail.

And then, just under 23 minutes later, Matt came cruising into the finish line. Ok, so he probably wasn't cruising, but he makes things look effortless. I'd be crawling in. He looked like he was having as much fun as he was at the beginning.



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