5430 Sprint

This is a big race. 1,200 and it sold out. http://www.5430sports.com/5430sprint.htm Boulder Res. sees a lot of events. All 3 races in this series. A couple ‘cross races each season. Boulder Backroads Marathon. My traditional 1st open-water swim each year on January 1. Kinetics etc., etc. This one was mostly flat and that means fast. Not fast getting into transition to set up though. That was just like airport security. Long lines to get questioned about who you are and then partial disrobing on the orders of folks who don’t have a college education. Perky high school kids who are volunteering is the big difference here. They did a good job and had probably been there 2 hours by the time ! dragged my sleepy ass into the lot. Remember to thank them when you see them. ! thought ! was pretty early. ! wasn’t. ! had to hunt for a rack. The only one ! could find had the line to the outhouses right through it. Kinda like the emergency exit on airplanes. When there isn’t an emergency going on you get lots of room. During the emergency it can be pretty hectic, but @ least you can cut in line. Charley set up the RMTC tent over a picnic table for us. Wandering thru the expo area some cute chick in the green volunteer shirts grabbed my butt and ran away giggling. She looked like a lawyer. You know you can’t tackle lawyers. This was a TnT race so there were a bunch of them. Pre-race ! wandered in to get used to the water. Brrrrr. ! thought ! had spent enough time @ Hormone-suppression depth until ! saw an Athena in a pink bikini. No wetsuit for her. It’s back-ordered. Wave 6 was all guys in red caps. ! used to dig red-heads. This may have turned me away. We were off. ! wore the Garmin so ! could see if the buoys were set up straight. Still having some problems getting it to work in the water. 17:11 for the swim and long run to T1. There was the volunteer chick again. She didn’t like me rinsing my feet off. Clearly she likes her boys dirty. Pretty quick in T1. The bike had one tough hill right outside the Res. going in and out. The climbs were gradual and barely noticeable. A few fast descents got my average speed up to 22.1 mph. Like ! said, it was fast. @ mile 10 ! saw Denny having a discussion w/ his tire on the side of the road. He had a couple of those chats. The TnT kids were all evenly spaced on the bike. Every 5 minutes ! would go by the purple. Of them ! heard of 2 crashes and one DNF. The crashers both got up and finished. The DNF surprised me. !’ve ridden w/ him. He’s freakin’ fast and he can run too. The swim was the problem. He finished too after being pulled out of the water and having his chip removed. ! didn’t talk to him after, but ! suspect he hadn’t spent enough time in the water beforehand to acclimate. Going out too fast in shockingly cold water will leave you gasping for air. !’ve been there more than once. Even ! could have been one of those crashers. On a fast section in the back, just after passing the yellow Kestrel chick again a bunny hopped across my path. Bunny-hopping bunnies isn’t an option on the aero bars. ! did get some air on the speed bump before T2. Wouldn’t be that scary except that my front wheel was loose. ! had no idea until ! got ready to load her into the Monster truck hours later. T2 also went well. The busted foot was taped up tight and pretty much healed. !’ll have to find another excuse next year. First mile of the run went fast…for me. The second mile was slower. That was because we had to slalom the cones @ the turn-around. ! saw lots of TnTs and RMTCs on the out and back course. Talking to all of them made me feel popular. Or @ least what ! imagine popularity would be like. Mary Carey was hangin’ @ the end of the dam road. “All downhill to the beer” Jeff told me there was a hott chick up ahead. Jeff, she waited for me @ the finish. Just about everyone who outran me was there to cheer me home. None were as annoying as the guy yelling before the last corner. !’m surprised he didn’t get beaten up. The beer flowed. He started getting hoarse, but he kept yelling. Food crossed his mind and he followed that thought. Bagels and chocolate chip pancakes. There was a nice downhill before the last bit then around the corner w/ 50 yards to go. Over the line gasping. It was a hot day. Right in front of me was a trough of icy water. Only one sensible thing to do. ! was sitting on the edge starting to lean back when the volunteer girl ! spoke of earlier chastised me. None of that would be allowed on her watch. She obviously has hygiene issues and ! would have been way too clean after a bath. She did allow me to fish a bottle of water out and ironically, ! nearly fell in accidentally. Our Jocelyn got 2nd in her age group. Jordan got 2nd in his age group and Tanner was 2nd Clydesdale. The other guy only beat him because he was pulling the bud “lite” beer wagon. !’m still trying to convince Shelby to sue those bud guys. They use rice in their “beer”. The guy on the high-wheeler got to race. ! got 1:33:34. Slower than what ! was telling everyone by 2 minutes. That was good for 317th overall out of 1,067 and 42nd of 85 in the red-head group. Post race hanging out ! learned that Sarah actually became a princess @ 11. All princesses have a pony and that is when the parents made the pet upgrade. She had been petitioning for a few years by then. Meghan expounded on a comment. All you girls should go to Bike Works for repairs. Meghan says ALL the guys there are super HOTT. On and on she went. Seems they only wear thongs and use a projector to display test-ride releases on their chests. She always signs them legibly. !’m not sure why she told me that unless she thinks there’s a bad reason ! don’t have a girlfriend. As you know, other than on Colfax, being a girlfriend is a voluntary position. Once girls get over, like 8 they are no longer that gullible. Here’s who was there that ! saw. Me, Doug, Roberta who crashed in a bike race yesterday, Michael who’s “tapering” for Coeur d’Alene (8th), Yon, Becky, Kim, Jamie, Holly, Jeff, Sarah (5th), Amy, Nina, Tanner (2nd Clydesdale), Jocelyn (10th girl, 2nd age group), Jordan (5th overall, 2nd age group, fastest 5k of the day), Meghan, Denny, Matt, Mary S. (10th), Rick, Wilmer, Jen, Tom, Julie, Starla, Jayci, Sarah, Leah, Shauna, Janey AND TNTrs Patty, Meaghan, Deb who is also RMTC and has twins learning how to drive so stay off the roads in Golden, Leon, Nicole, Bonnie (crash), Justin, Kelly, Brandon (fastest TnT run), Patrick (Beat his wife Sharron in the swim and bike, but she came back strong in T2 and the run), Sharron, Peter, Scott (2 pre-race flats), Rachael, Elizabeth (fastest TnT swim), Missy (mother of fastest TnT swimmer), Shannon, Stefanie, Beverly, Sheri (fastest TnT overall 1:36 and fastest TnT bike 20.7 mph) She’s going to be trouble, Tanya, Jennifer, David, Jamie, Heidi. That’s 25 TnTs each collecting @ least $X,000 for Leukemia and Lymphoma research. That’s a whole lot of money (25$X,000 to be exact) to kick cancer’s butt. Some of the treatments this research will come up w/ may be useful for treating other types of cancers too, so it really is a great benefit to a huge number of people. Maybe even someone you know. Great job guys and Thanks. Good thing Charley was taking names instead of kickin’ ass out there.