Heron Lake Brick--Sunday, Aug. 24

Where: Heron Lake*
What: Open water swim (~1 hr.) + Bike (~2 hr.)
When: Sunday, Aug. 24
Time: 8 a.m.
Optional: camp out Saturday, Aug. 23, families included
* more details will be sent out the week prior as they get worked out! Since I've never actually been to Heron Lake, I will depend on others who have to provide some guidance on where exactly to do the swim and bike + where camping is available etc.? Any input is much appreciated!
The Aquatic Center will be closed for their annual cleaning & maintenance (2 weeks?) after the LA Tri, so this is a great opportunity to get some training done in open water in preparation for any races coming up in late summer & early fall. And, the group camping will be fun too, with the bonus of not having to make the drive up early in the morning!

Santa Fe Triathlon RR

Race Report – Inaugural 2008 Santa Fe Triathlon

The city of Santa Fe decided to organize and host a triathlon this year. I found it to be a well run race, and they more or less hit the technical parts of race execution. I thought it definitely had the feel of a local triathlon, with a fair number of mountain bikes in the transition area and a lot of people acting not quite sure how to logistically tackle the day. The race order is the same as Jay Benson, a run, bike, swim. I thought the venue and the course were really quite nice, with about half the run along a paved fitness trail, and the remainder along Rodeo Road. The city had blocked off an entire lane of Rodeo Road for the race, so that along with the early 6:30 start made for a pleasant, albeit slightly long run. The bike course headed out Richard Avenue, past the community college and towards several small subdivisions sprouting out of the high plains desert. The roads were generally good pavement, and clear of traffic and the race did a great job of manning the numerous intersections along the bike course. I found the bike segment to be deceptively tough with a lot of long slow rollers that made it hard to get into a good rhythm, but the views were nice. The swim was in the Chavez Center pool – a really nice pool with wide lanes and very clear water. They had chip timing and did a great job of quickly posting results and getting the award ceremony underway. The post race spread was adequate, but nothing special. They had a lot of goodies in the race package and the shirts are nice looking cotton T’s.

Some aspects of the event were annoying to me, probably artifacts of first year working the wrinkles out. They closed race entrance a week before the race, and it was a fairly expensive 65 bucks, counting a 15 dollar late fee. I’m starting to wonder about the value of such steep late fee’s, especially in the age of Active where it is pretty easy to register an athlete to an event. They made everyone get down to SF on Friday for packet pick up and a mandatory pre-race meeting that was not very informative. The early start of the race is a bit heinous, but due to Santa Fe traffic and public access to the Chavez Center is probably unavoidable. They used the Triatomic/county bike racks, and unnecessarily cramped the transition area. They also had an asymmetric transition area that put some athletes at a pretty big disadvantage….close to 30 seconds I would guess for the worst case. The run was unnecessarily long, by 60 – 90 seconds I would venture, which was odd since as they had us run a little out and back loop-de-loop before heading out on the primary part of the run. I also thought the medals, while decorative, have the feel of a participant medal and contain no information concerning your performance. Oh, they were also making noise about mandatory swim caps for “health reasons”. The swim cap thing was really stupid for a pool swim, but they backed off brfore the race and announced that they were only "encouraged".

Triatomics, and friends of Triatomics, rocked today, especially the women. Both Kim Myers and Rachel Hundhausen were in the Top 10, and Liz Spangel who owns the Running Hub and has been very generous to the Atomicman Duathlon was second. Kim Katko was 5th. Taraka Dale, Shana Cooper, Kimberly Peterson who have been active in the S-n-D raced well, along with Los Alamos residents Liz Miller, who won her age group and Thayla Sullivan who was second in her age group.

For the guys, I saw Bill B and Rob A had medals, I think Dr. Goddard won his age group and I came in second overall. Nathan Romero won his age group, and Ben Davis was also there expressing satisfaction in his race.

