Mill City Tri

Completed the second tri of my life today. I knocked 15 minutes off my time. I’m happy with my steady improvement,but still have a ways to go until I’m happy with my times and performances.

I woke up before my alarm, had some oatmeal and grabbed my transition pack. The Mountain smith bag is working out perfectly, I’ll continue to use it. As I was packing the bike onto the car Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” came on, perfect for the first song on a race day. The drive down to Lowell was unremarkable, I parked and checked in. Set up my transition area as before, and waited. I got in to early so I ended up with a fair amount of pre-race down time. I walked the transition area a few times, studied the water, and stretched. I used body glide on the neck line of my wetsuit this time, seemed to keep all the chaffing away.

My swim sucked, not as bad as last time. Katie let me know that there were 25 people in the water this time, instead of the 6 in Ashland. The river current was brutal, I ended up having to hang onto a life gaurds bouy to catch my breath 1/4 of the way through the course. The return trip was much better, with the current. I didn’t stop at all on the way back down. I am happy that I didn’t spend nearly the same amount of time on my back this time around. I got out of the water in about :43 miutes, a better time then last tri. I was pretty out of it going into T1. I actually felt light headed. When I bent down to pick up my socks I nearly fell over! I opted out of my socks for the bike, mainly becuase I didn’t believe I could stay vertical long enough to get them on, and my shoes. As I was leaving T1, I was taking the left onto the street, I thought I’d felt my cleat engage, but I was wrong. I went down as I tried getting my first stoke out. Not a banner start to my second tri. I was bloody, tired, and still had 26 miles of bike, and 6.2 of run left.

I regained my composure quickly on the bike, and was happily cruising at about 20 mph. After about 3 miles, I stopped quickly to see if a rider needed help, he was looking confused by his tire. Lucky for me he was running 650cc wheels and there was nothing I could do for him. I started back up and quickly got back on pace. About 8.5 miles in, I heard a rythmic thump. I thought it was the road at first, but half a mile later I heard the hiss of my tube blowing. Of course it was my rear wheel and not the front. Pulled over, swapped over the tube, and got back on my way. It felt like an enternity to fix my wheel,the reality is that it only took me 5 minutes. I got back up to pace, and finished out the bike with out any other problems. My favorite part of the race happened about 20 miles in. I was trucking along a nice flat road, and I spotted a rider in front of me. I looked and went “i’m passing him”. A quick changing of gears and I’m up to 25 mph. I was feeling strong. As I closed in, I notice he’s on a nice Cervelo. As I passed him I gave a cheerful “how ya doin’?” his reply as I passed him? “Not so good now…”

I got into T2, and was feeling pretty good. And this was where I made another mistake. instead of taking the minute to put on my nicely rolled socks, I opted out of them. I’m a fool, and a gluton for punishment. I’ve never run sockless, and probably won’t do that again. I made pretty good time, held an 8:20 pace for the 10k. I am paying the price for it tho, Two blisters on my arches, and one on my right foot!

Overall the course was awesome, I’ll try and work it into next years schedule. It’s a small tri, not a huge throng of people, so it’s manageable… and it’s close!