Training Tri Series #4

So...we had finally gotten some really nice weather here the last few days until today. Today being the day of the 4th race of the training triathlon series. It was really nasty out today. I woke up to find the weather was rainy and the winds gusty. Two bad factors for a triathlon. For a running race that would be fine but swimming in choppy water is not easy and biking against the wind is not fun either. I called Reggie down at the Cycle Center and asked him, hopefully, if the race was rain or shine. He informed me that the people from St. Kitts were on their way so it was going to go on as planned. I headed down there about 45 minutes before the scheduled start. I knew it wouldn't start on time but better to be there on time than not and miss an on time race. I met our friend Nick at the end of his road and we looked out onto the water as we passed and it was not looking good. All this time I was worried about the nasty weather on a road bike with slick wheels and hadn't even thought about the churning water we were going to be swimming in. We arrived at Oualie Beach to find there was only one other bike on the rack and I thought to myself that if there weren't more people showing up I wasn't going to race. I saw a couple of women who normally compete but they are not strong swimmers and decided that they should not risk it today. One of them, Sarah, ended up doing a relay with a couple of other people and she did well with that. So...we waited around for a while as people showed up. We ended up with 16 entrants which is better than last time. The swim was kind of a funny little course going out to the first buoy which was out by the end of the Oualie dock. They had changed the configuration at the last minute due to the rough conditions of the water. So, out to the first buoy then parallel to shore over to another buoy and back to shore where you had to climb up on shore and round a bunch of sticks and then back in for lap two. It was kind of funny. So I got in from the swim near the back but not last. I took my time getting ready for the bike making sure my helmet was on right and cleaned up my feet and put on my hydration pack. I started the bike pretty well. The first half went fine because I was riding with the wind. I knew things would change on the way back as I could feel the gusts all around me. The rain was holding off and that was the one good thing that happened from here on out. Wendy and her kids were at the turnaround doing their best to keep the turn safe although the cars she was trying to stop didn't want to heed the warning and honked their horn to let me know they were coming through. So I got turned around and the wind really hit me. Up past the gas station in Jessups I lost my chain so I had to get off and fix that. I was slow going most of the way back and lost the chain 2 more times. Not sure why that was happening. I got off my bike and started my run which went pretty well. I felt ok on the run although going over Hurricane Hill is no joke after all that biking against the wind. I got turned around and headed back to be the 2nd woman to finish. Out of 3 so not as good as it sounds. My time was 5 minutes slower than last time which was all due to the wind and chain problems on the bike. My swim was actually good and my run time was 3 seconds better than the last one so I'm maintaining at least that. But it was a fun day all around. Jaime (still injured) and Julian were supposed to go to Julian's fencing lesson but Jaime got there and didn't see the people so he went home instead. I think he feels really bad that he isn't able to compete. The last in the series before the big one is 3 weeks so hopefully he will be ok by then.

Song of the day...Against the Wind by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. Haha.

Philosophy of the day...She who bikes against the wind...gets tired legs.