Wendy's International Triathlon

O.k. places in this race take some explaining. Overall I was 74, in the women's bike results I was fourth. In the Coporate Challenge Team event, my team-mate and I were 15th. Not a bad little day. Started the race off a little rough, I hit the one button on my computer to start the timer and the whole thing went blank. It's a very long ride when you can't tell how fast you are going. It did come back on about 4 or 5 miles from the finish.

I also learned, before going out and playing with unknow wheels, do a ride with them. Tri-spokes are nice(Thank you Paul for lending them to us)but when you aren't used to them, they can get a little heavy. Still a great race. Jim and Larry did really well, and my team-mate is already planning for next year.

The Triathlon/Duathlon had over 600 people racing. So having the 8th fastest bike split wasn't too bad. The weather was a little cool to start but once I hit the road I was fine. I can certainly say that is one long transition area to start the bike, good-bye cleats. Couldn't seem to get any speed on the first half of Africa Rd so that was pretty disappointing. I really need to figure out what's causing the metal on metal scraping sound in my disk, I'm sure it draining some speed out of me.

Larry, you put up a good fight. We knew it was gonna be close.

Corporate Challenge Background:

Jim was the AEP newcomer, I've done it several times already. We were on relay teams and I was on the A team, Jim on the B team. If I could not match Jim's time, we had the teams wrong and I need to relinquish my spot.

Results, Jims time was 10 seconds better than mine. The caveat is that the total team time is what counts and that includes transitions. We transitioned at one end of the zone and the bikes exited at the far end. You could not mount the bike until you left the zone which meant a long walk or run with the bike. Our transitions were first and second best of the whole event and between them we ended up gaining 17 seconds on the B team which offset the bike time. Speedplay cleats rule. Didn't think to try it at the time, but next time I'm going to throw the bike over my shoulder cyclocross style. (Is that legal?)


The good:

I made no bets with Jim, I don't have to eat my top tube.
Jim had a great ride.
Our runner in the relay had the fastest run of the entire event, all 600 plus participants.
I was real happy with my time considering near zero practice.
The event is always a real blast. Between the crowds, the scads of riders you get to blow by, and the team transistions and dynamics. It's a ton of fun.