My race went fairly well. I was surprised to find more competition on the run than I anticipated. The run field started off pretty fast. And I was a long, long way down right away. OK, no problem, this happens a lot these days and I usually settle in and try to pick off people the second half of the run. It actually kind of started that way for me. I came out of the loop-de-loop in 11th place, quickly passed two more dudes to move into 9th. On the gentle decent down Rodeo Road was catching the next two guys in front of me. Then we turned onto the fitness trail. I’ll tell you something. I’m not a very good uphill runner, I never have been. The worst kinds of hills for me are low angle grinders. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t get any mojo on those kinds of hills. Anyway, this was that kind of hill. It was almost flat enough to not be considered a hill, but it weighed me down. I didn’t pass anyone else, but at least I didn’t get passed either. I hit the transition timing pad, which was about 50 yards from the transition area in 20:00 flat. As I mentioned earlier, I think the run was a fair bit long. Being this far back put me in a bad spot for overall considerations, but I figured I would keep a positive outlook, try to scratch back what I could on the bike and see what happened on the swim.

I got through transition pretty fast and had passed two guys before Richards to move into 7th. I tend to have difficulty with the run to bike transitions, and at the start of the run my ass end didn’t have any get-up-and-go as I tried to power over the early rollers. The only thing I could do was downshift and try to spin the run out of my legs. I kept poking around trying to find a winning hand with my gearing, and about 4 miles into the bike I started feeling my bike legs and moved into 6th passing a guy on a road bike who really looked out of his element. I think he might have been the first runner. Before I figured out how to bike I used to get passed by lots of people during the bike leg. I felt a little bad for him as I blistered by, easily 5 mph faster than he was going. At the turn around I was about 75 seconds down on first place and figured I must be either holding my own, or moving up a touch. Right after the turn I moved into fifth and could see fourth down the road. I pressed the return as hard as I could and moved up on the next two guys in front of me, but I didn’t catch anyone else.

Because of the unfair transition, I had relocated my bike before the race to a better spot, actually moving someone else’s stuff who was taking up two bike slots. As it turned out I know the guy whose stuff it was, and he seemed cool about me moving his things and seems to acknowledge that he was indeed taking up two spots. As a result I ended up having one of the best transition spots which helped me get into the water right on the heals of #4. It took me about 150 meters to get into the swim, but once I did I started moving pretty good, passing three guys in the last 200 meters to move into second. The winner, a guy named Eric Lujan, put a good beat down on the entire field, including me, to win by about 75 seconds.

Results can be found here: http://www.cepmtnbike.com/results_misc.c

More pictures of Mila

Hi everyone. Mila is doing better today, as is her Mommy. Turns out, learning how to eat is not as easy as one might think it is, but it's going pretty well. The staff at the Los Alamos Medical Center is pretty darn good at what they do.

Here are some real pictures of Mila. Thanks for all of your support and well-wishes. It has been really great to see all of your comments. I tell Dina that everyone is saying hello and congratulations, and it really makes her happy. We can't wait to get back to the Splash 'n Dash and see everyone...but for now, we're having a lot of fun too.

Click on any of the images for a larger version. Sorry that they're all a little grainy and even blurry. I turned the flash off on the camera so that we wouldn't keep blinding Mila. Their poor little eyes have enough problems without that too.

New Cryathlete

Mila was born July 23

Weight 3361g (7 lbs 6.6 oz), Length 54cm (20.5 in.)

Sorry about the grainy cell phone picture...I have misplaced the cable to our digital camera

Dina had the biggest physical test I've ever seen a human being go through. Just in being there and "supporting" her, I am exhausted and could not walk very well for a few hours. She had a very hard labor that lasted for more than 3 days, but she wouldn't give up and things finally started going our way during the early morning hours so that she was able to go into the final stage of labor and push the baby out from about 9am to 11:50am.

There are, of course many details as to why this was such a hard labor, but the most amazing thing was Dina's physical ability to undergo the labor and the pain, and the baby's strength. If the baby had gotten stressed, then it would have been a problem, but she was strong and only got into stress at the very end when she was being pushed out. She was exhausted by the time it was all over and was a little bit blue, but her color improved quickly and now she is rested and getting strong quickly.

