When Animals Attack IV

On Sunday, I did the bike leg on a relay team for the City of Portland Triathlon. It is well known amongst my friends that pigs will fly on a cold day in hell before I will swim in the Willamette River, but the sustainable focus of this race is awesome and I wanted to participate in some capacity this year.

Introducing "When Animals Attack IV," ready to rock it old school relay style:

Recently minted Ironman bad ass extraordinaire Scott Hull led off with stellar 28 minute swim. Here I am waiting for Scott, looking superfly (and rather bobbleheaded):The bike route was three laps of an eight mile course out of downtown, up Barbur to Beaverton/Hillsdale Highway, up Terwilliger, back up Barbur, then back into downtown. About 530 feet of elevation gain per lap. Not exactly a time-trialers optimum course, but it was an interesting course and fun to ride in a cave of pain sort of way.

I averaged 25 minutes per lap and about 19.9 miles per hour. Total time of 1:15:27. Fourth best female time of the day and 33rd fastest overall. The three women that finished in front of me are all elite age-group racers and went on to run a 10K after their ride. This is spectacularly impressive--because when I was done, I went on to lay on the grass and try not to puke in front of my friends. Scott has a great picture of me trying not to puke. I'll post it when he sends it over.

Doug ran the 10K in a blazing 39:39. My rudimentary addition skills indicate that Doug was the one that caught up to, and passed, the two co-ed relay teams that were in front of us. We finished in 2:25:10, first out of eight co-ed relay teams.

Now, the three of us are pretty decent athletes and thirteen people (including three women) managed to do this faster than we did...all by themselves. Wow. Really, wow.

Now it is officially time to put the Kuota to bed for the winter and spend some time figuring out how the hell to jerryrig my back race wheel so that it stops either rubbing the frame or refusing to spin.