Let's Do a Triathlon

Steve's coach, who's also a physical therapist, wanted me to come in on Friday morning since I've been having some bad problems with my left knee since we moved around my cleats two weeks ago.

So I rearranged my Thursday-Friday schedule and biked out to his office. It ended being a good move, my knee felt way better on the ride home and the rest of the weekend.

But I was so tired after a short 20 min swim on Saturday that I took two naps.

Bearathlon Sunday.

Woke up at 5am and did an activation ride. Didn't do a great warm-up, was too distracted by feeling like I was forgetting something important that I couldn't remember about triathlon.

The swim wasn't too bad. I just started swimming and when I got to the first buoy I found myself next to the leader and in the front group. Shit, I did get better at swimming. Only problem was as I fell back to draft off the leaders I got totally trampled. It was a little rough swim; I may have hit Nicole and Kim many times. But when I got out (which was hard to do), I was 5th I think. Course I don't know what people do in transition, because as Nicole and I got on our bikes at the same time there was only one person in front of us (Kim). The rest of you need to get your shoes on faster.

As we pulled out on our bikes, I heard the announcer person say, "and here comes Mary-kate out of the water, you know she's going to be making up alot on the bike." and i thought, huh, shit.

I was in the lead on the bike for all of a half mile and then the Davis girl (who was first out of the water but stopped to put on a jacket and gloves) passed me at the start of Centennial. I just stayed about 15 ft behind her as we climbed. No point in killing yourself up the really really really steep hill.

As I'm thinking this, here comes this girl (who I assume to be the 'mary-kate') standing and pushing herself up the hill, rocking back and forth. she asks me if the girl in front is the girl in first.

she catches the davis girl and so do i, then the davis girl passes me sometime later and we all kind of chase each other, though I mostly stayed behind the two of them. I hate killing yourself to pass someone when you know that means they'll just push harder to hang with you. So we were all hammering pretty hard and, wham, all of sudden we're at the turnaround. The girl in front makes the turn ok. But I slam on my brakes and skid all the way out, taking out a cone and nearly a volunteer. Mary-Kate drops her chain at the same time. So Davis girls get way ahead and I pull into 2nd.

At the turnaround it becomes pretty clear that we're quite a bit ahead of the next people.

I made up almost all the gap on the descent (I got up to 48mph!). So even though my dismount was awful [I never do the flying shit, but I usually manage to not have to skip, hop, skid on my feet to a complete stop before I get off], I left the transition a step behind the girl in 1st.

I passed her in the first 25m and was running pretty strong. I knew the run was going to be the hardest part, because I hadn't run for 6 months and haven't raced in longer, but I was going along pretty good, opening up a gap. the run is up and down and up and down, pretty f-ing hilly.

Around the bottom of campus, about 2 miles, Mary-Kate catches me and I figure I'll just go with her and see how this goes down, so I fall into stride next to her and everything's good. Then we get to this whole series of stairs and she leaps the first set in one bound, so I figure I'll do the same, b/c I'm trying to hang with her, though I just barely make it. Then the next set comes up and it's longer, like 10 or 15 stairs. And she gets down in 2 fucking leaps. I don't even know how she does it. So by the time we get to the bottom of the whole flight, she's got a 10 ft. gap on me and just opens it up as we turn to run uphill to the Campanile and then down into the finish line. I end up losing by 30 seconds or so.

I ask her about, because I figure there's no way anyone could have done, and she goes, "oh yeah, i practice running down the stairs yesterday".

I didn't really have anything to say to that.