Dina is also recovering nicely. She lost a lot of blood, but she has already replaced most of it the nurses say, and she actually got up to walk around much to the amazement to everyone.

Little Mila's head is a bit bruised and mis-shapen due to the fact that they had to use forcepts on her (very sad thing to witness), but she is recovering from that pretty quickly.

I'll send more pictures when I find the right cable to our camera.

Baby Brug is here!

Deborah Elise Brug was born Wed 7/16 @ 11:03 am (in time for the Splash N Dash that night? :).
She is 21" & 6' 13 lbs.
Both mom and baby are doing well and got to go home early.

Cochiti Brick #2 -- Report

The brick workout down at Cochiti Lake on Sunday, July 13 went very well. 14 people showed, mostly club members, but also a few new faces. We were expecting hot weather training, and instead got calm, cooler weather... maybe mid-60s when we started and in the 70s when we got back from the bike, with the sun just starting to break through the clouds the last few miles of the bike ride. There were 12 people swimming with varying abilities/speeds but everyone was within 5-10 minutes of each other so it wasn't too spread out; the return leg of the swim gave us some choppy water to contend with (I felt like a cork) but it was good practice on sighting and propelling forward in those conditions. Tina was generous enough to come down with the group and boat behind us again. The water was in the low 70s and it took ~1:05 to swim the same course as last time. 14 people rode the bike route into Cochiti Pueblo--we had considered changing routes due to festival preparations, but decided it'd probably be OK seeing as the festival wasn't until Monday. It turned out to be just fine with very little traffic (and polite drivers), and only a slight headwind on the return. Both the swim and bike were faster this time as people seemed to be more focused and perhaps more motivated in the cooler temps. to keep moving. Or perhaps the novelty of a new course had worn off for people who had done the brick a few weeks ago, so we just got down to business? In any event, it proved to be great training with a really nice group of people. We'll plan another one in August after the LA Tri--maybe up at Heron Lake. Details to follow. Thanks again everyone!

BSLT 70.3 2008 Race Report

**all pictures taken by Dan and added later by Dina - that's why pictures comments refer to Jeff in 3rd person**
If you read Cyndi’s post along with mine you will get the ying and yang of it all.

The red radioactive hoard that is the Triatomics showed up in Lubbock, Texas for the 19th edition of the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon. BSLT is a half ironman that is part of the 70.3 series, and as such has slots available for the 70.3 World Championships, in Clearwater, Florida, and as one of the old school half irons is one of the last few 70.3 races one can earn a slot to Kona. We showed up in neon-like numbers with Jim and Barbara Wendelberger, Cyndi Wells, Amy Regan, Char Latham, Martin Pieck, Jeff Johnson (me), Bill Bearden and Tom Bargeloh racing in the 70.3, and Joseph Baehr competing in the aqua-bike.

The race venue is at Buffalo Springs Lake, a man made, spring fed lake that is in Ransom Canyon located about 5 miles southeast of Lubbock, and both the run and bike snake in and out of the very large Ransom Canyon complex and the surrounding farmland. The lake is very nice and unexpected based on the surrounding topography. It is surrounded by a small residential area of year round homes and what appear to be weekend cottages. The lake is fairly clean and a very temperate 75 – 80 degrees, although the triathlon swim always manages to be wetsuit legal, barely.

BSLT has a reputation for being a very hard course that can be hot or windy or hot and windy. I’m not sure what makes the bike course hard because it is mostly flat with about a thousand feet of climbing over 5 moderate hills that are comprised of climbs in and out of Ransom Canyon, but there is something about the bike course that suppresses a high average speed and kind of weighs on you. The run course is flat with three significant hills and a mile and a half out and back on a hot flat road that is called the “energy lab 2”, a reference to the fabled energy lab out and back on the Kona run course.

A delayed storm front brought cool temperatures, overcast conditions, gusty wind and intermittent rain for race day, and although the conditions were cool, which probably contributed to a lot of pretty fast runs, the wind and rain out on the bike course made for slower than normal bike times, and treacherous descents down some of the steeper hills on the course. There were a number of people that came thundering off their bikes but no any serious injuries that I am aware of.

