Waterfront Triathlon

I've been a bit bad about writing lately, so I'll do a few quick posts to catch things up...

Last weekend was the BMW of Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon (yep, there's that site I designed again!) While I did the whole event last year, this time around I was only interested in the bike portion (just not enough of the other stuff going on), so I recruited a few friends to team up with me: Carol (who's becoming my #1 relay teammie - we've done Tsali the last 2 years together), and Kelly (who filled in for Michelle who couldn't make it down). We thought we had a solid team, although it's typical that the local high school all star athletes put together some ringer team, so who knows what we were in for.

Race weekend was fun - I had some friends in from out of town that crashed at my house, which meant some late nights. They weren't racing (just promoting their company, TriathlonDVD.com, so they didn't need the quality sleep I did!) Saturday we had some good storms - no worries, as long as mother nature got it out of her system. 

Well, she didn't. Sunday morning came along....  the rising sun just never broke through the clouds, which became increasingly dark and angry as the minutes ticked by. Carol began the race as our swimmer, getting in the water shortly after the start at 7:30am. Us bike relay people were in the transition area tent, eyeing the sky. Sure enough, about 5 minutes before Carol emerged from the water, the big drops started to dump. *lovely* Everyone knows how much I hate skinny tires on wet pavement. I usually avoid weather like this so my experience riding in it is scarce. 

Carol ran in, gave me the timing band, I ran to my bike and was off (trying not to slip as I pushed my bike down to the mounting area). The bike course is pretty cool, which is why I really wanted to do this race. From the riverfront, we head up MLK and hop on Highway 27. It's the main access road from I75/I24 through downtown. Long, swoopy and pretty straight. I don't know the elevation gain during these 40km, but it's pretty sizable for a tri apparently. My concern was riding on a well-traveled highway, and what the rain would do to the oil drips from cars that I was certain were running right through the middle of our lane (1 lane was used for cars, 1 for bikes). The left side of our lane was used for passing bikes, and I wanted to stay clear of the center, but riding in the right side of the lane was sketch as that was closest to the auto traffic. I just stayed focused and steady and did what I could. 

It rained steady for the first third of the course, then slowed to a sprinkle (not that the roads got any dryer!) Thank god for race adrenaline, as I think that gave me the confidence to keep a pretty steady pace... around 19mph. Not great, but faster than last year and not bad for crappy weather conditions that had me tense. I made it back into transition in one piece without sliding out (unfortunately several others did), and sent Kelly to attack the 10k run.

As racers finished and results were posted, it seems the women's relay was conveniently left out. We stuck around for the awards.. just in case. It's funny... we all thought our personal performances were rather mediocre... that if anything did happen , it was due to the awesome efforts of the other two. Well, our collective mediocrity still kicked ass, as we won our division! We got some cool etched wine glasses (that I have yet to break in) and Hammer Gel (always good to have as I suck that stuff down). 

A few pics.... the trio courtesy of Brightroom Photography.