On Sunday I woke up to the sound of hard driving rain at about 5:30 am - I was scheduled to ride in the Nebraska Triathlon Club Duathlon out at Pioneers Park at 7:30 a.m. Believing that it would be cancelled or postponed, but not willing to give up totally, I threw on my bike clothes, put the bike in the car, and drove out to the park to find out what the organizers were going to do.
Unfortunately, as there was no lightning, they decided to hold the race. The rain continued to fall throughout the whole race, causing the road to be covered in large puddles and streams of water all along the course. This made for nervous descents and turns at the bottom of the hills - but as far as I know there were no crashes.
Peter and I were beaten out of first place by a couple of 20-something co-workers of Peter's (they work at the Oven where Peter plays guitar on Thursdays and Sundays). We did get second place, although we were a few minutes behind where we finished last year. I averaged just under 19 mph for the three laps, which I'll take given the bad weather, hills, and complete lack of any warm-up. We told them that when they get to their mid to late 40s, and they ever get diabetes and cancer, then they can talk smack about their win.
When I got home, I put the bike up on my rack to oil the chain - and heard a loud sloshing of water in my rear tire as I spun it. I took the wheel off and removed one bead of the tire, took out the tube, and poured out about a cup of water out through the valve hole. No wonder the bike felt heavy on that last lap :)
I have had some nice teamFIRE rides this week - although not on the official Wednesday ride, which may or may not still exist. On Thursday last week, I headed out with Adrian and Jace and a couple of friends on the Jamaica trail for a nice ride, and last night several of us (Kevin M., Nicol, Jen, Conrad, and Rachel) took a nice short ride to Sprague, followed by a quick visit to the team clubhouse (Janna met us there after finishing her teaching ride).
Sounds like the Monday teaching ride is going to be a regular thing - an opportunity to introduce newbs to group riding. After watching people struggle into the wind during TdN while riding 20 feet behind people riding the same pace, this is something that could really prove to be useful. Jen can always demonstrate the proper water bottle techniques:
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