Curses, Foiled Again!

Last week Esmerelda and I headed out to try the course for the Tri to Win triathlon we are doing in two weeks. She did the race last year, we are both doing it this year. It will be my maiden voyage. Last week I had a major bonk on the first hill and felt like trash for the rest of the ride. Its been in my head all week, I really needed to ride it today to get the bad mojo out of my head and feel better about doing the race. My friend from work is the race director's wife and lives near the course, she said she'd love to ride this morning. I left the house at 7:15 to meet her at 8AM. Get on the highway on ramp and remember that I don't have my helmet, circle back and pick it up. Hit go on the Garmin and it says I will have 7 minutes to spare. Yeah, except it was the WRONG place it took me so I ended up 8 minutes late. When I got there D was there and 4 other women were getting ready to ride so we headed out together. I got out onto the highway and the ride felt bumpy. Is my tire low, yeah, kinda.

Yeah, kinda was a serious understatement--TOTALLY FLAT! I put the new tube on and then struggled to get the tire on. One biker whizzed past us without even a look. Then Dewey Tri Guy and Eagleman happened upon us and helped me out. So Eagleman got the tire on and we tried to inflate it, no dice. Apparently somewhere in the putting on of the new tube I put a hole in it as well! Luckily we were no more than a mile from the start so I didn't have to drag my bike too far. If you can't bike--RUN!

We ran the 5K for the tri, D was a great pacer. We ran the first mile in 10:43, the second in 10:49 and the third in 11:35--the last mile the sun came out and we had to go back UP the hill we started out going down. Back up that hill is pretty grueling, D assures me that with the crowd cheering it'll be a piece of cake!

Tomorrow the bike goes to Race Pace for a pre-race tune up and obviously a new tube put on by guys who really know what they are doing!