comrades

Last weekend, the Burrito Union 10-Hour Triathlon was in action out at Pattison State Park in Foxboro, WI. This would be a Duluth Running Company team effort w/Clint Agar making waves in the swim, I'd be cranking the bike, & Tony Stensland would be striding over the trail. A race of setbacks in the early going made for an exciting rebound in the closing portion of the day. During the first tri, Clint had trouble w/his breathing in the water as it was chillier than he expected and Tony missed a turn in the woods that costed him five minutes. Once #2 was in progress, this is where we lost the most significant time. Reports were coming in that some local was playing pranks out on the bike course by shattering beer bottles and throwing handfuls of tacks. I noticed some of this debris in the rain while out on the 14 mile out-n-back time trial section of WI 35 in the first go-round and returned unscathed. However, the next time wouldn't be as lucky. Flatting in a race is never fun, definitely, when you've got friends that are relying on you to come thru w/a good performance. About half way back, I thought I heard that horrible hissing sound in the wind and that dull feeling of rolling on a rim followed afterwards. My usual response.....FUCKIN' A'..... would be belted out and then I'd be on to fixing it but things didn't get better immediately. I realized that my spare had too short of a valve stem to reach thru the hole of my deep dish rims I chose to ride. Many generous competitors offered to hit it w/a CO2 but that didn't give it enough psi to push out for me to finish the job w/the mini pump. Finally, one brilliant guy had a collar to thread on which kept it out in order to attach the mini pump to the presta. Relieved of such misfortune, I got only a half mile or so down the road to flat again!! Fortunately, I had a patch kit and would be forced to use it. Taking one side of the tire off to inspect the inner casing and find the hole would be quicker that removing the whole wheel. Riding the remainder w/o incident on a soft tire is unnerving but I had to make up time. While my teammates were running and swimming, I spent my break w/Dean Gies under the SkiHut tent where he'd be wrenching for this event. He brought out many tires thrown away at the shop and offered one to replace mine that had many gashes in it already. A bit of nutrition and I'd have to saddle up to continue this rinse & repeat cycle. Things went smoothly from that point on and by lunch we seemd more relaxed as the grill smelled tasty. Gaining our spots back made it feel like awesome racing and on the penultimate tri I made the catch that put us in second place w/Clint & Tony left to seal the deal on the bell lap. I was glad to not have to do another since the breezes were swirling harder all afternoon. Although, bucking a headwind as we climbed back toward the park leveled the playing field for me on a singlespeed 'cross bike and was able to pass many on geared time trial machines. I felt really great depth in my legs and spun 21-22 mph on average for most of the 112 miles(8 x 14). We didn't hang around for awards because Andrea was preparing a house party and real food sounded really good...