After a hot dry summer in the Pacific Northwest, it rained on race day. Once upon a time, I didn't mind racing in the rain. Who am I kidding? I've always hated racing in the rain. When I looked at the weather forecast for the Bonney Lake Triathlon, rain showers were forecasted. I held off on signing up because of that, figuring that I would make my decision on race day. When I awoke at 5:30 on race morning, the deck was damp, but it was not raining. I decided to head to Bonney Lake and see what the weather looked like there. As I headed down 512, I saw sunshine over Bonney Lake, so I drove to the race site. The parking lot looked full, but I decided to take a quick look anyway, and found a lone open parking spot. I parked the van and headed off to register for the race. After collecting my race packet, I started to get my bike ready. Chris Blair drove up and I chatted with him for a bit. Turns out that he fell and thought he had cracked a rib while mountain biking, so he was "just" going to ride as part of a relay. He headed off to find a parking spot, marveling that I had found one so close. At that point, the weather was still nice. Paul Palumbo then drove up and we chatted briefly; he had initially signed up for the Olympic distance race, but decided to do the sprint instead, so we'd be racing each other. He then headed off to find a parking spot as well. Still no rain.
I entered transition, looking for Bruce or his bright green Lynskey. I saw neither, and thought that maybe he decided to forego the race. I racked my bike and got my transition area ready, then spent some time warming up on the run course. Still no rain. When I returned back, I met up again with Paul, and chatted some more with him as he got set up. With 20 minutes before the race start, he was done, and we decided to do a swim warm up. And then the rain started. It was gradual at first, but by the time we started our warm up, it was raining hard. We then headed to the start area, where the start was delayed for a few minutes. The rain then tapered for a short time, and then began to come down hard again... which it did for the rest of the race.
I headed to the left side of the swim area for the start. It's funny. No matter how far to the side I try to start, by the time the gun goes off, people have migrated over and I'm again near the middle. Oh well, it was what it was. I saw Bruce in the water, and wished him good luck. He informed me that he had been hiding under some trees to stay dry and that his support crew (Karen and Lucas) were staying dry in the car. When the gun (or in this case, Rory Muller yelling, "Go!") went off, I started swimming. It was strange, because I was surrounded by a bunch of people swimming at around the same pace as me, so no one tried to swim over me, and nobody stopped right in front of me. I got near the first (and only) buoy at the turnaround feeling great, not stressed and not out of breath, and, shockingly, could see the leaders just turning around. "Hey," I thought. "I must be having a pretty good swim." The swim back was similarly uneventful, although it was a bit more circuitous as I could not find my line to the finish. As I ran out of the water and into Transition, I saw Paul just ahead of me. Usually, Paul is in and out of Transition before me, so that confirmed that my swim was a good one for me.
Because of the rain, I made a conscious decision not to race the bike. My biggest goal was to stay upright on the bike. Since we have had very little rain over the last month, there was a lot of oil on the ground which made the roads even more slick. With the Bonney Lake bike course having a lot of turns, I knew that it would be a slow bike for me. On most of the turns, I was out of my aerobars, and even on the downhills, I was out of the aerobars and braking. I arrived back in Transition cold and wet, but I remained upright and one of my biggest mental hurdles left over from my crash in 2011 had been overcome. Funny enough, whether it was because it was so wet, or because I wasn't pushing the bike that hard, I didn't feel very thirsty during the entire ride. I only took two short drinks of my HEED.
I left Transition and headed onto the run course with a couple of other racers. One racer went hammering by me early. I steadily reeled all of the other racers, including the guy who passed me early. Looking around at around 2 miles, I didn't see anyone in front or anyone behind, so I knew that I was stuck in whatever place I was in. None too quickly, the race ended. I saw Paul at the Finish and congratulated him. