Up, pull prepackage indivual cereal off old hotel room shelf, take a load of different vitamins so my subconscious believes that even though I am under trained they will carry me to the finished, get Betty eating sugary cereal, yes it was bribe for good behavoir and it worked, triple check gear, and slide out the door.
The first Tri i forgot my swim goggles. Not this time! I lay out all my gear under the bar where you hang your bike by the seat. There are a lot of sweet bikes as I scan the room, and some of them have their bikes shoes preclipped into the petals to speed up their transition times from the swim to the bike. I saw a youtube video the previous week where the pro's did that. I said to myself, " don't be stupid, if you haven't tried it, don't do it on a raceway." I said that to myself, as I was clipping my shoes onto my bike.
Team Mango being a club for the love and promotion of fun compitition hosts a variety of events that involve swimming, running, and biking events. So they allow you to use swim fins. Eighty percent of the athletes don't wear fins, but the more relaxed competitors, people coming off injuries, or people like me who don't trust their ocean swimming skills and want to be safe in the ocean. The fins allow me to have an advantage in the swim, because I don't have small and soft fins, I use a pair of long black dive fins.
On to the race...
The race director gives us the course. Swim two laps around the buoy, and you must touch the sea wall bettween laps one and two. We are riding the same loop as the super sprint, and looping around the hill clib three times. My ears wish him to take it back. He does not. Then he lets us know that the route will the hill loop will be our 5.7 or so run.
The gun goes up, there is actually no gun, one in my head, but no real gun. And the race director, says go! In the very back of the pack. Rememer big ass fins. Knees high flop, flop, flop. Look over, see wife not filming, but bouncing baby. Flop, Flop, Flop. Heavy slash down in about eigth inches of water. I am trying to not get too excited, I am able to rein myself in a bit, but I am getting little splashing water kicks to the face and shoulders as I zoom past folks with my big fins. That's right I got big fins! One girl, probably a real triathlete blocks my fin wearing ass, so I break to the side, and actually use them, till now I was just giving a kick, kick, kick on the glide (Thanks for the tip KC), but now I layed into them, and I think my chest was causing a wake behind me. I burn into the shallows, realize I have to get out and run to the seawall, I filp over onto my ass, try to rise, fall, trip girl I passed, and come to the conclusion we probably won't be friends. Walk backwards till I'm out of the surf, turn around run like a deformed penguin touch the seawall, turn around, wife still not filming, damn, this is funny, but baby's fussing. Plod my way back into the water, and finished the swim strong.
Transition. This time I half rolled my sock over itself, so it is easy to pull over a wet foot. Some competitors go bare foot to save time. I love me some socks, especially during the run. I look at the preclipped in shoes, jog over to where you can mount your bike, foot onto of shoe I begin petaling, other shoe is upside down dragging the pavement. I try for shear prides sake to keep going forward, get the shoe flipped over, start to ride, lift foot, struggle to lift velcroe straps, putting foot in wobble almosting head butting a parked van. At this point I just stop, unclip the bike shoes, sit down in the street, and assemble myself. After I am up and off, things begin going well. I was strong going up the hill the fisrt loop. The second loop I struggled, but at the steepest part at the top of the hill, I stood and pumped my way up the hill. This bycylcing is a tough, and I am now truly in awe of a race like the Tour De France. On top of the hill a rolling hill, and when I am up there would slow, let my heart rate drop, and consume as much water as I could. There was a water stationjust before you turn to run down hill, so I had decide to carry no water for the run, use that one water station, and consume as much water as I could on the easy part of the bike ride. The on the down hill I would make up some time, and spin my legs out (get rid of the lactic acid from the hill climb), (thanks for that one too KC), this was one of the things I did right during this race. The third climb was super hard, toward the top I was stand trying to lean all my weight over the handle bars and simulate running, and pumped my way to the top. Across, down the hill, I am flying down the hill, as I go to cross an intersection (stop sign on my right coming down a hill, twenty feet down a stop sign on my left), a bike on the ground pull to the side and a person over a person on the ground, as I am flying, I judge in an instant that they have control of the situation, on the lefet a cars rolls out with a smooth fast merge, the gold car behind them makes a bumping stop, I am lightly braking as I am trying to read the situation, the gold car darts out in front of me, I barely avoid getting smash with out endangering the bikes that are down, I yell in harmony with the bikers who are sticking up for me, the car panics jams on the brakes, and almost makes me hit it a second time, I go to throw a hate look at the people in the car, and they are so stoned they didn't even know what happened. so I just continue down the hill. I get pinched in bettween cars twice as we pull over for an Ambulance and a couple of Fire Trucks. Last lap, I come to the bottom of the hill, get in the left hand turn lane, the light goes red, in this club you have to obey all traffic laws, I stutter my braking hope to roll up to the light as it turns green. The light take way longer than expected, and I reach the white stop here line. I try to that cool balance by pedaling back and forth, sorta Kevin Bacon in "American Flyers". Instanty it is not working, three women from Team Mango are on my left cheering and keeping participants on the right course, I look at them unclip my right foot, as I plant my foot to keep me from falling I realize it is jelly, and I collapse slamming into the pavement skinning my right hand and knee. Quick and pridefully I surge to my feet, trying to unclip my left foot, which comes unclipped and I plant my weight on it, and jelly. I slam into the pavement again skinning my left knee and hand. I spring up, the wemon ask if I am ok, and I assure them as I ride through the green light.
Transition to the run. I am bleeding, but ok. Transition smooth to run. The hill was a son of b$%^ to get up, but when I sound shade in a couple of corners I stole a couple of walks for about twenty yards, to cool and let the heart rate drop. A women asked me if I knew if that was a contestant in the race that was hurt by the side of the road. I told that I had no idea, and I didn't even realize that someone was hurt, because I was trying to hit them while evading a blazed out oldsmobile. My calves were hurting, but it was a pain I could endure, and I made it to the top of the hill. I eased my way across the top to the water station, got an ice cold water took, kept jogging, a sip, icey, poured some over my head, and it literally took my breath away, sip, pour, breath away again, catch breath finish bottle, toss into rubish pile, and I was off with a new vigor. I held back a bit at the top of the hill to make sure my quads were ready, and after about an eighth of a mile realized I could pick up the pace. To my surprise my legs were strong and I kept my pace all the way to the finish.
I found out that the girl on the ground by the side of the road had been hit by a car. Someone came flying down the hill, and couldn't stop in time at the stop sign on the right. I guess her arm had a compound fracture or the skin got ground off on the wreak, and you could see the bone. Then they saw me almost get smashed. I am sending out as much good mojo as I can, sorry for the bum luck, and I hope you heal fast!
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