Rookies tied going into the 2009 season

August 10, 2008. After months of indecision both Team LLUA rookies Davemeister and Zachattack, inspired by the weather forecast, opted to go for Olympic distance glory at the Sylvania triathlon and achieve their yearlong goal. With morning temps in the 50s it promised to be a great race day. The only truly unfortunate thing that happened was that the water temperature was only 77 degrees, making it a wetsuit legal swim. This was indeed very unfortunate for some (including Zachattack, who reportedly shouted out several four letter words immediately following the announcement) and very fortunate for others (including Davemeister, who, with a big grin on his face, simply stated “if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”). Another factor was a fairly strong NW wind that made the bike leg one of the most difficult of the year. And so as expected, wetsuit happy Davemeister was several minutes ahead out of the water and continued to extend his lead on the 25 mile bike course. Zachattack made up some ground on the run at first but gave up that advantage as well after cramping up and having to stop and stretch. He still managed to finish in a little over 3 hours while Davemeister posted a 2:56 and kept grinning all afternoon. Congratulations to both - if you will it dudes, it is no dream.It should be mentioned that once again the athlete who attended the pre-race strategy meeting with the Team LLUA coaches ended up victorious over the other one. Final score for the season: 2:2. Let the trash talking for 2009 begin.As for the other Team LLUA members, Mosher spent the morning on the lake waiting to rescue his teammates, the Eliminator took 2^nd in her age group and 7^th overall in the sprint, and the Horstinator was disqualified for using too many cusswords during his otherwise well delivered retirement speech after the race.