Karmic balance

This is a tale of a bad-karma day and a good-karma day, both involving my bike.

So, the bad day was my first triathlon last year, the Great Floridian. Full details in race reports, but the short story: I dropped my CO2 adaptor at mile 5, got a flat at mile 90. Rode 1 mile on the flat to a big hill, where I borrowed an adaptor. Flat again after half a mile. Borrowed a pump, but next tube went flat immediately (probably bad). Pump broke, but still could get air in, except my next, and LAST, tube went flat after 100 yards. Biked last 20 miles on the flat tire. Suffered through the "run". On the plus side, I did finish the race, and I never really got caught up in the "why me?" aspects - I just bore down and did what I had to do.

Good day:
Fast forward 6 months. I'd agreed to do the Mt. Si relay (run) with some friends (2 legs each of 5-7 miles), but needed to get in a long ride for my next IM. So, they agreed to the following plan: I would bike 30 minutes, then run leg 1. That left me 3:30 until my next run, so I would ride for 3:00 or so, and then run leg 6. After that, I could ride another hour or so.

Well, warm up ride was fine, although I noticed that my bike pump had fallen off my frame and into the car. "Hmmm.. need to grab that before the long ride..." I did my first run, and then the long ride. I actually fiinished in about 2:45, and had plenty of time before my second run. When I put the bike in the car, though, I found the bike pump that I'd forgotten to take on my long ride. "OOPS. That was lucky". I put the pump back on the frame, and did my second run. Sure enough, in the second ride, all of 10 miles, I got a flat about 1/2 mile from the relay transition. So, I fixed it, and joined the group just as they were driving to the finish.

So, I rode 55 miles, on unfamiliar roads, with a team having no idea where I was but depending on me to get back in a certain timeframe, without a pump, and did not flat. I then rode 10 miles from transition 8 to transition 9, with no time pressure and my team knowing exactly where I was, with a pump, and I got a flat.

Now THAT's gotta be karma balancing out!