The Race

As part of my continuing effort to have a "summer of adventure" (not to be confused with George Costanza's "Summer of Love") I teamed up with Jason to tackle a team triathlon at the Wildwood Sanctuary this morning. It wasn't the Ironman, but it was a buttload of fun. The event was advertised as "non-competitive" and participants were expected to complete a 1.5 mile bike ride, .5 mile canoe, and 1.5 mile run. The field was split up into heats, Jason and I were in Heat 2. As we approached the starting line I noticed two rather lithe looking young ladies in our heat along with several soccer moms and a few preteens. I pulled my bike right to the line and Jason tucked in behind me. The whistle blew and we took off. There was a mad sprint for position as the road narrowed to a trail and turned to gravel ahead. I was just sliding into the lead as some 13 year old kid came out of nowhere and cut me off. I locked up my rear tire on the gravel and almost lost the whole bike. As I regained control the little snot ahead of me quickly dropped speed, looking like he was in need of some oxygen. Ahead of me lay a surprisingly steep hill, which I tore into Lance Armstrong style. At the top I took a peek behind and noticed Jason right there with me. The rest of the biking route was a series of ups and downs with some tight turns thrown in. Jason and I pretty much dominated the ride, but I did occasionally notice one of the lithe ladies hanging back in the distance.

The ride ended with a short wood chipped trail that led to a parking lot where we dropped the bikes and hopped into our canoes. Jason and I took a minute for a quick drink at this point, which turned out to be a pretty bad idea. The lithe ladies arrived and scooted into a canoe before us. Jason and I were in one shortly thereafter, and were very happy to see that the ladies were unduly hasty and were seated facing each other! While they got that sorted out Jason and I slid back into the lead. In a few minutes we came to the buoy that marked our turn around point, but not before I gave Jason a facefull of water, and ran the canoe aground. I pulled a ribbon off of the buoy to prove that we actually had been there, and we headed back. It didn't take long to run the canoe into a large patch of foliage, which delayed us long enough for the lithe ladies to take the lead again. We eventually extricated ourselves from that mess and put up a valiant effort to catch the ladies. At one point in time we slid in between two oncoming canoes, avoiding collision by inches. Alas, it wasn't enough and the ladies arrived first at the transfer point.

Leaving the water Jason and I were only a few yards behind the ladies. We were also eager to leave the transfer point behind. Just because we rammed one canoe when coming in to dock doesn't give them the right to get an attitude. Anyway, we headed off on the run with the girls easily within reach. It should be noted that Jason and I combined probably haven't run a total of one mile in the last year. Pre-race I thought to myself "A mile and half isn't all that far. Jason's young, and I can ride like a madman. Piece of cake." About 1/4 mile into the run I was starting to hurt, but we were starting to pull the girls in. Then they dropped the hammer. One of them stopped to tie her shoe, and then they both took off. We didn't see them again until the finish line. My will had been broken. Jason and I completed the run using an embarassing walk-run-walk strategy, but easily held second in our group. We both got free T-shirts, and "thanks for showing up" certificates. In the final standings we came in 6th overall and 5th out of 6 all male teams. All in all we left for the day with some wet shoes and good memories. Next year we're thinking about doing some training.