Before I get into the self indulgent details of my race I will recount how the rest of the team performed…

Barbara competed in and completed her very first half ironman, Jim punched in a workmanlike performance in support of Barbara, Amy placed 5th grabbing a slot to Clearwater.

Here is Amy passing some more guys on her way to 5th! :) This is shortly before the finish chute.

Char placed 15th in what has been called this years most competitive age group, Martin was 6th in his AG with very good time of 4:40, and just missed earning hardware by 3 minutes. I think he lost all his time mugging for the camera…. Here are some examples of Martin's frivolous waving to the 'fans' and bicep flexing... what a ham! :)

thanks to Dan for taking pictures! Bill plowed through the race in good form, placing 10th in his AG, even though I know he was under trained, Tom finished solidly in the middle of his AG, and Cyndi showed up and raced despite having her slide-in camper catch fire while en-route to the race. Joe finished the aqua-bike after wrecking his brand new bike on some rain slicked roads and jamming his rear derailleur.

I showed up in Lubbock hopeful for a good performance, and confident I had prepared to execute, but the pre-race omnipresent fear of failure hung over my head. Ever since the previous BSLT I had ridden a wave of good performances and I had raised my personal expectations of race day execution. Proper execution equates to satisfaction that always accompanies accomplishment of challenging goals, but the other side of coin is always there. I had a couple of basic goals for this race, I wanted to improve on my time from last year or improve my overall placement and I wanted to earn a slot to Clearwater.

Anyway, race day loomed. Suzy and I got up at 3:15 our time, 4:15 panhandle time, ate a little, packed and picked up Amy Regan at 5:00. The worst part of this race is a congested drive to the venue. The race starts at 6:30 with all the waves leaving over the following half hour, and there is usually a 20 – 25 minute wait for parking, and a longish walk to transition It doesn’t make for much time to get your transition set up, visit the john, and warm up for the swim.

I basically had enough time after I got down to the lake to scope out how others were addressing the swim start, swim about 150 yards to warm up, and go through the corral to the start. This race has a cheesy legal “cheater” that allows the swimmers to wade along the shore for 100 to 150 yards before starting the swim. It isn’t without peril due to submerged rocks that can twist your ankle or cut your foot. I elected to wade the shore as far as I could and dove in the water in about 5th or 6th place with a pack of 5-10 swimmers just to my left. I don’t think the shore walk gained all that much time but it allowed me to get in the water with a thinned pack and avoid the thrashing that typically accompanies an open water swim start. Being out in the open I was able to put the hammer down and motor through a pretty good swim in just under 26 minutes. I was the second person out of the water in my age group, beating the next pack of guys in my group pack by over a minute.

I got though transition pretty easily and settled in. The prevailing winds on race day were mostly in our faces out and at out back on the return. I figured it would be hard to put distance into people the last 20 or so miles on the return, so the time to make hay was into the wind. I immediately tried to set a steady tempo and work into the wind. My new aero helmet and disc wheel made the head wind pretty easy to deal with. I had been in (pretty minor) angst concerning which front wheel to use in the race, and based on the breezy race morning conditions decided against my deep dish and utilized a basic light weight training wheel with a rear disc. The decision proved correct as many portions of the race had stiff side winds that would have abused my deep dish front, but didn’t phase the steel rim at all.

At about mile 7 or 8 I passed the guy who I knew was first out of the water, and I figured I was in first place in my AG on the road. The ride was pretty uneventful, you had to pick your way down a few of the hills because of the rain but I pretty much relaxed, conserved and fueled up for the run. I must have been passed by someone in my AG near transitions, and due to the rain washing his number off didn’t know it, but I passed him back pretty soon on the run and pressed at a comfortably hard pace to the turnaround. I tried to pick up my tempo on the return, but started feeling the days effort around mile 9, and really struggled to maintain pace the last 4 miles of the run.

Jeff picking up the tempo on the run.

