Those who may not know, half a stress fracture, picked up from 1/2 IM. So, Diana suggested myself and Sylvie do the relay - I did the swim and bike, Sylvie did the run.
Started the day, beautiful morning, just great, water temps perfect.
The swim - we were put in the last wave with the athenas, 39 and over women and men swimming the relay part - I had to wear a pink swim cap. As usual, somewhat anxious about the swim, forgot to check the seal on my goggles. The horn went off, right away, had a leak, stopped and pulled the straps tight, this happened another three times before they sealed. We were swimming right into the sun rise, pretty, but hard to see the bouys, went off course a few times, as did many others. I got hit in the butt a few times by the same lady, what the heck, she was swimming backstroke. I finally got into a good candence and finished in 28:36, 341st out of 301 in the swim part - 1/2 mile swim.
Sylive has great getting zipped up in the wet suit, setting out my shoes, and always supporting and helping, we had a plan for transistion, worked great.
As I stood up on the dock slipped by down slippery, finally got up and finished, stripped by wet suit setting down, put on the shoes and hobbled up the ramp to the bike, slow transistion hopping along. The transistion was good, did a double hop on the left foot getting the bike out of transistion. One note, the SF did not allow be to stand when pedding, so, sat and pushed had the entire ride. Bike time, 41:52, 60th fastest out of 391 bike times. The bike course was hard, up a few good hills and one real steep hill coming down over a cattle gaurd, scary fast, hit 45 mph, and then hit the breaks with the cattle gaurd coming. Happy with the bike given the time lost not being able to stand up on the hills. One thing I forgot, good some good cheers from the aid stations, down in the aero position, passing bikers like crazy, it was like I was leading the race.
The transition - Sylvie quickly took off the timing chip from my ankle and was off running, she did great wtih a 29:52, right in the middle of the feild. Sylvie was not at her best, not feeling well and still gave it a good effort.
The end, got a good picture of me and Sylvie together, it was fun. The awards, since we had not done a sprint relay before, did they give awards, we stuck around, took second in the relay division. what the heck, two nice plaques and finisher medals. The podium, usually everyone has almost gone home when it gets to our divisions, this time, they called out the relay awards first, we got up on the podium to some good cheers, how often does that happen, not often. It was a fun day. The SF seems to be getting better. Sylvie was a good sport. Sylvie saw a biker really biff it going into transition.
Stay Kool, B of BS Rools out
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