 NB's Comments:
I
would like to start this one off with the following…
Nearly drowning sucks.
Once again, it was me and
brewer.
This time Fort Worth, TX for race #3 of the series.
Packet pickup was at the Pearl
Izumi store in Fort Worth… which cost me a hundred
dollars. ... damned clearance sales.
After picking up the packet on
Friday afternoon, I headed to Camp Carter to find brewer
waiting for me so we could pre-ride the course. It was
only 100 degrees or so… a nice day for a ride.
It wasn’t long into it that we
found a particularly difficult downhill section of
trail. After spending significant amounts of time
picking the best line, I started my decent. It wasn’t
until I rounded the tree I realized there was a lot more
to the hill… and as I went over the handlebars and
tumbled and tumbled and tumbled... I was fully aware that a more
thorough investigation of the decent would have been a
good idea. As the bike came to crash on top of my head,
I was fully aware of the importance of a helmet.
I was beaten pretty good, but not
to the point I couldn’t finish checking out the course.
Though going over the handlebars a second time sorta got
me to thinking that maybe I was a little tired…
We came off the trail and gave
Kathy and Scott a report. As a result, they decided to
reverse part of the trail so the downhill would now be
an uphill, and folks would be forced to walk it (so
idiots like me wouldn’t ride it and get seriously hurt).
brewer and I found the world’s
worst Chinese buffet after a stop at the Dollar store so
I could buy a $4 blanket since I forgot my sleeping bag.
I'm still perplexed as to why something at the dollar
store was $4.
And that was that until the
morning…
Race Day:
Turns out that the leaders in the
series have to wear these Richard-Simmons-looking vests
(not that there’s anything wrong with that). But more
than that, we were now targets. Everyone behind us
in the series was sure to track us down to take the
lead…
So we donned our red #233 vests and
lined up for the start, and like always, we took off on
the run part first. The run was only 2.33 miles… and we
whipped it out at a 7:40 pace.
We then had to put on a life vest
and swim across a pond. This is where things went to
hell in a handbasket for me…
I dove in and started swimming… but
my life vest was acting up. The flotation part wasn’t
staying down and as it rose to the surface, the other
side would come around my neck. I fought it several
times as brewer swam by me (I’m assuming he just thought
I was a crappy swimmer). Of course battling this
friggin' vest was taking its toll on me… and after
swallowing some pond water a little anxiety crept into
the picture. I calmed myself and kept swimming with
half the vest out of the water and the other half
choking me. As brewer looked back (after getting out of
the water), he could see something was wrong and walked
out to where he could grab my hand and pulled me out of
the water. Once on land I found the problem—the vest
was missing a loop that holds the flotation part to the
strap. It was truly a horrible experience… one I hope
to never have to repeat again… especially after a 2+
mile run and wearing running shoes and a water bottle.
I was panting like a dog, but we
had to keep going...
On the way to the TA, there was a
little Mystery Event… basically we had to “wheelbarrow”
across a sandy volleyball court. You know, where one
person walks on his hands while person #2 holds person
#1’s ankles. I was person #1.
Our TA time was quick, and we were
off to the boats…
We struggled in the boat at first.
I think it was because of my near-drowning experience,
but eventually we got the boat to track straight, and we
were able to paddle in a straight line. I reckon it
coulda been the boat though… HA!
Back into the TA, we donned our
bike shoes, helmets and Camelbaks and were off again...
I was still recovering from the
swim... and now paddle, so I tucked in behind brewer and
drafted him for a while. Somewhere along this fast
section of trail I told him we needed to catch the guys
in the blue jerseys. He said, “Yeah, and the guys ahead
of them in the black jerseys too.” UGH!
Ultimately we passed them both
during the biking section.
Back to the TA for the next Mystery
Event…
We changed shoes and were told to
go to the kayaks again… “grab a life vest… no paddle…
one person in the boat, one out… go around the island!”
Great! Because I didn’t die the
first time, let’s get back in the water and try again.
Needless to say, I jumped in the boat first, and brewer
swam us to the island. Once he could get his feet down,
he pulled the boat to the edge and began pulling it (and
me) around. Somewhere at the back of the island, we
swapped… he got in the boat and I pulled it. Once we
were to the swim part again, we switched again, and he
pulled us back across…
… where we were then handed a map.
We had to go find two items. A
wine cork and a washer. Fortunately brewer was able to
read and run and took us to both checkpoints where we
retrieved the items without incident.
We had two teams in front of us on
the way to the finish line. I think brewer and I both
“wanted” to sprint by them, but neither of us said a
word about doing so… we were spent!
We finished 7th overall,
and second in our division… which keeps us in the lead
for the series. We missed 5th overall by 10
seconds. If only we could have sprinted! No chance.
We seem to be doing pretty good…
… next race – Houston. |
