It is lucky I switched from the Half Iron distance tri to the sprint Tri this past Sunday. Even shortening the distance of my event, it took me well over 3 hours to complete the Tri.
Even worse for 14.5 miles of the 17.5 mile bike I was the last place person and there was a cop who was following me on a motorcycle with lights going. It was really disconcerting and I kept feeling like I should pull over. Oh yeah and I felt like I had to pedal the entire time (I totally would have stopped pedaling had I not had an audience/escort!)
The other valuable lesson I learned is that a wetsuit would be a wise investment. Apparently my previous experience at the Columbia IronGirl last month in a lake that was 78 degree bathwater temperature water, this time the lake swim was in 68 or 70 degree "wetsuit legal" water. The entire swim I thought I would freeze to death. In fact in my little pack of the 3 swimmers at the back we joked about how much we wish everybody would pee in the water just to raise it a few degrees. Alas it seemed no one did because it was bitterly cold.
At one point a person in a raft who was watching the swimmers mentioned that his raft had sprung a leak. He climbed up a bit higher on the raft to keep warm. I gave him no pity and commented "welcome to my world". Luckily I did not need him to rescue me:-)
I will write up more about this event when I have more time (I am on a communal computer at my conference), but I will say I did have fun, saw several friends including my friend Ethel who is an ultra-runner who has run a bunch of marathons and ultra's that I have.
And I was able to socialize a bit after the event, cheering on competitors and still made it to my conference where I was a short course instructor with 5 minutes to spare (and I even showered, which I imagine the attendees in the course appreciated)
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Bozeman Half Marathon Recap
6 days ago
