Monday, May 21, 2007

Open mouth, insert foot.

Next up: Show Low, Arizona "Deuces Wild" triathlon festival, first weekend in June.
Originally, I was scheduled to 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.

...

14 comments:

  1. Oh my. Gotta love your hubby, though. I guess you can just think of it as another adventure on the way to your IM. :D

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  2. Are you really doing this???
    I will be there Sunday for the Xterra....maybe will run into you on Sat somewhere....????
    Are you staying over Sat? Where?
    I will e-mail you with my phone # and maybe we can at least hook up for awhile! (We are staying at the Sleep Inn but not arriving until Sat. afternoon....and I don't know if they will let us in the park if the race is still going on...I will have to read more about it!

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  3. sheesh - who's gonna do the oly with me, then? My olympic debut!

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  4. Wow. You're a Ma-Chine!

    You got me thinking about doing a 70.3....NEXT year.

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  5. be careful what you wish for. Those profiles are hokey - but now look how flat the rest of the course is! Good luck on your half - you could use the "warmup" for IMKY, since it's only 3 months away...

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  6. Oh my....
    just think of the bragging rights afterward (and the bitching rights during)

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  7. How exactly does the wench come into play with the grappling hook. Does she serve beer while you struggle up the hill? Or does she carry the grappling hook riding on your handle bars?

    Or does the wench operate a winch in conjunction with the grappling hook.

    Typos can be such fun...

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  8. all right, all right. My defense is that I'm a teacher on leave. Part of my contract inlcudes the right to make mnay, many typos whenevery and wherevery possible during late May and throughout June and Joly.

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  9. men. can't shoot 'em, can't run 'em down with your bike. wth

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  10. Lesson learned: don't stick your neck out!

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  11. Sometimes the unexpected is good. No??

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  12. Okay--time to regroup! You can do it!

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  13. You've certainly done it now. Enjoy the race!

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