1817

Just back from my daughter of steel's triathalon and thought I'd use this picture of her bike for today's post. Andrea wasn't feeling 100% on Saturday - nerves or bad food/water, who knows? - and she didn't eat much that day. I spent the p.m. hanging out at the bikelot and meeting a few triathletes, escorting their bags to their bikespot. Our "sister of steel" woman slept okay and felt good on Sunday morning, race day. She had a fabulous swim - 3.8 km in 1 hour, 5 minutes. Her first transition was also good as she passed us about 2 km up the road at 8:15. The 180 km bike ride was a real workout. Cloudy skies prevailed - hurrah! Afterwards, I found out that Andrea's stomach cramps returned and she nearly gave it up - couldn't find a medi station nearby so persevered. The last 40 km of the ride were great, she said, and I visited with her at transition two. This was my "post" for Sunday. I worked at the bikelot, in the "catch and rack" category, which really only turned out to be racking. Got to do lots of walking, escorting bikes to their assigned spot in the lot - a total of 2427 bikes - I got to rack the highest numbered cycle at about 5 p.m. Andrea went through that transition at about 2:45 (bike time of 6h30 min.) and then onto the marathon. My job ended at 5:30 (any athlete not into the bikelot by that time earned a DQ) and so off to the street to watch our woman finish up. This was done at about 7:40 - found her 2 km from the end of the route by recognizing her pigeon-toed run and then went on to cheer again at the finish! Official time of 12h 35min. and number 978 across the line! Iron Sisters Rule!