Couples Triathlon
July 13, 2008
Austin, Texas, Walter Long Lake
800 Meter Swim-11 Mile
Bike-5K Run
Energy, youth, noise, and a
great venue. Parking was right there at
transition- really convenient.
Participant friendly is a rather good description of this event. For the first time ever, I was allowed to
pick up my packet the morning of the event.
Sure made things nice.
The swim was 800 meters in
Walter Long Lake. Nothing spectacular
but I did have a good swim.
The bike was surprising to
me. Couldn’t seem to get going. The hills were a steeper incline than I thought,
and one came at the bottom of a hill after a sharp right turn. There was
absolutely no momentum going into this hill.
I barely kept my bike upright getting over this bad boy and I was winded
severely.
Then came Quadzilla, a long
and steep hill. I was more ready for
this one, but the result was the same. As slow as I was moving, I still passed
lots of folks on this hill. Several
participants walked their bikes. Some
were wobbling all over the road, trying to stay upright. I thought it would never end…but soon
thereafter was the transition.
The rest of the race was easy
in comparison to the bike leg. The run
was some on pavement and some in the park.
The course doubled back close to the race area and they had people
squirting water on us there as we made a turn with the crowd all around. That was a nice touch. It was hot.
I passed a young couple who were toast by this time. When I got a short distance ahead, I heard
the young man say, “We must really be in bad shape. Did you see his age on his leg, and he is
passing us?” I did not feel
complimented at all being considered to have some sort of age-induced
disability.
The finish line could be seen
from a distance, and I kicked in what I could.
The finish line chute had a few people in it, and they cheered. The loudspeaker announced my name and said,
“he’s 65 years old.” Then I heard a
murmur of people seemingly impressed and surprised. I was the oldest person at this event of a
thousand participants. All in all a
good event.
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