She's Still Faster

Ah..great weekend of riding and racing.

Started out Friday with a nice 2.5 hour ride around the nice Wildwood Hills. Started in Ellisville and road to the store in St. Alban's and back. Then we changed, wet wipe showered, and headed to Mountain Grove. Of course we made a stop at Slice of Pie in Rolla. They have the best pies around.

Saturday morning Sara and her dad went out for a 25 mile ride while I stayed back with the little one and watched the Tour. They got back and then it was my turn. I had no real plans on where to ride or for how long. I just kinda of went around some roads in Mountain Grove. Low traffic (good), poor pavement (bad).

Later Saturday evening Sara and I road over to register for the Lake Freeburg Tri in Mountain Grove. Never heard of it? Not many people have. Basically a lawyer in Mountain Grove has a private lake, 1.5 mile paved path around the lake, and likes to do tri's. So she holds a tri every year. We decided to enter at the last minute. This would be my 3rd tri ever. I haven't swam in 1.5 years and I stink at swimming. So we road the 2.5 miles over there, registered and road back home for some BBQ!

Sunday we got up and road over to the race. It was pretty sweet actually to show up to a race on your bike ready to go. The race distances were 600 meter swim in open water, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run. The canon went of and next thing you know I'm in a pack of people trying to swim and I'm trying not to drown. It wasn't too bad but it wasn't the most fun. At one point a guy doing the breast stroke passed me. 13 minutes later I was done. Thank goodness. Time for the bike and time to start passing people. The bike course was pretty much rolling hills on bad pavenment with a couple of corners filled with gravel tossed in. It was 7 miles out, turnaround and 7 miles back. I began chasing people on hybrids, mountain bikes, and a few road bikes down. I was also chasing Sara who was 2 minutes up the road. Finally saw her as I neared the turn around point and she was about 1 mile in front of me. Kept chasing and chasing. Finally caught her as we transitioned from the bike to run. Game over for me. She got her running shoes on faster and was gone. I was still there taking bike shoes off. In the end she was 20 sec faster than me after 1 hr and 19 minutes. She was 3rd female overall. I was top in my age group, but there weren't that many people there.

Thursday is another sweet dirt crit and it maybe time to bring out the cross bike for a race.


Sunday