Keuka Triathlon
A few weeks ago (June 10th) was the Keuka Triathlon.
I did the Olympic distance which is a 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike, and 10 km run
[.93 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, 6.2 mile run]. I started training in
January, fell off the wagon with the house stuff in April and May and
worried I’d drown for the beginning of June.
It was actually tons of fun – the wetsuit made the water seem warm and the
biggest problem with the swim was trying not to bump into other swimmers -
at least until my goggles fogged up in the last little bit and I couldn’t
see where the finish was.
The bike was okay except I noticed my front brake was open…maybe because
I’d taken my wheel off right before the start to pry my rented wetsuit from
between my spokes and fork (yah…don’t ride a bike with a plastic bag in
your hand on the handlebar). I stopped briefly to close my brake and then it
really, really rubbed my rim. Hmmm…guess the rim got a little bent in my
wetsuit accident (wetsuit was fine btw) so I opened the brake again. I
spent the entire race watching my wheel bobble left to right where it rubbed
on the brake about 1/3 of every revolution. The brake rub made climbing the
hills extra fun and the wobble made descents even scarier than normal.
Although I normally prefer biking, I was glad to get off the bike and start
the run (tri shorts just aren’t as padded as regular shorts). I tried to run
the 2nd half faster than the first half and while I didn’t quite manage, I
at least still finished in a respectable time which I can no longer recall
but it was around 9 min/mile.
I will definitely do another triathlon when I find time to swim and run just
a little more often 
