Kona Eastside Triathlon
May 23, 2010
Baytown, Texas
600 Meter Swim-16 Mile
Bike-4 Mile Run
There wasn't a
host hotel so stayed at a hotel as close as possible to the race site-about
5-10 miles away. In all the times I have stayed someplace, this was the
smallest room I have ever had. In fact, we stumbled over a chair just getting
in the door. It wasn't that the room had too much furniture. Any furniture at
all would have been too much for this walk-in closet. We put the chair in the
cubbyhole that was supposed to be the closet. I had to put my bike and travel
bag by the front door because there was no room anywhere else. At least if
anyone were to break into our room, they would become entangled in my bike and
gear and probably hurt themselves badly. The bed made me itch for some reason
and the air conditioning had only one temperature: frigid. You could hang beef
in that room the next morning it was so cold. The door to the bathroom was a
sliding door without a track. That is, if you wanted privacy in the bath, you
had to pick up the door a little and muscle it to the almost closed position.
We didn't get a lot of sleep.
The next morning the wind was blowing strong already when we left for the race site. It all went easy
getting set up and ready. When it came my time to swim, I was ready to go. It
was a small lake, so the waves were not an issue. However, the swim support
folks in the boats seemed confused as to what they were supposed to be doing.
They seemed to be everywhere but where they were needed.
Transition went well, but when out on the bike (8 miles out-8 miles back), that
wind was right in my face. It made for a little higher degree of difficulty
than I had hoped for. However, I had been training in a lot of wind lately. I
had thought that was awful, but now I could see it had been a blessing in
disguise. I did well in the wind, and at the turnaround, I cut loose. At one
point, I was coasting at 25 mph on a flat course.
The run was a different matter. It was hot by then, and the course was 2 miles
out and 2 back on the feeder to I-10. The pavement seemed hot, and the air was
humid and stifling. At least there was the wind. Being a Half Ironman hopeful
in Oct this year, I tried out my half ironman running plan of walking the aid
stations. This worked
better than I
expected. I was pretty well beat when I finally got into the winding finishers
chute and could tell I would need lots of work before I could seriously think I
could finish a half ironman.
I did manage a
2nd place in my old age, age group. Not many in our age group and the ones that
came out today must have found it too hot and humid and asked to be driven back
to their nursing homes.
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