Despite the sordid history of men named Morgan O'Brien competing in athletics at Eisenhower Park, Saturday morning Jill and I headed over to tame the 400m swim, 6-mile bike ride and 2-mile run that is the Mini Mightyman Triathlon. Thankfully, I lived to tell about it.

The race began in the Eisenhower Park pool, where competitors lined up according to their estimated finish time. In the pool, we were sent out in five-second intervals and swam a criss-crossing pattern through eight, 50-meter laps. I was bottlenecked twice, once in the middle and once right at the end. While this process is highly unscientific, there was one aspect of the experience that was dead on accurate. If you're in your 20s and are planning on getting a tattoo, you should be forced to walk by this lineup of Long Islanders clad in swimsuits and see what the ravages of age does to your skin. After 10 years of eating bad, laying out at Jones Beach and drinking massive amounts of Heineken, that tribal band all of a sudden doesn't look so cool, dude.

Transitioning from the pool to the bikes was fun, although I took way too much time. In fact, Jill beat me by a full minute in T1. I think that this is where my inexperience was exposed. I didn't practice my transitions nor did I lay out my stuff in any sensible pattern. Note to self.

The bike ride was on a flat course and pretty uneventful. Although, after perusing the event results it appears I was riding among greatness. If you look at finishers #27 and 33, you'll see two, Olympic-sprint caliber athletes. Being that Lance Armstrong in peak form riding downhill the whole way would have had a difficult time breaking nine minutes in a six-miler, I sincerely doubt that these two actually finished their three, two-mile loops. Just sayin'.

Finally, on the run we took two, one-mile loops. Again, my inexperience cost me as my calves cramped up throughout the whole first lap. If I had known better, I would have eaten a goo pack and drank more water when I was riding my bike to load carbs and prevented the cramps. I had a nice second lap and split two, 7:45 miles for a 15:25 two-miler which is about a minute and a half slower than I would have liked. Incredibly, Jill beat me by 10 seconds in the run, a fact not lost on her.

In conclusion, the race was well organized and a nice, neat venue and I'm afraid I've officially caught the Triathlon Bug. Equipped with the experience from this race, I can realistically cut three-four minutes from my overall time already. I'm semi-please with finishing in the top 40% of finishers in my first triathlon, but I'm excited to do better next time. Thankfully, I get to take on the course again on August 2. We've also signed up for a North Fork race in July and the Sag Harbor Tri in Sept.

RACE NOTES: The race organizers didn't post the results on the Web for two full days, this is unacceptable for a numbers cruncher like me...The event t-shirts are cotton, but a nice navy blue color and presentable...great turnout (about 300) for the first race of the season...this extreme sprint is also the best possible distance for the first race...and to run the same exact course in August to gauge improvement is genius.