I ended up winning my AG by about 4 minutes. Second place was a guy from Colorado who ran a smoking 1:24 and plowed through a lot people, third was the guy who beat me into T2.


Early in the year when I knew I was going to race BSLT and I established my performance goals, I knew if I accomplished them I would stand a good chance of winning my AG. I contemplated what I would do in the event I won my AG and earned the slot to Kona. In our sport it is almost anathema to decline a Kona slot, and while the distance really doesn’t interest me, the iconic status associated with the race weighed on my decision process. I have always said I wouldn’t race any other ironman except Kona, meaning I would have to win the lottery or a half ironman, and since they are eliminating the half iron slots those opportunities are waning. I finally decided that if I managed to win my age group or finish high enough to have the slot pass down I would decline it basically because I don’t think I would enjoy the training or the race nor did I necessarily believe I would be able to own the opportunity to compete well. The risk to reward ratio wasn’t to my liking. On the other hand, I felt the 70.3 championships in Clearwater were more accessible from both a training and a competition point of view, so I decided early in the year to focus on Clearwater if I could earn the slot.

Jeff with the spoils: computrainer, 1st AG, wine, Clearwater slot!

The second place guy from my AG took the roll down but he looked like he was trying to swallow a buffalo. He commented to me that I was probably the smart one. I wish him a lot of success in Hawaii! Joining me, so far, in Clearwater will be both Dan Reese and Amy Regan, so the Triatomics will be well represented and I suspect we will have a grand time.

Buffalo Springs Lake "race" and extra adventure report

I really enjoyed seeing all the Triatomics folks out on the BSLT course. I've done the race a number of times many years ago (I think the first in 95?), but I never had so much fun actually seeing folks that I know during the race. And, having dinner with Triatomics folks the night before was a blast. This is a really large amount of drivel, but, hey, if you have nothing better to do, I won't stop you from reading it!

My goal for BSLT this year was to use it for practice, mainly a nice catered training day, for Ironman Wisconsin, coming up in September. That's the reason for the quotes around "race" in the title. I wanted to practice IM race pace (or what I think it might be), eating/drinking properly, and just boost my confidence as I haven't done a longer tri for about 5 years. (Frank- by the way, your post was inspirational!) I think I was successful in meeting just about all goals but that last one.

So, let me backtrack, as I've gotten a few questions about the fire mentioned in Bill's email. Mike & I left on Friday, after I got done frantically finishing up store work so I could leave for a couple days. I wanted to leave Friday because I have some ruptured discs in my back and sitting in a vehicle always irritates them. That way, the swelling/pain in my back would have one day to subside before race day. We planned to camp in our slide-in truck camper for two nights. We have dogs and our camper is nice and comfy/cool for the hounds while we are out and, with a shower, nice for the racing. (Picture of the camper before Friday shown.) We packed up the camper and headed off the hill around 3:30 PM. Mike noticed smoke coming out of the camper when he looked in his rearview mirror, when we were just about a mile past the Rio Grande on 502 east. He pulled over and we got out. When we opened the back door, black smoke billowed out. We had a fire somewhere. The location was difficult to discern with the amount of smoke. Mike grabbed the fire extinguisher and worked to put it out. I called 911 on my cell phone. In retrospect, I was lucky to get service there as I later had difficulty getting service in other nearby spots to call the insurance company. Mike had the presence of mind to disconnect and remove the propane tank on the camper. I grabbed the dogs out of the truck. Mike realized he couldn't get the fire out with the extinguisher and reclosed the back door to try to slow the fire with less oxygen. We then began the, what felt like really long, wait for the firefighters. A police officer happened to come by and blocked road traffic. I also heard him call on the radio and say to expedite the fire engine. We now had some pretty big flames shooting out of the camper. Mike grabbed my store laptop from inside the truck. At this point, we weren't sure the truck would make it. Mike & I sat with the dogs a long distance away and waited. Was it 10 minutes? I am not sure. Once the fire engine showed up, they got out the blaze pretty quickly. Thankfully, the truck was saved. The camper appears to be a total loss, along with some contents. Some items, like Mike's Kindle, managed to survive but with some real issues! That is Mike's bike on top, near where the fire apparently started. Once the fire was out, the question was- what do we do now? Did any of my tri gear or bike (all inside the camper) survive? I think we both felt a little numb. The firefighters told us they thought they got everything out, but there could still be an ember somewhere, so we should drop the camper as soon as possible. We plugged up the hole in the side, where the fire burnt through, as best as we could and turned back to Los Alamos to drop the camper off at the RV lot. Mike braved the stench and pulled out as many personal items as he could that survived.

