Today was the Rattlesnake Olympic triathlon. I was really looking forward to this race...my friend Amy talked me into doing it a few weeks ago and I thought it would be fun, especially since there's no way it could be as hard as the Boulder Peak was! The weather forecast looked fantastic at the beginning of the week, but got just a little bit worse every day until yesterday they were saying that it would only be a high of 60 with rain expected all morning. Fun!
Sure enough, the race
got called when I was at mile 8 of the bike due to lightning. I
honestly couldn't decide at that point whether I was mad or
relieved. And the 6 miles worth of biking to get back to transition was
the most miserable exercise I think I've ever done in my life. It was
absolutely pouring. We're having the one of the driest years on record, and a freaking monsoon arrives just in time for my race! The funny part is that I think I actually was more wet on the bike than I was in the swim!
The weather at the start was kind of crappy, but not that bad. Just
cold (48 or so degrees) and drizzly. Getting in the water actually felt GOOD...it was so
much warmer than the air. This race had a time trial start (one person
at a time, about every 5 seconds), which was interesting. Everyone I
talked to before the race absolutely raved about it, but I really
didn't like it. With a wave start, I can position myself toward the
back of the wave and get out of the way of the worst of the chaos since I'm a fairly slow swimmer. With the time trial start, though, it was pretty constant that people were swimming over me. The men
were the worst, since they started behind the women. They pretty much
just plowed through, not caring who was in their way. Other than that,
it was an ok swim. Thanks to the weather, it was really choppy, which
was tough. I swallowed lots of water! At least when I got out, I was nice
and warm, for a few minutes anyway. The first four miles of the bike
weren't too bad, just a little wet, but I wasn't too cold yet. Then the
rain picked up. Then the lightning started.
It really stinks, but I am glad
that they canceled it. It was the right call, and being out on that
course for another 12 miles beyond what I did would have been awful.
Not to mention having to run after! And when I went to pack up my
transition area, my stuff was all completely soaked despite my
precautions. I had a garbage bag on the ground, then a towel, then my
stuff, then another garbage bag over top. Completely sopping wet, all
of it!
I'll be interested to see what the race organizers decide to do.
There's really no way to reschedule it, but we didn't even get our race
shirts or anything, they were supposed to hand them out at the finish. This was a relatively expensive race, so I at least better get my t-shirt! A discount for next year's race would be nice, too.
Oh, well, what can you do? It just wasn't meant to be today, I guess. You can't argue with Mother Nature!
Almost forgot to mention...I put some photos up in the new Biking gallery the other day from our Bike with your Bambino ride this week. Sonja borrowed my camera and took some great pics while we were riding.
Group photo (L to R: Laura, Gaye, Hillary, Sonja, Lindsay):
