The one with the bad omen

Yesterday was a race that I actually signed up for in time, the Tecumseh Triathlon. The night before the race, as I was packing up the car, I gave my bike tires a quick pump up. Ten minutes later I heard a sound like a balloon popping, and turned around right in time to see the front tire completely deflate. I have no idea how I over-pressured the tire, but given that my local bike shop had closed just a couple of hours earlier, I thought I could be pooched. Luckily, Chad thought of my spare trainer tire in the basement, and luckily, the tubes were the same size. So he swapped them out for me and I went on to load up the car uneventfully. I did wonder though whether this was a sign of things to come.

Well, I can't say the whole race was a disaster. My only goal for this race was to have a comfortable swim, because my last few swims had not gone well and I wanted to shake that. Race Surprise #1 came when I first wandered down to the beach and saw that the farthest buoys were, like, WAY far out. It soon became apparent why: the lake level was incredibly low, on account of the dry summer. The starting line was about 200m out into the lake and even then you couldn't swim; you had to run through knee deep water to the second buoy. And on the way back, you had to run that, plus the 200m. It made for a long and tiring swim. However, I did manage to swim without a panic attack, so my main mission was accomplished.

Race Surprise #2 came about five minutes into my bike leg, when there was a clap of thunder and it started to pour rain, and kept it up for most of the race. Still gun-shy about wiping out on the bike, especially now that I have a nicer bike with even skinnier tires, and especially on wet roads, I rode like a granny the whole time.

Oh, and along the way I also managed to crack both of my bottle cages and lose my insulated water bottle, though miraculously a volunteer caught it and returned it at the end of the race.

Even with all this calamity, I still had fun. My time was beyond mediocre, but I managed to finish second in my age group and got a coveted little plaque! I won't tell you how many people there were in my age group, but I'll give you a hint: it ended with a '2'.

Best of all was that my family came along with me, and put up with the before-dawn wakeup call and the delay in the start time and the rain and the lengthy wait for the awards to be handed out. (The all-you-can-eat Coldstone Creamery products at the finish line went a long way toward keeping them happy, as did Mallory's ability to retreat to the car to watch movies on DVD when the rain came down!) Liam was my official race photographer. I'd say he did a pretty good job. I hope I can return the favour in a few weeks' time.

Off to bed now... hoping to catch the first few minutes of the mens' Olympic triathlon before work tomorrow, then finish it up on DVR.