The firefighters have arrived and begin getting the hose ready. Hooray!

The fire burnt a hole through the side of the camper.

Mike ventured inside the mess to pull out the gear.

Mike's Kindle, unfortunately, was treated more like kindling!


At this point, I am thinking the race is no more. But, Mike was determined to have the show go on. He told me that he wasn't going to spend the weekend moping. We brought home the stinky gear, I sorted the laundrable items outside into piles of "really stinky" and "maybe washable" and headed to the laundromat. (Our washer didn't seem like a good idea for the first wash!) Mike started hosing down my wetsuit and working on my bike. He cleaned all the fire crud (plastic melted from the ceiling, foam from the fire fighters, soot, ?) from the bike frame and wheels. He replaced the tires, fixed the cabling, handlebar tape, etc. When I got back from the laundromat (had to leave as it was closing), he was still hard at work and continued fixing the bike through the wee hours of the morning. My hero! The only thing we had to leave on the bike that was still a bit nasty was the bike seat. My helmet survived but the plastic/styrofoam had puffed out like popcorn, so it was unusable. Mike offered his helmet. (An advantage of being about the same size as your husband!) I redid the laundry a few more times at home to try to salvage it. Most was too stinky, so I let it on the balconies of the house, so it would not stink up the house while we were gone. I found that the La Quinta in Lubbock had rooms and was dog friendly. Around 2 AM, we hit the sack. At 7 AM the next morning, Mike then drove me to Lubbock. The plan was to replace what was too stinky to use because of the burnt plastic/electrical smell at the Expo.

The Expo came through and I was able to get what I needed, although I was about $300 dollars lighter. :-) The only thing that made me nervous was wearing a brand new style of goggles. I usually wear the junior-sized ones as they fit my face better without leaking. In the end, I would just have a stinky bike seat and bike shoes and everything else was good. With all this crapzola having happened, I decided that they just wouldn't dare leak on me and race day would go super smoothly. Thankfully, I was wearing my running shoes when the fire broke out, so I didn't have to worry about getting blisters from new shoes.

And, to an extent, it did go smoothly. We left the hotel a little before 5:00 AM and got stuck in a little traffic. (James, you were right! We left a little earlier than I would have without your warning. Thanks for that or I would have needed more time.) We brought a light, but I didn't use it right away and managed to put a cut down the entire length of my shin from one small, but very thorny bush near our vehicle. Won't make that mistake again. Oh, and Texas has those mosquitoes. Forgot about those pesky little guys! I felt a little rushed and out of sorts for setting up transition as I didn't have my normal tri bag or gear. BSLT has changed a bit and is a lot more uptight than 10 years ago. The folks didn't like the way my number was on my bike, so I had to let a lady fix it with duct tape before I could get into transition. I was planning on putting it on better once it was in the rack. But, okay. I'll just go with the flow. I didn't really get to examine the swim in/bike out/bike in/run out spots very well. I usually try to figure that out, but felt a little tight on time. I decided not to worry about it as it would be obvious at the time. (Which it was.) Made my way to the swim start and to get my wetsuit on. I tried using using silicon spray for the first time to put on the wetsuit. Worked well as it was much easier to wiggle in. Dang! The cement was rough on the feet, though. In my adventure and repacking, I had forgot my extra pair of shoes.

