“Let’s play two.” – Ernie Banks
When I planned out my 2019 schedule, I tried extremely hard to give myself a break between Triathlons. However, Indy’s unplanned addition threw a wrench into that.
I had wanted to do Batavia for the past couple years. But the Dare2Tri camp was the same weekend in the past. With it being split into two camps this year, I was finally able to do it.
Having done the Naperville ET race a few times, I have become used to the ‘quarry madness’. Because of this, we seeded ourselves back far enough to minize it. The swim went better than I had hoped, even though it was a little odd. I say that because one side of the rectangle was in water so shallow that it made more sense to get up and walk than it did to try and ‘shallow swim’.
Headed out on the bike, I knew we’d be able to make up time and that it would go well. To that point, I believe we had a net pass of zero. Even after we had to stop and retrieve a dropped water bottle. Sure, people did pass us, but we were able to retake them before T2. It also felt like we were at 30+ several times during the course. And while I’m still not fully comfortable going/being aero for long periods of time, there were a couple of stretches that it paid off in.
Headed into the run, I knew it was going to be a long one. Almost all of the sanctioned Tris I do are a 5K run. This one was a 4.1mi run, which was the longest I had ever done in a Tri. Even though it was a longer run, the shade/overcast weather made it go really well. I was able to keep the normal run -> walk through aid stations that I wanted. The only other time I had to walk was at about mile 3 for another 20-30 seconds to catch my breath.
Also during the run, I misheard Michael. At the time, there was an older gentleman in front of us running at a much slower pace. We were at a point of getting ready to pass him when I heard Michael say ‘watch out for the turtle’. What heard was ‘watch out for the slow runner as we pass him’. What he really meant was to watch out for the snapping turtle that was by the side of the path — and not happy that we (all of us) had woken them up!
Thanks to Michael for guiding for me and to Coach Joe, Suzy and the rest of ET for putting on a great race as always!