After my last triathlon (in the rain) I figured it would be a good idea to get my bike cleaned up and ready for my next race. After pulling the bike down I noticed the back tire looked flat. After pulling the wheel off and running my hand around the outside (next time I should use gloves), I got a small cut from a piece of wire sticking out. After mastering tire removal on my hybrid, I tried to get this tire off without any tools… didn’t go quite as planned…

After grabbing my bike tool I used the one tire lever and had everything off the rim in a couple minutes. I pulled the wire out, grabbed my spare tube and began making my bike all shiny (hoping this wasn’t a bad omen). After getting everything degreased and re-lubed, I went through all the gears in the driveway… barefooted and doing circles, the neighbors were out and I’m sure they were thinking “what the heck is he doing?”

Susan wanted to use her new camera at the race, but apparently we “needed” a bag for the camera so after packing all my gear we ran over to Best Buy to pick up the camera bag we ordered online (in-store pickup). On the way I decided I should get another spare tube in case I flat on the bike. A quick stop at the local bike shop and we were on our way to Best Buy thinking the bag would be ready when we got there.

Before getting to Best Buy I had realized I forgot sunblock and decided we’d grab it from the house on the way to Kentucky. The ride there was pretty boring, although we did stop into Chaney’s Dairy Barn for ice cream. We got to the hotel (Holiday Inn) a little after 4 o’clock and hung out in the room until packet pickup opened at 6.

I got in line and got my number and bucket (yes a sweet orange bucket) and a large shirt… which I later exchanged for a medium. Feeling pretty hungry we went to TGI Fridays and the food was good, but the service was so-so. We got back to the hotel, watched some tv and had a good night’s rest.

The rooster alarm (yes… very annoying) went off at 5:30, after I hit snooze a couple times, I was out of bed and getting excited. We would be checking out before breakfast was served, so I ate a couple cereal bars and washed them down with propel. On the way out to the car, it was overcast and lightly sprinkling. I pulled my phone out and it looked like a thunderstorm had blown through not too long ago… great another race in the rain… or so I thought.

We got to the aquatic center and I was trying to see what the weather was going to do, when I realized I should go get my chip and body marking done. I headed up to the pavilion only to find out we needed our bib to get the chip… back to the car, back to the pavilion and I had my chip in hand and number on body. It was still sprinkling, but looking like it would clear up, so I waited as long as I could (we had a mandatory pre-race meeting at 7:30 am) before getting transition set up.

Seeing as how it was overcast I told Susan I wouldn’t need any sun block (yes even though we drove back for it and yes even though the skies were clearing up)… I headed over to transition and decided that sweet bucket would come in pretty handy… After leaving my stuff in transition I went back to the car (I seem to have made a half dozen or so trips back to the car before the race actually started…) Bucket in hand, I laid everything in the bucket to try and keep it from getting wetter than it already was… running in sloshy shoes is not very much fun.

I headed up to the pavilion to find out the pre-race meeting would be delayed and held in transition (back to the car) I got Susan and told her the rain was letting up (…and at this point she should have told me I needed sun block :P). I wanted to do a couple lengths in the pool to get warmed up and Susan got to practice taking a couple pictures while I was in the water.

After the pre-race meeting we went up to the pool to get in line ordered by number (a hard concept for some people…) After dunking my goggles a couple times while waiting in line, I was finally in the water. Swim starts were based on estimated swim finish time and I was a little nervous about hitting my time of 9:30. We did a snake-style swim, going down a lane, coming back up the next one, until we hit the last lane and got out. I tried to not go out too fast… but I still managed to pass a few people on the swim. I got into the last lane and noticed quite a bit of turbulence ahead… as I was taking my breaths, water was flying every where. I knew the guy ahead of me was thrashing about, so instead of trying to pass and possibly ending up with a foot/arm to the face, I just drafted behind him! 🙂

I felt really good coming out of the pool, really, really good… I started off towards transition in a full out sprint! I heard a spectator yell out, “look at the energy of that guy!” That was a pretty good feeling. In transition, I tried to get as much grass off my feet as I could and had a little trouble getting my socks on (little did I know until I got to the run, my sock was on sideways). Had a good setup, got all my bike gear on relatively quickly… had some troubles getting my race belt on so the number was in the back. Looking back, I should have put it on normally and then rotated once it was on. I ran with my bike to the mount line got on pretty quickly and was off.

I’ll have to remember next time to put the bike into granny gear, but I was still able to take off at a good pace. After the first corner, there was a small hill… wanting my heart rate to come down, I took this one easier than I typically would. I got passed by a couple people at this point, but once I hit the top and felt I had caught my breath, it was on! I kept my cadence high and cruised passed quite a few people on the downhill. Around mile 5, I saw the first person in the water coming back on the bike (holy crap he was fast!)

There were a couple of challenging hills on the course, but I managed to pass at least one person on each hill! 8) Around the half way point I took a sip from my bottle and learned the reason why I typically look down when I put it back in the cage. After I let go of the bottle, I knew something was wrong and sure enough, it skidded off the road into the grass. I thought about turning back for it, but decided I’d make do with out. There was a really big downhill the race director wanted us to use caution on… it was a lot of fun and even though I held myself back, I still managed to max out just under 36 MPH.

Coming back into transition, I used that first hill to my advantage and coasted quite a bit. Got to the dismount area, jumped off and ran towards my run gear… had a brief moment of, oh crap where’s my gear and darn it I forgot to count how many bike racks I just passed. The helmet and shoes came off and my running shoes on, I really like the elastic laces I put on them, saves time by not having to tie the shoes.

I was off at a leisurely jogging pace out of transition and to the first water station up the hill. I walked more than I wanted, but I was still able to pass two people during the run (something I haven’t ever done before! :)) Just after the half-way point I started to pick my pace up again, we also had to snake around on a path near the finish line… I knew Susan would be waiting and wouldn’t be impressed if I wasn’t at least attempting to run the rest of the race. I managed to hold onto a jog up to the last corner and could see the finish line. At this point, I let out an audible “Come on legs!” and started to sprint to the finish. I’m sure the spectators must have found that amusing.

I grabbed a water and headed for some shade, noticing I had some pretty red shoulders (and later found out permanent marker makes sweet tan lines… I’ll have the number “144” outlined on me for awhile ;)). All and all it was a good race for me and I would definitely do it again next year! (…and yes I got in the car and went back for my water bottle… it was from my last tri and I like it more than my other one :)).