Heart of the Lakes Triathlon - Short Course - TriathlonShort Course

Good, solid swim. Not the greatest pace, but certainly fine given the fact that I rarely, rarely swim. Felt good, sighted well, rounded the buoys with no trouble... all good. I did take in a huge mouthful of water at one point, but other than that it was a pleasant swim.

Train more. Other than that, nothing really. This was a well executed swim; I'm just not as fast as I once was. Still good enough for 9/50 in my age group though, that's fine with me.

Waited for the sister to get out of the water before we headed out on the bikes. Hence, the 7 minute transition. This probably would have been a pretty good one too, because I didn't have a wetsuit to take off, and I actually ran the whole way from the lake to the T area. (Not sure why I did, since I knew I was waiting for my sister.)

Nothing

Well, how much fun was this? Not much.

Backstory: When we took the bikes out of the van this morning, sister's rear tire was flat. We went to the helpful Gear West folks who kindly changed it for her. I am slow as molasses at it, sister doesn't even really know how, and I was sure GW would do a much better job. All was well, and we rack the bikes and get ready for race.

Race: We start biking during the race and she goes off ahead of me. About three miles in, I round a turn and I see her off on the side of the road. She yells that she has another flat and I asked if she was going to change it. She said she was going to try. So, I pulled off the road. I know darn well she doesn't know how, and also, she doesn't have a spare tube anymore because Gear West used it when they changed the tire. So I use my extra tube and struggle to change it (because I'm really bad at changing rear tubes and it's already 8 billion degrees outside), and eventually get the tire back on the bike. Getting the d*amn tire back on was the hardest part of the whole thing. I am TERRIBLE at it, and her bike is different than mine. I'm guessing we were off the rode for about 15 minutes, although it felt MUCH longer.

We start riding again. Her chain falls off. :/ My fault, I didn't have it on the right chain ring. She wants to quit at that point and I said "We didn't drive all this way, pay the race fee, and spend forever chagning that tire just to quit because your chain fell off!!" Got her chain back on and off we went.

About another mile down the road she says it's going flat again, and sure enough it is. Sigh. Neither of us has an extra tube anymore, so it's sag wagon time for her. :( I checked that she had water and then continued on my way.

By this time, I'm last and know it, so I try to make a good effort to make up some ground. I passed maybe 4-5 people so that was good, but I knew darn well they'd probably all pass me again on the run.

In the end, I had the slowest bike split in the race. Boo hiss. But, oh well. There is no way my sister would have left me there if the shoe had been on the other foot, and I wasn't going to leave her out there to fend for herself either. Anyone who knows me knows I am not very physically or mentally competitive. And I'm ok with that. :)

What an idiot. I've done this race enough to know which direction I was supposed to run out of T2, but got it wrong. LOL

Run in the right direction the first time. Duh.

Had decided before the race even started that I was walking this, and I did. It was bloody hot out at this point, and keeping cool was very tough. I don't do well with heat and today was no exception.

As expected, the handful I passed on the bike passed me on the run/walk, but oh well. I was fairly sure I was going to be DFL for the race, but I did end up passing one short course-er during the walk--a 75 year old man wearing a leg brace. Ha ha ha! Take that, buddy! You can't defeat me!!! ;) When I came up to him from behind, I said "How are you doing, young man?" since he looked like he was struggling a bit. He chuckled and said, "Pretty good, young lady, although I'm questioning my sanity about now." :) We chatted a little while walking, and then he went to the water stop so I kept on walking.

Actually train.

Almost complete lack of training, stopping on the bike for 15 minutes, heat.


Not really sure what the problem was with sister's bike. Gear West guy quickly checked out the tire and said he didn't see or feel anything in it that would cause the flat, but clearly there is some issue with either the tire or the rim that is puncturing the tubes. I hope it's the tire since rims are much more expensive.

As much as this result is bad, I do love this race. For one thing, they always have watermelon afterward. Oh how I love watermelon on a sweltering hot day! Yum! :) The whole thing was kind of a cluster, but it's ok.