 NB's Comments:
So... before I even begin the write
up, I'd like to present the following picture of
brewer's leg...
This is a result of a little mishap
when he was training on Wednesdays. Needless to
say, he was not real thrilled to be running on it.
He did tell me is looks a lot better now than it did
on Thursday...
The back of brewer's knee.
OUCH!!!
... then there's my elbow which is sad shape.
You can see in a couple of the pictures the elbow
support I wore during the race. No matter...
we're still racing!!!!
 And,
before I get into the details of the race, Let me
present the following image of the day's
temperature...
Now onto the report...
I arrived at brewer's crib in Austin Friday night.
We did some wheel swapping, tire changing,
bike-computer installing, and made a few other
pre-race tweaks to the bikes before heading out for
our traditional pre-race meal of some sort of Asian
food--this time... Korean... Bulgogi beef!
It was about 10 minutes after arriving back at
brewer's that I decided to hit the sack. I need
lot of sleep these days... a lot of sleep and a lot
more food!!!
We arrived at the race site early (as always).
Fortunately, Bob and Wes had staged their pop-up shade
cover and floor in the transition area (TA) the night
before, so brewer and I made short work of setting it
up and preparing our gear in the staging area.
Once again, we have to thank Wes' wife Laura for
being kind enough to take pictures of us today.
THANKS Laura!
Beautiful day... though it got hot fast...
... and lots of people for this one. 102 teams.
The
race began with a 3-mile trail run. While it
wasn't as hot at 0900 as it would get later in the
day, it was still hot... and poor brewer running on
that leg... no fun for him! Our pace was maybe a
tad slow, but we did OK in the run until the end.
We had about a 1/4 mile to go and the heat started to
get to brewer. He had to walk up one hill and
that's when I noticed his color... white as a sheet.
He said he also had the cold sweats. Not good.
We slowed down a little, and he drank some more fluid.
I promise brewer was next to me, but our photographer...
Laura... missed him...
WAIT! There's brewer!
Arriving in the TA, we grabbed our boat seats and
water bottles to head to the paddle section. On
the way out of the TA, I saw Ricky--he's one of the
young racers... maybe 17?--on his back. The heat
had got him too. He was over heated. The
medics were making their way to him... I handed over
one of my water bottles so the folks attending to him
could pour it on him to cool him down. Kathy
arrived immediately after and continued pour water on
him to get his temperature down.
brewer and I began the paddle section... which
turned out to be a lot further than we expected.
It wasn't until we rounded the buoy and started
heading back when we got into a groove. We even
passed a number of teams on the way back.
I told you it was a pretty day!
Heading into the water with out boat...
brewer deciding if he wants to wear the life vest or not... :-)
And we're off on the paddle...
There we are (somewhere).
And we're back after the two-mile paddle...
Out of the water...
We climbed out of the boats and headed up the hill
to run back to the TA and get out bike gear on...
Pick up the boat...
And climb up the hill before we got into the TA and take off on
the mountain bike section.
The bike section at Muleshoe bend is awesome
mountain biking. To give you an idea of the
course, it took us just under an hour to go about
eight miles--lots of rocks, twists and turns,
loose-rock-hill climbs... pretty darned fun!
This is the section where we shined. We passed
several teams on the trail and completed the route
without any incidents. Well, my heart rate
stayed incredibly high during most of the ride, and I
was panting like a dog at one point... but we
persevered!
Who's dat?
Dat be brewer!
Back into the TA we had one more event. We
had to run down to lake again and basically run in
about waist-deep water along the shoreline and climb
out a muddy embankment on the end before sprinting to
the finish line.
We crossed the finish line at 2 hours, 1 minutes
and 5 seconds which put us in 3rd place. The
same two teams that placed 1st and 2nd at the
Nationals were the same two teams that beat us again.
But, even wounded, we still gained a couple of minutes
on the 2nd-place team.
Our congratulations from Scott...
Our congratulations from Kathy...
"Umm... get a room. Geez! I'm just going
to look away..."
Posers!
According to my Garmin, I burned up 1,435 calories.
My average heart rate was 178 bpm, and I maxed it at
189 bpm. Not bad for an old dood.
Until next time...
Peace.
NB
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