The Curse of the Cornman

Yesterday was the Cornman Sprint triathlon.  500 m, 14 mi, 3.1 mi.

This was the third Cornman for me and Christopher.  In 2007, we were both pretty much newbies, and just had fun on this pretty hard, hilly course.

But 2008 was The Year of The Flats.  Christopher had a flat about 6 mi into the ride.  After changing the tire, he had a second flat half a mile later.  Grrr.  But he was determined and actually ran his bike the rest of the way in (barefoot!) and then ran the 5K.  Very courageous, I have to say.

So we should have been pre-disastered, right?

We followed the directions to the race that Google Maps provided, carrying our bikes on the back of the van with the nifty new carrier, and with Cynthia and the twins with us.  Well, the road Google had us take was a "B grade" road after a point.  Never heard of that?  Neither had I.

Let me save you the trouble:  never take a "B" road.

We did, and we ended up completely stuck in the mud.  We did everything we could to get that van moving, and nothing helped.  Nothing.  Didn't move it more than 6 inches after we got stuck.

Cynthia was the hero and said that Christopher and I should go the rest of the way by ourselves to the race, and she would call someone to get help.  One small thing:  there was no cell service. Another small thing:  we had to carry our bikes on our backs up a few hills in the mud until we could get to a paved road.

Well, we did.  Christopher had left his bike shoes, but I spotted this and threw them in my bag.  Fortunately, we were using backpack style bags.  We eventually got to the hardtop and rode in the rest of the way - seemingly several miles - to the race.  We got to packet pickup with about 42 seconds left and then dashed over to the transition area.

We were both wearing our running shoes and had thick clay mud up to our knees.  Needless to say, two guys running into transition with bikes that looked like they just finished Xterra races and mud up to their knees drew a little attention.

But we got set up - barely, and ugly, but ready.

I had told Christopher there was no chance we'd be able to use wetsuits, but we couldn't have carried them anyway.  But the water was only 70!  Coldest it had ever been, they announced.  Fortunately, it was fine to swim in, but we had a slight disadvantage.

Christopher was in the first wave and got out of the water fourth, within a few meters of the top 3.  He even beat Patrick Davis onto the bike.  Patrick and others began to pass him, as to be expected, but he was going fine.  Until near the end - eeek!  Crash!!  Fortunately, it wasn't too bad, and he probably only lost a minute or so.  His run was fine, and he turned in a decent time that turned out to be within 1 minute of the winner of his age group and me.

My race was fine.  Well mostly.  I intentionally thought I went out hard on the swim, trying to improve my lousy last couple of swims.  But I had had to borrow Timothy's goggles, and it turned out they were so scratched that I actually had to take them off to see where the heck I was going! So my swim time stunk again.  T1 was ok.  I got out on the bike and felt good and started passing people. No one passed me and I liked my power numbers, considering it was the end of a hard week.  About 20 W better than I was getting at HyVee.  Felt good going up and down the hills.  Ultimately, it wasn't a perfect ride or anything, but I was pleased.  Got to see Christopher as he was heading back in from the turnaround (before his crash).

T2 was smooth, except for the lady who wanted to have an extended conversation about all the mud on my shoes.  I tried to be polite and got out as quick as I could.

Again, the run started out feeling fine.  Tami Ritchie passed me on The Big Hill, but there's no shame in that, considering she was first overall woman!  Don't know how far she started behind me, but I was really pleased to be able to keep her in my sights the whole race.  I finished with a 22:13 5K, so that was pretty successful, given the terrain.  I kept wondering where the heck the guys were in my group.  I only saw (and passed) one.  The good news was that I must have passed most of them in the bike or something, because I came in second!  Woo hoo!

And the guy that beat me did so by 7 minutes, so I didn't even feel guilty about not trying harder.

Anyway, I shortly met Christopher and heard his story.  Eventually we got ahold of Cynthia again.  They had gotten up to a portion of the race and had been talking with a sheriff during the race - and cheering as we went by.  (No tow was available at the time.) Eventually, they got a tow, and met us up at the race by about 12:30 or so.

Finally Cynthia and the twins took off with Christopher out to his soccer camp in Omaha, and I began the long ride home.  In the end, the race had taken more out of me than I might have thought, so the ride home was a moderately hard 75 mi, but it wasn't too bad.  It didn't help that I was getting a cold, either, but hey....other than disasters, how bad a day could it be?

So now the only question is... do we dare go back next year?