The swim went well (for my sort of swim)- I spent a couple of minutes in the water before my wave started and determined that the new goggles were good. Much less anxiety after that. Some friendly ladies and I, seeding ourselves towards the back of our wave, chatted. Suzanne from Louisana was funny. The swim course was different than it used to be and I couldn't really see the buoys from the start. I think it started in a slightly different spot, where folks were now warming up. I decided it didn't matter as I'd have plenty of folks to follow and would spot the buoys soon enough. She said, "By golly, I can dog paddle for 1.2 miles if I have to." The other lady remarked that we back of the packers get more bang for our registration buck as we get longer entertainment. Before I knew it, our wave was off. I decided to start to swim around the point, instead of splashing around at the edge of the water like a lot of folks were doing, after I felt a rock under my foot and thought I could turn an ankle. I am not a strong swimmer and the swim always worries me the most. My typical race-day swim thoughts circulated through my head, "Is that the right buoy? Why is everyone else swimming way over there? Are they off course or am I? Why does this person keep swimming on my legs? Haven't they already figured out that I am here? I don't really want to kick them . . . Why does this person keep crossing my path? Are they not swimming straight or am I? Where the heck am I on the swim course? Haven't I already been swimming for long enough that I should be pointed towards the finish?" I decided my goal for the swim, during the swim, was just to swim straight and navigate well. I think I did that. For the first time in my tri race experience, though, I manged to suck in a good amount of water on a breath. I didn't see anyone going by, maybe it was a wave? The wind was picking up. I repeated my swim mantra in my head that "I am in control", treaded water for a few minutes, coughed it out, remembered Suzanne's comment on the dog paddle and smiled, and then continued on (freestyle). Towards the end, I started to get a little depressed that my progress seemed so slow around the course and thought of what Sally Edwards would do with the ladies starting the Danskin tris, right before their wave would start. She would make them all shout, "I am a great swimmer." I repeated that a few times in my head, as I felt the waves start to roll me a bit. I could now see the finishing spot and was happy. One part down!

One new feature, for me, anyway, were the wetsuit "strippers". As an "old-timer" triathlete, I didn't see them in previous races. Anyway, my stripper had to tell me twice to sit on my butt. Ooops! I wasn't processing information very well at that point. It was actually pretty quick. I think faster than I usually get my wetsuit off. Transition went okay and I was on the bike. I got trapped by a slow guy on the way out of the chute, but was able to pass him once it widened out a bit.

But, arrgh, the bike number. What the lady had done didn't work. I should have redone it when I got the bike into transition. Soon, a tie disappeared. I didn't have anything to really fix it with. So, it just flapped in the wind and hit me in the legs. Then, one of the safety pins broke. Around mile 30, the last tie came off. The rain didn't help and was making it soggy so that the attachments didn't work. I didn't want a penalty for not having my bike number visible, so I stuck it under my hand and just held on to it until the bike finish. In the future, I might try that spray glue. Mike uses it to glue his road race number on jerseys and it seems to work really well.

I was a little worried about the wax on the brand new tires making the road in the rain even slicker, so I took the descents pretty gingerly. Especially after seeing some folks on the side of the road that crashed with some nasty road rash. I ate some Gus during the bike and drank quite a bit of sport drink. I started getting nerve pain in my back around mile 20 of the bike. Definitely from the drive the day before. Not so good. Stayed with me for the rest of the race and made running not so much fun, but it didn't get as screaming bad as it could have been. My bike started making a strange tinky, creaky kind of noise in the front. Not sure what it was, but I worried a bit that my front tri-spoke carbon fiber HED wheel may not have liked the fire temps. Ignoring it turned out to be a good decision as nothing broke on me. The cool temps were nice in that I didn't feel like I was underhydrating at all. There's a Triatomics jersey! Who is it? Oh, its James. And, there is Barbara. Cool! The last flat, straight part back was nice and faster, maybe some tailwind. Feeling okay at this point. I narrowly avoided a disaster when a guy had his bike upside down across the shoulder to fix a flat. I looked behind and a car was coming. I braked to allow for some extra space to get over into the road. Then, the bike fell down, right in front of me. If I hadn't had slowed, I don't think I would have been able to dart out enough to avoid the fallen bike with the car there. I could tell the guy felt bad and I think he shouted sorry at me.

