The Racing Season is Over

We did two big events in September. (Click on the links to see my race reports.) The first was the Heart of Virginia metric century bike ride. That's 62 miles (100 km). A nice length-it takes about 4 hours of riding time. Here's the before picture of me, Richard, and buddy Adam. Adam did the English century, i.e., 100 miles.


The nice thing about doing a ride like this is 1) rest stops & 2) it's not a race. Did I mention the rest stops? They have food, gatorade, water, and nice volunteers.

We had a pretty uneventful ride. It was cool and foggy when we started, which is way better than hot and sunny. The sun did come out. The countryside and flowers were gorgeous. 2.5 miles from the end, Richard's rear tube exploded. Yes, with a bang. You don't fix this sort of flat with a patch kit. You can see why.


Since Richard had somehow neglected to take a spare tube (which pretty much guaranteed he'd get a flat), I finished without him and got the car. Then we fixed his tire and he finished the ride. The best thing about this ride: Ben and Jerry's ice cream at the end!

Naylor's Beach Oly Tri
The last weekend of September, we did the Naylor's Beach Olympic Triathlon. This was a 1500 m swim in the Rapahanock River, followed by a 26 mile bike ride, and ends with a 10 k (6.2 mile) run. Or, at least, that is what it is supposed to be.


There's a lake with buoys out there somewhere! We got there early and it was super foggy. We set up our transition areas. My bib number was 1, so I got to go around saying "I'm number 1!" Then we sat around waiting for the fog to dissipate. They delayed the start by an hour because of the fog. I can just imagine swimmers going every which way and getting lost in the fog! With my goggles on, I couldn't even see the first buoy.

Before the race: still happy and energetic.


My race was decent. The swim was really tough, thanks to the current, the fog, and the attack buoys. I kept getting tangled in the buoy lines. That's never happened before. My swim was 10 min slower than last year in a lake. In the transition area, I saw Richard leaving. That meant that I was only about 1:30 behind him, even though he started 2 waves ahead. I expected, therefore, to see him ahead of me on the run.

The bike was beautiful and fast. Apparently cycling is now my strongest sport of the three. I don't know what happened to my swimming. Anyhow, I finished the bike, started the run, and kept looking for Richard ahead of me. Finally I started thinking that he must be finishing already. Then, when I was at mile 4, I saw him, at mile 1!

Hm, I thought, he must have had a flat or something. He looked fine, so I thought he must have gotten a rest while fixing his bike. Except I hadn't actually passed him on the side of the road, so that was a bit perplexing.

As it turns out, Richard had gotten lost on the bike and did 14 extra miles. Yup, he rode 40 miles instead of 26. When he finally finished, he was pretty demoralized and really really tired.

Those of you who know Richard well know that he has a talent for getting lost. I don't know why the possibility didn't occur to me. To be fair, he wasn't the only one who did extra miles. Plus the race organizers finally realized they needed volunteers at the particular corner where Richard and others went astray. What also lent to the extra miles was that when Richard intersected the course again, the volunteers told him to turn around and go back, and he did! I would have refused at that point, I think, even if it disqualified me.

On a brighter note, I won my division! Don't tell, but there was only one other person in my division. But I was still number 1.