Friday the 17th I headed to Amarillo to go visit my brother and his family; okay I was REALLY going to the Chick-fil-a Triathlon and visiting was a bonus round benefit. It had been a while since we'd been able to visit, and getting over there early enough to go to dinner and chat was going to be great additional fun. The drive over was easy and pretty relaxing. I listened to the Christian station on XM and chatted on the phone. When I got to Mack and 'Lina's I realized I was in Texas time, an hour ahead of my usual time. Suddenly it dawned on me that the 5 AM arrival at transition was REALLY going to be a 4 AM arrival time. Now I was realizing that I would have to get up at 3:15 AM for the race. Hmmm, this was interesting since I knew I would not be headed to bed until well after 10 PM my time. Oh well, off to packet pick up and then to dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew. We went to World Market and this country mouse had a great time shopping for stuff that she can never purchase in Fort Sumner. Fancy pants coffee, tea, chili oil, exotic spices, nifty noodles, etc. Okay, 3:15 came pretty early, but Mack set the coffee maker timer, so there was fresh coffee; he is a prince among brothers. I had a packet of instant oatmeal, and had taken my brother's giant coffee cup full of delicious coffee with my map to the triathlon. Only a little navigation difficulty, but open racking was de rigueur and that is my favorite. I do tend to have a bit of trouble entering my data accurately into Imathlete, and I'd accidentally entered my swim time as 12 seconds instead of 12 minutes. This made me #1 and I am so far from number one in my swim time. I asked them to move me towards the BACK of the line, and they did.
The swim went well because I was able to do to the freestyle for the entire swim without resorting to the backstroke even once. I do get dizzy like crazy from some inner ear disturbance I have, but I managed and the dizziness was survivable. I was not the last person out of the pool, but it was close. Dash to the bike, on with the spiffy new bike shoes, and out on the bike course. Sadly, I missed a turn and got lost on the bike course and got lost. Once I realized I was lost, I quickly whipped around to return to my last known "correct" location. Unfortunately, I lost control and caught a magnificent fall in the middle lane of a six lane highway. Good for me that the automobiles were motivated to avoid running over the woman laying on the road bleeding and then looking in panic at her bike. My bike was fine, but my bike computer had become partially detached and I could not get it all the way off. Potentially it could get jammed in the spokes. I moved it back as far as I could and sort of wedged it into the quick release on the back wheel and just prayed it would not wiggle free. I kept wiping the blood off my arm onto my jersey and figured I would have to try to make up the lost time. I hustled back onto the route and saw a road crew guy. I stopped and asked if I could borrow a pocket knife. Now what are the chances that a road crew guy does not have a pocket knife? Twenty gazillion to one? Well, he didn't have a knife. I thought it was constitutionally required in Texas that every male over the age of eight carry a pocket knife unless they'd lost more than two fingers due to the use of a pocket knife; evidently I am incorrect on this assumption. I carry a pocket knife (Leatherman Skeletool, possibly the sweetest and most handy knife ever made).
Anyway, no more technical malfunctions, no more side trips, and back for the run. I was not the last person in from the run, always nice since that is too frequently my experience. The organizers had lovely cold towels waiting for us, and cool shade tents all set up for us. There was no prize in my future, but I did get a lovely finisher's medal. All athletes got a tasty Chik-fil-a box lunch, and that was yummy. I 33 out of 37 overall in the women and 4th in the Athena division. Since this was a Southwest Challenge series event, that earns seven points. My run time was not so bad, 43 minutes, given how much I hurt from the fall on the bike. The nice wet towel they gave us at the finish meant I could clean up the road rash too.
The drive back to my brother's house should have been easy, after all I should just reverse the GoogleMap directions and off I go. Unfortunately I was impaired and it took me a long time to return. I devolved to driving around looking for familiar landmarks and finally located the house. We went to a great sandwich place where I had great french onion soup and then we went grocery shopping at Walmart. It is great to go to a store with a produce selection. Wow is all I can say.
I got home about 5 and barely beat Les home. He'd been out because there had been a bad grass fire and he'd been on call and had to help fight the fire. Some foolish person had thrown their BBQ grill full of hot coals out on the side of the road by the lake turn off and about 20 sections of grassland was destroyed in the blaze that ensued. There is a huge part of the County folk that are wondering, "Really, what were you thinking?" Evidently, he was thinking, "I don't want this hot grill to burn up my tent" and he was not thinking about the potential damage to the grassland that was tinder dry around De Baca County.
I don't race again until the 9th of July and that will be Bottomless Lake in Roswell. We are headed to California to visit Stephen, so I will get to do some biking out in Ridgecrest. It promises to be hot, but there are some good routes out there that I've used before and CA is a pretty bike friendly state. Like NM, they give bikes 5' of room and there are good bike lanes on the roads in Ridgecrest.
Patricia
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