1st sprint tri for the season is in the books! Saturday was warm and sunny - nice to see 7 of my Lake Marion Tri teammates there, and really happy to meet Aquaphor teammate Christina!
The water was nice and warm (probably upper 60s?) and not much wind so it was flat. The swim start at New Bri is among the worst - they have 300 people and 5 waves (women >35 go with the relays and of course in the last wave). I got clobbered a lot at the start - finally just stopped and stood up to let people that were criss-crossing go ahead. Got some open water at the turn around (we swam 800m) and felt pretty good on the way back. Exited the water toward the front of our wave, and stopped my watch - OOPS! Had an ok transition, then off on the bike. The road is really bumpy, and last year one of my aero bars twisted down when going over some railroad tracks, so I was happy that my bike held together (including the paper clip holding my water bottle on, but that's another story!). I should note, restarted my watch somewhere in the 1st mile of the bike course. I rode at a moderate effort level - knowing that I'm way behing on my training this year, and still had to get through the run! Nice little up and down hills, and hardly any wind! There are a lot of short out and back sections, so fun to see everyone as they go the other way. Just before the turn back in to the park, I saw a police car, and and ambulance with someone wearing bikeshoes inside. Scary! Turns out that was one of my Lake Marion Teammates who somehow crashed - broke his nose, his wrist, and elbow, and according to my friends that went by earlier, had a lot of road rash on his face!
T2 was pretty good, and since I didn't have a running time, I restarted my watch again to get my run splits. The run (3 miles) goes along the trails through the park, and is really pretty. There is an out and back section for the 2nd mile, which I don't really like (because at that point I just want to be done!). The run warm (which we're not used to!!), and I was wheezing a little from my allergies, so I was pretty happy with my pace. Crossed the finish line, ate something, and waited for the results.
Unfortunately, my results never showed up. Lake Marion teammates got 1st in W40-44, 2nd in W45-49, 1st in M50-54, and 1st in M55-59. When they announced the W50-54, I was waiting for my name, but never heard it! I knew that I was ahead of the woman that they gave 1st place to - WHAT? I went and checked, I still wasn't in the results! Went to talk to the head time, and he said "Oh, your chip must not have worked. I'll see if I can find you." In the meantime, my friend Tim (who won the M55-59) gave me his medal. ;-)
I checked back a while later, and they told me my time (which I don't remember exactly). When the results came out, I'm listed at some completly different time (which is much slower), and listed as 1/9 in my age group. Sigh.
I've never had that happen before, so I was frustrated. In the mean time, we were all scrambling around and working with the police to figure out how to collect the bike, gear, car, etc. of our injured teammate. Got that all worked out, and so happy that he's not seriously injured! Good to get the 1st race out of the way, now I hope I can start training for real for the next one!
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