Team Triathlon "Down Under"...well kinda sorta...

Sunday, September 25th the Aussies hosted a Triathlon at their Consulate General compound. The Tri consisted of a 600m swim in a pool, 16 kilometer bike, 8 kilometer run. There were individual and team competitions. Chief and I, half-heartedly, committed to race as a team a week ago. What really made up our minds was the fact that we had a scheduled training session the same day as the race. I really wasn't looking forward to running around, in the hot sun, pretending to shoot bad guys with my 9mm booger picker a-la 6th grade recess. Besides the chance to get out and ride a real bicycle, with the wind in my face was something I have only been able to dream about for the last 2 months.

9mm Booger Picker

Chief and I were unsuccessful in finding a third team member. Most people couldn't swim or didn't fancy running 5 miles in the hot sun. Actually most people didn't fancy running at all. The couple people that were interested guess-timated that they could run 8-9 minute miles. At which case we weren't really interested in them. Even though we weren't training for this event specifically we weren't going into it just to participate. We wanted to be contenders. Chief finally decided he would do the swim and the run. I would do the bike. Good on him.

Now that we had a team we needed a bike. A minor detail, I know. There was hear-say that bikes would be available to borrow. But what kind of bike that would be was a mystery. We sent out e-mail blasts and asked everyone we came across if they had or knew of a bike we could borrow. Come race morning, no joy. Looked like we were at the mercy of the rumor mill. At the race registration we ran into some Americans, from the Embassy, who were doing the race also. Apparently they had an extra mountain bike. However the rear derailleur didn't work. At that point we didn't care. If it had anything resembling two wheels we would take it. So 15 minutes before the start of the race we finally had our 35,000 pound, Schwinn, full suspension, 3 speed (bike had three rings on the crank), mountain bike. After a 10 minute test ride/warm up, I pronounced it, heavy.  Now we were ready to race!!

Chief rocked the swim. He was probably one of the faster swimmers in the whole competition. So much so that folks were  video taping him as he ticked off the laps. Chief gets done, I hand him some aqua and I run to my rusty steed. As I line up to start the bike leg the timer groups three of us together, to make timing easier. One of the guys is riding a nice Orbea carbon road bike. "Oh this guys is going to be a rocket ship", I thought. The timer sends us off and I am right behind Orbea dude. We start climbing a hill  and I end up passing the guy. Then he passes me on the down hill. But wait a minute, big ass speed bumps coming up. I pass him and proceed to get massive air over the speed bumps. As I am airborne one of the local security guards starts clapping enthusiastically and then proceeds to salute me as I fly by. He never stopped clapping the entire race. Except when he was saluting. Orbea dude and I play this back and forth game for most of the first lap until my chain pops off at the start of the second lap. It took me a minute or so to fix my chain. But after that I never saw Orbea dude again. I managed to keep my lap time even on both laps. My time was 31:20 for the 16k with an average speed of 19 mph. And that is with the mechanical time included. I am happy with that considering the bike weighed a million pounds and I only had hard, medium, and ridiculously easy gears.

Chief finished up the race with a respectable 35 minute 8k run. In the end our time was good enough for second place in the team competition. We lost by only 2 minutes. Chief did the swim in 10:36, their time was 12 something. I completed the bike in 31:20 their time on the bike was 31 flat. However their rider was an Italian, wearing Italian kit, riding an exotic Italian carbon road bike. Yet he only gained 20 seconds on us during the bike. Hmmm.... Where they got us was the run, obviously. Our time was 35 minutes and some change. Their run time was 31 something.

Our sly little plan to get out of training failed miserably. Apparently there is this little thing that you can do. Its called rescheduling. And that is what they did. So come Monday morning there we were, booger pickers flailing around wildly, "Bang, bang!!"