Sunday was my 5th consecutive year to race at Jeff&Brede's Intergalactic Triathlon. It is put on by HRTC, so it is of course always a good race! This year was probably even more fun because as president I have met more members than ever and it was great to see so many of them out there both racing and volunteering.
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I was not entirely sure what to expect doing my one and only sprint of the year three weeks after IMCDA. I had done a sprint three weeks after IMAZ both years I did it and those went really well, but they were also in the cool air of early May, not the 110+ heat index of July of the hottest year on record for some time.
In each of the last 4 years, my time at the race had improved. I finished in 1:13 in 2008 and was hoping I could beat that, but knew it would be close. I came out of the swim a bit faster than I had in the past, so that was nice to see. The bike seemed to be going well, despite a lovely heart rate of 180, until bam! I hit something on my bike and it was an immediate "game over" for me - as in must stop biking now! I got off the road and saw that I had a flat back tire. I race on tubular tires and train on clincher tires. We all get a fair bit of practice changing clincher tires, but tubular tires are usually glued onto your race wheels, so in all honestly, not many of us at all have any real experience changing one. I proceeded to change mine and was happy in some sick way that I was getting a very good learning experience. I think it ended up taking me around 7-8 minutes to change it, with getting the tire off and putting the new one taking the longest time. The glue certainly did its job as I had to pull the tire off bit by bit. My spare was fairly stretched, but still a bit tricky to get back on with out the other side popping off. It probably would have gone quicker had I sat down, but I did not want to sit on the road as I'd be in other people's way and I did not want to sit on the ground - my butt was already wet from the swim and the ground was dirty and full of ants...would not have looked pretty for the rest of the race!
So anyway, I got the new tire on and it magically worked the way it was supposed to - score! Obviously beating my time from last year was out the window, but I still had a fun time racing out there. My legs did not so much feel like running, but I was pleased after to see that I was really only 10 seconds slower than last year on the run, so not that bad. I ended up placing 8th in my age group and I'll totally take it, flat tire and all!
Jon did awesome too - kicked total butt, but too bad some ringers came in from out of town and took the top 2 spots in his age group - he ended up 5th. Two years ago, breaking an hour in his age group would have won, this year it got you 5th place. Oh well, his goal was to break an hour and he did that with 3 seconds to spare - not too shabby at all!
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The funniest part about my whole tire debacle did not happen until I got home. I pulled the tire off the back of my seat, where I had strapped it in (you can't leave parts on the road in a race - considered littering or abandoning equipment, so if you get a flat tire, you have to take it with you), and got the leftover CO2 out (yes, I'm cheap and I save the canister with the head still on when I don't use a whole one...) all ready to air up the flat tire and see where the hole had been.
Then I saw this: 
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Um ya. How did I manage to pull the tire off, piece by piece, refold it and attach it back to my hydrotrail without seeing this??? Go me. It went entirely through both sides of the tubular tire. I'm just thankful nothing worse happened...but I do need to take the spare off and see what kind of damage is on the rim.
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