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Griffin's Compete In Triathlon

Jim Griffin/Highlands Today

Laura Griffin has been competing in triathlon events across the country for years.

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Special to Highlands Today

Published: October 25, 2007

CLERMONT — Laura and Jim Griffin competed in the Central Florida Challenge, a half-iron distance triathlon in Clermont, on Saturday, October 20th.
The actual distances were: 1.2-mile swim, 58-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run.

The day started out in heavy rain and wind, lending a choppy swim and making the bike course more challenging, but bringing with it temperatures a few degrees cooler than expected.
The new and longer bike course was a lot hillier than the previous 56 mile course had been. There were quite a few crashes in some of the wet downhill turns.

The Griffins had done Ironman USA in Lake Placid, N.Y. back in late July and really hadn't trained hard in preparation for the event last weekend.
Additionally, their training was interrupted by a vacation in the last couple of weeks during what should have been the taper period and a six-hour jet lag time difference.

The general thought was that the previous training for the full Ironman on the tough mountainous course in the Adirondacks in July would still leave them in pretty good shape going into this half.

"We ramped up our distances on the swim, bike and run," Jim Griffin said. "But only up to the distances of the course and not beyond, and without too much intensity.
"This line of thought coupled with serious dehydration dropped me back about 30 minutes off my usual time and I crossed the finish line in 6 hours and 51 minutes and probably should have gone directly to the medical tent with my dehydration."

Laura had a great race, despite the minimalist training, and came out of the water in the lead in her age group by 6 minutes. She went on to add another minute and a half to her lead in T-1, and then had a two and a half minute quicker bike than the second place competitor.

She also came out of T-2 five minutes quicker than second place, thus having put a total of 15 minutes in the bank going out on the 13.1-mile run.
In the run the second place athlete closed the gap some, but Laura crossed the finish line first in 6:33:48, followed the second place competitor 13 minutes later.

"I could have trained smarter and been a little quicker and hurt a little less after the event," Laura said.
"But all in all it was a good day."

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