In her triathlon debut, Jane pretty much did as well as she could have. Putting on a clinic, she finished 5th overall out of a field of 534. She placed 2nd in her age group of 25-29 years. She has a decent swim background from junior high and a bit in high school. At the peak of my swimming fitness, she was still faster than me in the water (not by much-ha ha). Her swim went well, passed a few, got passed by a few, got out of the water pretty much where she started - about 15 deep. The event was using timing chips and sending swimmers off in 3 second intervals instead of a mass start. So eventhough she was the 14th starter of 500+, she could still get beat by people who never pass her.
Got on the bike and headed out, 10 miles. not really far at all. The way she was accelerating out of the gate I knew she could chase down the people in front of her and be back first for the run. The only rider to pass her was on a TT bike with what looked like a 404 on the front and full carbon disc on the rear. Considering jane was riding without aero bars on a standard road frame she did well. Passed everyone and only got passed by that one lady. Apparently she said she blew her doors off, going about 3 mph faster when she passed. Got back second from the bike, had a fast transition and was off in less than a minute for the finishing 5k. The rider with the full carbon disc had 2 minute gap.
The run is her weakest leg and she ended getting passed by one other racer. She crossed the line 3rd overall, but after they factored start times, she lost 2 more places. Still very impressive and I'm so proud of her. she might have a future in triathlons now.
On a side note, I finally got back to riding my bike. I had to take the majority of this past week off. turns out in my crash last sunday I got a bit of a bone bruise on the side of my knee. It was swollen after the crash but didn't really give me trouble until I tried to ride on tuesday. A few days off with some ibuprofen and ice has gotten me to a point where I can put in bigger efforts without pain. I'll try to salvage this last week of training before tour of KC next weekend.
Took my oldtime loop down south this afternoon and for the first time in awhile was catching a lot of crap from drivers. Had one driver near paseo cuss me out for not riding on the sidewalk. I told him to F off and when he stopped at the next red light I took the opportunity to tell him to check the laws and remind him of what a piece of shit he was. Later in the ride I was asked by a drunk homeless guy "what the f are you looking at," he seemed like he was provoking me into a fight. Still fired up from my last encounter I gave serious thought to throwing down. But then the light turned green and I rolled on. Just one of those days.
I will finish off the season as a cat 4 and upgrade after Gateway Cup in St. Louis. There will be some fast 4's at that race and I'll attempt to podium.
It used to be my personal policy not to respond to drivers at all. Lately, I've taken to responding to them in French. The only thing that could be worse for Americans in cars than a cyclist on the roads, ostensibly slowing them down, is a knowing a French guy was doing it. If they knew better, it would come as a great embarrassment to them to discover that "foreign" people understand local laws better than they do.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear Jane did very well in the tri.
French, that is good. How do you learn?
ReplyDeleteJane Congratulations, that's awesome!
ReplyDeleteI'm told 20% of the French "spoken" language is English, partially because the young french find it cool, and partially because the french language lacks words with similar meanings. So I think you've already learned 20% of the french spoken language. You're off to a good start :)