Apparently, I never learn….
I thought about including this next blurb in another post but I want to make your blog reading an efficient experience, so here is the latest:
1.) It’s summer, and I am technically unemployed for the rest of my life, if I so choose to be. OK, that is not entirely true, I am teaching summer school for 2 weeks in July and I have a super part time job as an independent contractor for a text book company, but other than that…I’m done. Yay.
2.) I raced another triathlon this weekend - the Vermont Sun Sprint tri.
As Andy and I were driving up to Middlebury the day before the race, we were going up this loooooonnnnnggg, very steep climb. Andy asked if this was a “hard hill to climb on a bike” as we passed some cyclists inching along the 7% grade at the pace that our fignernails grow, helmets askew, tongues hanging out of their mouths, cranks turning over at roughly 35rpms. I said “yeah, it probably sucks ass to ride up this thing.”
As we crested the top and started to plunge back down the other side, I realized we were driving over Middlebury Gap.
I told Andy we raced up that thing. His face turned pale. I told him that there is a Citizens race for the Mad River stage at GMSR. I told him if he wanted to, he could race it. He responded with something that sounded a lot like “Ahh…no.” But with his Sawth Efrican excent, it’s never easy to tell what he is saying. He could have said “cookies!” or “I like Ponies!” for all I know.
OK, so triathlon time. The swim went extremely well, and I was much better than in my last one. I swam in the middle of my pack, grabbing at feet the entire time. I even passed guys from the waves ahead of me who had a 2minute advantage. I came out of the water near the back of the front group of women. I know this because I checked behind me when I was swimming and there was always a decent size group of people back there and when I came into transition, there were a shitload of bikes on the women’s racks. This was rather funny, because when we were setting up in transition, Andy was bitching about how he had no room in his rack. I told him to suck it up because we are such pathetic swimmers that by the time we get into T1 all of the bikes are gone and we have acres of space to deal with.
Then Andy had the 20th fastest swim in his wave…oops, sorry about that guy. My bad.
So anyways, my swim went about as well as a swim could go for me. I felt great in the water, comfy, I was not freaked out by anything and the pack swimming effect did not bother me. I have been doing a fair amount of open water swimming of late, both with and without the wetsuit, and I am a lot more confident in these things.
Out of T1 and onto the bike. I put a new fork on my TT bike and it is supposed to make it fast and aero. I still rode like shit, but that is most likely because I trashed my legs on a 50mile ride on Sunday. I felt like I was barely moving but I passed a ton of guys and girls, and I ended up with the 14th fastest bike split of anyone, despite my average speed being only 21.82mph. I think the fact that this course was hilly and looked eerily similar to some of the later miles of the Mad River Road Race course had something to do with that. In fact, I am willing to bet money that I was on the Mad River course, because I was pedaling along and suddenly had this flashback and sinking feeling of “this is about where I usually start to bonk.”
Into T2 and a guy told me I was the 3rd place woman. I headed out on the run about 25meters behind second place and caught her before we left the state park. The run was an out and back course and I saw the 1st place woman coming back as I was passing 1 mile. There was no catching her, so I just had to hold off second. I was not feeling all that spunky on the run either, but seeing as I never run in training, that is to be expected.
I finished second overall (YAY!) with the fastest bike split for women and second fastest run split (I won’t tell you the pace because I am embarrassed at how slow it was…let’s just say I ran that pace for the first 20miles in the marathon last fall, and on Sunday that was all I could muster for 5k). I lost the race on the swim. Even though I had a faster bike and run than the winner, she took over 3 minutes out of me in the 600 yard swim (of course, a 4 year old with inflatable swimmies could probably do that, but whatever).
I won a pint glass. I can honestly say this is one of the coolest non monetary prizes ever. Trophies and medals are nice, but pint glasses are functional.
Yay for pint glasses. Yay for triathlon.
Now I gotta figure out why in hell I just registered for Fitchburg.
