On Sunday I raced as the bike leg of a team for the cornhusker state games triatholon. This was something that I hadn't done before and I found it to be a blast and something that I will probably do again.
The team that I was on was made up of 2 of my students and myself. We were talking at the end of class one day and Ben (one of my students) said that he used to swim in high school and I knew another student Mitch ran in high school and still trains and runs marathons today so I said casually we should do a team triatholon. When one of them said the cornhusker state games has a triatholon we thought we should go for it.
When I woke up early and on Sunday morning I heard rain outside and than heard thunder. I was thinking that there was a chance that it would be canceled. So I loaded everything up in the rain and headed to the park where the race was taking place. I got changed and made the walk to the transition area which was about 3/4's of a mile away and dropped off my bike and than went and found my teammates and got marked and than waited to get going. I didn't really have a place to warm up so I figured I was going to be going into the race cold which I wasn't to worried about since all of the other team riders were going to be heading out cold as well.
At 7:30 when we were supposed to start they had the swimmers line up and were about to go off when the organizers got a weather report and heard that another storm was coming in and that we were going to wait. So we waited in the shelter while it continued to lightly rain but nothing too bad at all. They decided to get going again and the swimmers lined up again and were just about to go when they saw some lightening in the far off distance they pulled the swimmers back and then said that the race was changing to a duatholon instead of a tri. As a team we were pretty bummed out since we had a strong swimmer that was now not going to get to compete.
So they got the runners all lined up and they were off. Mitch killed the run being one of the first runners in. At that point I thought that he was the first team runner in since we were the only ones that seemed to be changing the ankle bracelet. I got out onto the course and was pretty clear with only a few riders heading out at the same time and I quickly past them and made way around the first turn and up the biggest climb on the 4 mile loop. I felt pretty good on the whole first lap and was going pretty good with the exception of having to figure out which puddles in the road were pot holes and which ones were just puddles.
When I hit the start finish entrance is when I started to run into all the other slower riders that were still coming onto the course. I spent the next few laps dodging other riders and had to keep yelling out on your left as I kept passing rider after rider. I did pull back a few riders that were ahead of me and my goal was to not get passed and lose a position. The biggest challenge was on the turns when I was going through them much faster than anyone else and it seemed like everyone was bunched up.
When I finihsed my last lap and made the transition Mitch was off and that is when Ben (our swimmer who was now a unfortunetly playing a supporting role) said that no other teams had come in and that we were leading. Mitch flew through the last leg and when he dropped off his chip after the crossing the finish line he said that our's was the only red leg band that identified the teams in the box. Our finishing time was 54:09.
After they posted the results we were surprised by how well it turned out. We not only finished first out of the teams but it was by a large margin. The closest team to us was a mixed team that finished in over 59 mintues. The next team in our category was 16 mintues behind us.
We were happy with the result but still a little disappointed that we didn't get to do the whole triatholon and we think that we would have been able to put more time on the competition. Maybe next time. I think we will be doing this again.
The team that I was on was made up of 2 of my students and myself. We were talking at the end of class one day and Ben (one of my students) said that he used to swim in high school and I knew another student Mitch ran in high school and still trains and runs marathons today so I said casually we should do a team triatholon. When one of them said the cornhusker state games has a triatholon we thought we should go for it.
When I woke up early and on Sunday morning I heard rain outside and than heard thunder. I was thinking that there was a chance that it would be canceled. So I loaded everything up in the rain and headed to the park where the race was taking place. I got changed and made the walk to the transition area which was about 3/4's of a mile away and dropped off my bike and than went and found my teammates and got marked and than waited to get going. I didn't really have a place to warm up so I figured I was going to be going into the race cold which I wasn't to worried about since all of the other team riders were going to be heading out cold as well.
At 7:30 when we were supposed to start they had the swimmers line up and were about to go off when the organizers got a weather report and heard that another storm was coming in and that we were going to wait. So we waited in the shelter while it continued to lightly rain but nothing too bad at all. They decided to get going again and the swimmers lined up again and were just about to go when they saw some lightening in the far off distance they pulled the swimmers back and then said that the race was changing to a duatholon instead of a tri. As a team we were pretty bummed out since we had a strong swimmer that was now not going to get to compete.
So they got the runners all lined up and they were off. Mitch killed the run being one of the first runners in. At that point I thought that he was the first team runner in since we were the only ones that seemed to be changing the ankle bracelet. I got out onto the course and was pretty clear with only a few riders heading out at the same time and I quickly past them and made way around the first turn and up the biggest climb on the 4 mile loop. I felt pretty good on the whole first lap and was going pretty good with the exception of having to figure out which puddles in the road were pot holes and which ones were just puddles.
When I hit the start finish entrance is when I started to run into all the other slower riders that were still coming onto the course. I spent the next few laps dodging other riders and had to keep yelling out on your left as I kept passing rider after rider. I did pull back a few riders that were ahead of me and my goal was to not get passed and lose a position. The biggest challenge was on the turns when I was going through them much faster than anyone else and it seemed like everyone was bunched up.
When I finihsed my last lap and made the transition Mitch was off and that is when Ben (our swimmer who was now a unfortunetly playing a supporting role) said that no other teams had come in and that we were leading. Mitch flew through the last leg and when he dropped off his chip after the crossing the finish line he said that our's was the only red leg band that identified the teams in the box. Our finishing time was 54:09.
After they posted the results we were surprised by how well it turned out. We not only finished first out of the teams but it was by a large margin. The closest team to us was a mixed team that finished in over 59 mintues. The next team in our category was 16 mintues behind us.
We were happy with the result but still a little disappointed that we didn't get to do the whole triatholon and we think that we would have been able to put more time on the competition. Maybe next time. I think we will be doing this again.
1 comment:
Hey great for you guys. Too bad about the swim leg. Maybe next one.
-B
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