Race day fail

After doing well at a duathlon after my injury last year, I signed up for one this year: the Winter Begone Duathlon. The forecast for Oronoco was not promising: rainy and windy with some thunderstorms. I'd already paid for it though, and it wasn't cheap, plus I've got enough Portland blood in me that I know I won't melt when wet. Sascha didn't sign up, but intended to do it as well, knowing that this is a new, small event that she could get away with not pre-registering for.

The day started out well enough, but the closer we got to Rochester, the gloomier it got. By the time we got there, it was starting to rain. Right after I registered, but before Sascha did, it started seriously pouring down! As the race time approached, I braved my way to the pavilion to see what was going on. They'd decided to delay it half an hour due to some lighting that was spotted. So I went back to the car to keep warm and dry. Just before normal start time it let up, and a race volunteer came by and told everyone they would be starting on time! So I literally ran to the start line (as much of a warm up as I would get), and we started. Everyone would do the short course, which, as it turned out, was pretty short!

The long course was 5K, 31K, 10K. I figured the short course would be more like 5/20/5, but the first run ended up even shorter than that. I flew through transition using my cyclocross skills, mounted the bike and - flat tire! The aero wheels I'd borrowed from Sascha for my ghetto bike had a slow leak. On the back of course - with an 8 speed cassette. Sascha had her 650c TT bike, which wouldn't have helped either. The only thing to do was pump up the slow leak at my car and see how far I could get. That ended up being only a few miles, so I turned around and headed back, re-inflating it from a volunteer's car enough to get back.

Kind of frustrating to endure all of that only to get take out by a slow leak. An expensive lesson to learn! I'd scheduled a massage for tomorrow, so to 'earn' it I did 10K around Lake Calhoun. Of course it rained on me after the first lap, and my MP3 player battery died. Naturally. Hopefully Tum Rup Thai tonight will make it all better! Right now I'm on 3rd coffee, trying to stay awake!