Then, came the run. By the time I hit the bike/run transition, it was, ahem, clear that I needed to use the portapotty. A triathlon first for me! As I was in there, I decided it was good practice for the Ironman. ;-) I must admit that BSLT is well-equipped as they had a bunch of them at transition and there was no wait for one. (The ample number of aid stations are also pretty well-stocked, even for the back of the packers. In other races, they are sometimes out of items by the time I get there.)

I felt a little achy at this point and have not been run training like I should. So, I was pretty apprehensive about being able to do the run. I had my Garmin Forerunner on for pacing myself and my goal was just to do 10 minutes per mile and finish. I saw Martin heading in. He looked so comfortable! He was running, but was he even breathing? Didn't seem like it. Oh, to be going that direction!

I came up on a guy right away going about the pace I wanted and we started to chat. We had both been in Iraq and talked about our experiences. We encouraged each other and it really saved the day for me. The run went by pretty fast. Considering. My tendons or ligaments or something on the outside of my knees were hurting. Not the muscle tired kind of hurt, but more the I-hope-I-am-not-damaging-something pain.

My stomach was feeling a little funky and my back was hurting and his plan was to walk the aid stations and that sounded good to me, so I did that as well. I think the short break every mile definitely helped me get through the run and kept me able to drink without making my stomach worse. Oh, there is Bill Bearden! Go Bill! Headed in that lovely direction of the finish line. I tried some Coke at mile 10. Never did that before in a race, but sounded good at the time. Seemed to pick me up a little bit. Might do in the later stages of IM. Then, there was "Grey Shirt". Grey Shirt would run a little faster than my pace and then walk for a while. We would just about catch up to Grey Shirt before he'd start running again. My running buddy for the first 11 miles was having some knee pain, so he dropped off. When Grey Shirt walked for longer and I was going to catch up with him, I called out and told Grey Shirt that trying to pass him was keeping me going for the last few miles and he needed to step it up in order to pull me to the finish line. He laughed and we continued playing the game, almost to the finish, where he decided he was just going to walk for a while. I encouraged him to start running again, he did, and just ended up sliding by him near the end. Us back of the packers might not get awards, but I don't think anyone else could have more fun!

Turns out I was a few minutes slower than my time 5 years ago, but my swim was slightly faster. I wanted to finish in under 7 hours, so I was okay with the 6:51. I saw some really impressive times and placings from other Triatomics members! Way to go!

I do like the BSLT, even though it has gotten more uptight over the years. Unavoidable, I guess, with the increase in participants. I do like that it is well supported with good traffic control at the intersections, has really clear course marking, and has plenty of well-stocked aid stations. If you have pets and plan to bring them, by the way, the La Quinta in Lubbock is situated in a good spot and was a nice clean, friendly, comfortable hotel.

I didn't quite meet my goal of inspiring confidence for the IM. My back was hurting. Not sure I could have doubled the distance with that pain. And, I have never been sore after a race and, boy am I ever, after this one. I pretty much knew the location of every muscle fiber, ligament and tendon in my body the day after. Legs still sore on day two. Not sure what went wrong with that. Too little training? But, I've done this race before on what seems like less training. I think I ate properly during the race and walked around/stretched properly after the race. So, feeling more jittery about the length of the IM than before. I guess I might as well go try it. If I fail, I fail. Better than not trying it at all. I did have fun. Which has been my main goal in triathlon through the years.

By the way, they had a postcard for the Half-Iron in Austin in October in the race packet. Anyone planning on doing that race? I went to grad school there and like Austin. I signed up, thinking its a good chance to visit. Not sure how keen I will be on doing it a month after the IM, but we'll see.

My husband Mike, by the way, was my big hero in this. I would not have even attempted to go to the race without his encouragement and his hard work getting my gear fixed up again. I was overwhelmed by the fire and he made me feel absolutely confident we could get there and I could still have a great race. He never wavered in his determination to get what we needed to do done. And, he did all of this with his newly plated collarbone and a still fairly painful shoulder and limited range of motion. Thank you, Mike!