Boca Raton *junket*

It's a picture of the morning catch of four dolphin fish and 2 kingfish… this morning's fishing escapade! I also landed a barracuda and a silky shark, both of which had to be returned to their ocean homeland :(

I was just off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and it was my first ever game fishing *junket*… alas, with the 4-5ft swells I spent the first 30 minutes of the trip regurgitating last night's steak dinner. Eeuuww!

However, my contribution to the *chum* seemed to awaken the fish, the catching of which became a welcome distraction to my weak sea legs. We had about 6-8 lines in the water at any point in time and it was a ballet-like scene as I ducked and dived on deck to avoid entangling lines with fellow fishermen as we reeled in our bounty.

I was too quick to judge… this has to be my photo of the day… a portrait of Donald Trump that was hanging in his Mar a Lago mansion in Palm Beach…

“Anyone for cricket?”

Sentinel 2007

Wow… it was fantastic to see so many Lombardi jerseys out on the course today… and all of them were smokin' fast! Great to see Paul, Andy, Ray, Greg, Charlie, Tricia and Elizabeth tear up the course!

My race was an *on again, off again, on again* event this week… depending on which day you asked me. My mood was moving in line with work and the financial markets. Thankfully, the markets closed up on Friday… so I guess I was racin'…

My day was eventful before the gun went off. My pre-race preparation was cavalier at best, having decided to sleep chez moi on Saturday night. A distracting locale! I was throwing race gear into my backpack at 10pm, forgoing the *laminated tri-geek checklist* that I created for such occasions. I woke at 4am on Sunday, scoffed down a yoghurt (who eats yoghurt pre-race?) and then set off for the drive to Santa Cruz. It was just as I was cresting the Santa Cruz mountains on highway 17, I realized that I had left 2 key items at home… sunglasses and my bike helmet! Oops! $7.99 plus tax at the Chevron gas station solved the sunglasses problem but WTF was I going to do about the helmet??? I broke the news to Katie as I arrived in transition and she leapt into action to beg, steal or borrow me a helmet, securing one from Olympic Club swim coach, Scott Williams. I would have made a great spectator but I really appreciate Katie and Scott's efforts to make me race J

The race itself was fairly uneventful… no kicks to the head in the swim… I hammered for all of 5 minutes on the bike and then came to my fitness senses, and notched the wattage down… I was *as pokey as they come* in transition… and the run was *hang on for dear life* by mile 3 as I had somehow skipped the 4 th triathlon discipline, "nutrition".

Results – not as shockingly bad as I thought they would be! 12 minutes slower than the last time I raced Sentinel, but good enough for lucky 13th place, racking up 7:40 min/mi on the run and over 20mph on the bike. I even had a swim that was middle of the pack!