ROUGH WEEK...HAPPY ENDING!

Tough Week For Al
I was definitely under the weather this week. Head cold and the runs for most of the week. Slight improvement over the least day or so, but I still couldn't eat a meal without visiting the can shortly thereafter. SO, needless to say, I was nervous about my triathlon today (my first).





Al Tris Hard

I was nervous and unable to sleep last night. I kept seeing these images of a tri suit clad AL limping along, shit spraying out his dehydrated ass. And the day seemed to be living up to expectation at its start. (I hit the can twice before 6:30.) Then to add insult to injury, technical difficulties struck. I was setting up my transition area when I noticed my watch doing weird things. Heiroglyphs and fading numbers flashing on the screen. Guess that battery is bad. Ok, no biggie. What's a race without a watch, right? My trials were not finished though. I set up my transition area, filled my bottles and, WITH 30 MINUTES UNTIL THE START, went to harden up the tires with a few pounds of air. The front got nice and hard...no issue. The rear? PHSSSSSSSSSWOOO! Immediate and total air release when I threw the pump over the valve. I prayed for just a simple screw up with the presta valve--I was over tired. But it turns out that the valve had a tear near the base of its shaft in the rubber. So now I'm tearing off the wheel and powering through a change. But I start brain farting and worrying because I've only got one spare tube and the other is too fucked to take a patch and serve back up. I get the tube in and full, but now I'm fighting the derailleur and panicking. The brain just won't function. Mr. Ironman (two bikes down on the rack) took pity and showed me that I'd managed to foul up the chain alignment. He helped me and I was back on track (covered with grease), THANKS DUDE!!!

THE RACE
1/2 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 4 mile run

We headed to the water, Al K and I. We both were NOT wetsuited and shivering our asses off (it was about 62 degrees). The water was a bit warmer than the air though...not too terrible once in and the hyperventilating stopped. Both Al and I hung back a bit at the start, avoiding as much face kicking, head bashing as possible. The lake swim went smoothly, the only note was that the weed/ reeds were very long and all over face, arms etc at start and finish...a bit freaky but not bad.

After the water I ran up to the transition and got the bike out of the rack. I headed out prepared for a smooth ride. All went well but FUCK! This course was hilly. The whole of it was typical Catskills up and down...think Bear Mtn area and you'll have similar terrain.

I made it in not too battered, and I slipped on my kicks and headed out. I felt good on the run. By mile 2 my wheels were turning smoothly and I was over the bike leg tightness. I pushed it hard and wasn't passed by anyone but did a good deal of passing.

Al K. pushed it hard in his first tri too. He was ahead of me after the H2O by a few strokes. He lengthened that lead to a minuite on the bike (I saw him heading out of T2 as I headed in), but I managed to burn it on the run a bit and catch him. In the end, he finished about 1 minute after me. We were both really pumped.

In all a great end to a shitty week. (Now I need a tri bike and a wetsuit.)

I think my overall was 1:45 for the whole shebang. They haven't processed chip times yet. I'll post all when I know.

Al Out!