›"Inside" Out at Blue Lake
Race date: June 5, 2005
Frank Cobarrubia
I drove over Saturday for the Blue Lake Olympic tri with my trusty sidekick Tibbs in her standard spot smelling the clean mountain air out the back passenger window. Stayed with friends who fed me a great pre race dinner. The rain woke me up at 4:00 AM. “Oh no you don’t” is my first thought. Not for my first race. It waxed and waned and by 5:30 I had actually told my friend who came to check up on me that I wasn’t racing. By 5:35 I’m feeling like a wimp and better at least go check it out. I get there and people seem ignorant to the fact that its raining real good. No silly grins of second thoughts. I rack my bike and then run into Shawn Gerdes, Chuck, Geof& Tonya, and Mark Kendall & Amber. Now knowing that friends have seen me there I am completely shamed into participating in the race. There is no way I can back out of this wet and windy event. Damn.
My wet suit has a logo print on the inside and out and although I have used it several times I don’t think twice about it. I am down on the beach with the other competitors waiting for our wave to be called up and look at the spongy external appearance of my wetsuit compared to the shine of everyone else’s. Uh oh…could it be…inside out?
Thankfully I had time to change, but not without the cost of some good laughter of my nearby racers. The swim was uneventful and I did fine. Onto the bike. The rain had subsided to a light drizzle but there was a strong side wind on this out and back course. Once I made the turn around I assumed there would be some tail wind from this perceived oblique side wind. No luck. You know that sound when you are sitting on the highway and cars pass you by on a wet road….”sssshhhhwwwwwooooooo”. Well, I heard that all day on the bike from people passing me up. Minimum 50 people. I see Tanya she has a flat and Geoff has stopped to fix it for her on his return leg of the course. What great people they are. I averaged 16 mph. No speed demon. Onto the run. Slow pace, good cadence, and good posture were my goals to start the run. I’m into it 10 minutes and still no legs, 20 minutes still no legs. This is going to be a long run. Well, I never got my legs but a 60 year old divorcee complimented me by saying “you got the best looking legs” so I guess I’ll take that. Physically I was obviously not in good shape since at least 5 people asked if I was alright. I nodded, limped, drooled and watched them get smaller as they dropped me.
I finish and Geof gives me an ‘atta boy and a slap on the back. What
a day. I’m glad I did it and glad I finished. I didn’t feel physically
like I wanted to feel but it reminded me why I do this. It gives me a sense
of accomplishment, I get to hang out with great people who I call friends, and
it dolls out a fair amount of humility.
On to the Dirty Half and then Pac Crest!
Frank
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