Also of note, last Sunday I almost got hit by a car and hit a mailbox at 20mph instead (haha, I am an idiot sometimes). I went down hard and twisted my shoulder pretty bad, cut up my back and got the worst whiplash I have ever experienced! Naturally, I was determined not to let it set me back with only 2 races left. I tried swimming but the shoulder was in serious pain. (It was also nearly impossible to flip-turn with whiplash, seriously). My parents, being physical therapists, of course obliged themselves by lecturing me about icing and resting and pumping ibuprofen down my throat. I ended up doing a little bit of all of this since my shoulder really did hurt a lot. A number of friends and co-workers told me I should drop out of the race, but by roommate Rob came through, "screw them" he said. True, when do you ever race 100%, really. I mean I never seem to.
I got in Friday; on Saturday I ran and biked and swam, but you couldn't really tell the difference between them, it was so humid you felt like it was all swimming! (I secretly like humidity actually; the air is so thick and delicious). Later, I cranked out some schoolwork for an upcoming committee meeting presentation and chilled with my home-stay John and Kara who were AWESOME. Another thing I will write more about, but home-stays are a great way to visit an unknow place--its like instant friends in an unknown city! They give you a place to sleep and show you all the cool stuff! Plus, their friend Tara was there from Corpus Christi, so we had a fun group. Here is Tara, John and me after the race. (Kara was taking the picture)
Sunday, we got to the race nice and early, the sun wasn't up and as I stepped out of the car a herd of mosquitos viscously assaulted every inch of exposed skin on my body. I plastered myself in some volunteer bug spray and warmed up a lot (to keep moving so they couldn't land on me). I also took an ibuprofen since my shoulder was still quite a bit touchy.
I ended up having a great swim (I need to write a blog post about Jane sometime because her coaching this summer has helped me tremendously). I was less than a minute from the leaders out of the water and got out on the bike course with the leaders in sight! Oh snap.
The bike course was literally flatter than the swim course. It seemed like the whole thing was uphill and I had to constantly fight the urge to stand up since I knew it was actually flat. (Galveston is basically a sandbar so there are literally no hills. (Ok, there WAS a bump in the road at one point; a good 3 inch hill). I had a good bike (my fastest ever 40k in 55:something) but the highlight was passing Matt Reed at like mile 15. I looked over and was like, 'holy crap, its Matt Reed, holy crap, stay calm, holy crap' followed by a couple minutes of biking way too hard. The whole time I was thinking of this line from a James Bond movie where the villain is driving a blimp and saying in an eastern european accent, "more, more power."
The run was eventful too actually. I was in third at this point by a lot and the course was windy all around this weird Jurassic Park-ish theme park area (tourist haven). I accidentally missed a short out and back on the first lap and passed Tyler Butterfield. I had absolutely no idea I cut but he did. He yelled at me like a mile later when he caught me and I felt like a total idiot. Here I am totally lost and now I blew my best pro race. I ran mile 4 pretty dejected until I got to the point I had gone wrong on lap 1. I figured what the heck, I will just run it twice this time, they are probably going to DQ me anyway, I might as well get a full 10k in since I flew all the way here. Who knew, one of the race directors was on the course and saw me do it twice, thanked me and said since I was so far ahead of 4th, they would let it fly. Wow, I definitely appreciated that. Thanks for looking out for me Athena.
Finished third, my first professional podium! Super cool. Home-stay Kara got some pics (she is a professional photographer for BP actually). Side-note, the petrochemical industry is HUGE there--of interest to me being a PhD chemical engineer--I felt right at home with all the distillation towers and cute birdies covered in crude oil (just kidding, chemicals are awesome!!).
The day only got better after the race. We cleaned up and headed to the fishermans wharf area for some seafood--I had a bowl gumbo, a breadbowl of clam chowder, and some cheese dipped bacon wrapped fried shrimp. It was insane. I could barely find the shrimp. THEN, we went to the confectioners and I had 3 scoops of homemade ice cream (2 were mine (moca chip and coffee) and 1 was an uneaten scoop of peanut butter chocolate chip from Tara). I was about ready to pass out at this point...
With an 8pm flight back to Denver, the sun was setting when we took off and the atmosphere of the plane echoed the peaceful surfeit of tired bodies returning from eventful weekends. By now I have become so used to flying on weekends that it really is completely comfortable. It just seems right. There is no stress. In fact, I love it. The cabin lights were dimmed; I wasnt sleepy but was in a state of total content listening to passion pit and almost in a trance (listen to the song and you will understand). I just took a look around at everyone on the plane watching their ipads, wondering where they were going, what they were thinking, and thought about how cool it is to be able to travel all over the US to race triathlons, win a bit of money, make great friends, experience some local culture, and be back for school on Monday. Really, I must be one of the luckiest people to have this life. Athena sure is looking out for me.
Its the end of September and already it is snowing in the mountains here...I guess that means its a good time to finish the season. LA this weekend and then I am on break!
Rudy
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