Originally, I was scheduled t
o do the Oly, somewhere far behind Pirate, with Sweet Baboo, newly-svelt-Helen-age-grouper and Stuey, aka "Mark Spitz" doing the 70.3 "Deuce-man."Here's the Oly bike course:
When I first saw this, I nearly passed out. I was pissed, at Sweet Baboo, of course, what on earth was he thinking?
There's that one climb--see it? From mile 11 to 15?
It looks like I'm going to have to throw a grappling hook up before I start heading up that hill.
Does Kestrel even make an aero grappling hook to go on your bike?
Does it fit under the seat? Does it include a wench? I mean, WHAT THE HELL?
Then I stopped hyperventilating and actually looked at the numbers. I mean, it's 4 miles and 400 feet of climbing. That's 100 feet per mile. A 2% grade. Not as cool as something that's flat, but certainly nothing to get freaked about, I guess.
Stupid bike profiles. Why do they have to look so scary?
Now, here's the 10K run course:
Ulp. Now, after my initial freakout, I can see that this climbs 100 feet over 4 miles, which means it's a 0.5 grade.So at this point I said blithely to Sweet Baboo,
"Gee, these don't look so bad now. I almost wish I'd signed up for the 70.3,"
I said that knowing that it's difficult to move UP in distances this close to a race.
And then Sweet Baboo was supposed to say, in a voice tinged with regret,
"Gosh, sweetie, it's too late now. I sure wish you'd said something sooner, then you could be going 70.3 miles instead of 33.9..."
and then I'd say something like, "Well, I'll know better next time, right?" and then mosy my way through another Oly, hanging out at the finish line waiting for the three of them to come in.
But instead, he said, cheerfully, "Well, if you really want to, I'm sure it can be switched." Then he immediately set about emailing the race director, in order to do just that.
Uh... um...
Wait.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
Shit.
...
