Guapo marvels at the Mermaid. An HONOR to be her partner. I'm not worthy to carry her flippers.
El Guapo Supreme deep-fried after 56 mile @ 24.1 MPH grueling TT, the Orbea hanging in the background on the now-infamous rack. Yo quiero Diet Coke!
So, did my 3rd ever triathlon Sunday, the appropriately named Pigman Triathlon. A pig of a race, or rather of the end results. I was part of a fabulous relay team, where I only had to bike, no floundering on the swim and no stumbling run. It was the 1st relay TT for any of us, so we had no idea what we were to do, especially in transition.
My swim partner was the phenomenal Carol O of south Omaha. Nationally ranked, offspring of Poseidon for sure. A Omaha Marian Wall of Famer. Aquawoman!
Jeff M lined up to do the 13.1 run. Yours truly hoping to hammer the 56 mile bike.
The race started off sweet as sugar! Carol starts in the first wave, swimming with the ELITES, and was 4th out of the agua in a mind-boggling 29 minutes. The PA announcer screams "here comes the 1st of the relay teams, Two Men and a Mermaid." I'm dumb-founded, flabber-gasted. She is 4 minutes ahead of schedule. Swims the 1.2 miles in 29 bleeding minutes! Only 3 pro men swim out before her.
She sprints up the hill from the water to T1, gills pulsing, and passes the timing chip to me at T1 and I'm off on the hilly, multi-turn 56 miles journey. I stoke the diesel engine. Wide-open throttle. Bring it up to red-line. 3 pro rabbits in front of me, multitudes of hungry wolves at the door behind me. Think of sustainable power and the Diet Coke reward. The DC motivates me during the tuff spots where the legs are screaming, the demons are wrestling for control of my mind. I'm up against the Pain Wall. Jack visits me. Yells at me. You need me on that wall. Don't quit! I'm going to rip the eyeballs out of your head and puke in your dead skull if you quit. You get the idea.
Big pressure to hold onto the lead over all the other relay teams that Carol gave to me. I planned on doing a 2:25 bike and 23 mph average, but ended up with churning to a 2:19 and 24.1 mph.
Finally, the last killer hill turning into the park. I scale it. Now a fast last 3 miles and my suffering is nearly at an end.
Slid into T2 and gave the chip to Jeff. We are in 6th place at T2, having only been passed by two elite men during my ride.
Time for me to chill. Time to build a cake or something, maybe catch a delicious bass.
The Mermaid and I now anxiously await Jeff's return. We get massaged. We dance. We gloat. We feast on the visions of the spoils that await us. Jeff runs 1:35 and we end up easily as the winners of the Coed Division by 3 minutes, 50 seconds.
But wait! The local USAT referee informs us an hour later that we have been penalized 4 minutes. For what? For hanging your TT bike on the wrong rack in transition, you dumb-*ss rookie. But the volunteer running T2 told me to put it there! I asked her! Tuff luck pal, you should have known the rules. Now drag your toothless, hillbilly *ss back to Husker-tucky where you belong and take your 2nd place trophy with you.
This penalty allows the 2nd place team, from Iowa (conspiracy theorists chime in here, please) to clip us by 10 miserable seconds. Oh, the humanity! I feel miserable, cost my teammates the WIN. Instead, we are the 1st LOSERS. Only positive to take from this is that we kicked everyone's hiney and they KNOW it.
As Rosanne Rosannadanna sez, "just goes to show you, it's always something." Time to funnel the rage, the humiliation into something positive. Like returning for revenge next year, kicking booty and giving that ref a middle-digit salute as we leave with the hardware. Good night now. Harumph!
2 comments:
Always love the dumbass officials at USTA events. They'll penalize you for something as moronic as that, but ignore people brazenly drafting during the bike. Possibly the worst officials in endurance competitions (though the UCI idiots give them a run for their money).
Occasionally the rules suck, as was your experience.
Regards,
David Henderson
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