Sunday, August 30, 2009

McMinnville City Triathlon Race Report

This was only my second tri of the season and it had been a year since my last sprint distance. But I had signed up for this race in December when they ran the early discount.
So I got to the race about 6:15 and got my packet, body marked, transition set up...
I had used my last years swim time as my estimated time for the swim start. Therefore I was 119.
I lined up and jumped in when it was my turn. I passed the guy in front of me pretty quickly and the girl in front of him within the first 100 yards. After that it was like I had the pool to myself.
350 yard swim 7:13
I ran into T1 and got my helmet and bike shoes on, grabbed my bike and ran to the mount line.
T1 1:07
The bike is a nice rolling ride and it was cloudy and cool. I was feeling good. I played leap frog with one guy the entire ride. At mile 10 he said "Your turn", at mile 12 I told him "we are almost out of race to keep this up". He passed me at mile 15 laughing.
15.25 mile bike 45:5 (20.0 average)
I ran into T2 determined to get out of there before leap frog guy. I threw my bike up into the rack and it just fell back down, without a seat. I didn't have time to see what damage had been done, I just leaned it up against the rack and ran out of there.
T2 1:02
I was fuming as I went out for the run. I was so worried about my bike I forgot all about leap frog guy and have no idea if I beat him out of transition or not. They had changed the run course this year and made it super hilly. I swear you were either going up a hill or down a hill the entire run. Not good for this girl who runs mostly flat. I never saw the mile 1 marker and just prayed I had missed it cause I was dying. Finally made it to mile 2 and told myself that I could run just one more mile. They had a short out and back and at the turn the girl says "you are more then halfway". What???? we have to be within a half mile of the finish. I made the final turn and ran down the hill to the finish.
3 mile run 23:41 (7:54 pace)
total 1:19:00

39 seconds better then last year.
I went and got my stuff out of transition and examined my bike to see what the damage was. Thankfully it was just the collar that holds the seat post that broke. I went and found Mark with Acme. He called the shop. They had the collar and are mailing it to me. So I hope to still be able to race on Saturday for the STAR.
Once I got my bike taken care of and everything put away, I went up toward the food tent.
I stopped to talk to a friend. As we were talking all of a sudden one side of his face went slack and he couldn't talk. I was afraid to leave him but had to get help. I ran to the medic tent and told them I had a friend who needed them. They told me they were with someone and couldn't come right now. I demanded that one of them come with me NOW. I guess I looked scared enough that one of them left their patient and came with me. My friend was taken to the hospital and last I heard they think he had a stroke. Made my bike problems seem pretty small after that.
I finally went to check the results and saw that I had gotten 1st place in my age group. So I hung around for the awards. I scored a pair of socks as a door prize and a cool chair as my age group prize.

4 comments:

david said...

Congrats on the age group win.... If this is any indication of how you will do this Fall after taking the Summer off, you are going to have some really good races in the next few months.

Kate said...

I hope your friend is OK!

Good work on the race- wow!

Jill Ann said...

Congrats on the race!! I saw your time and you smoked it!!

MNFirefly said...

Congrads!!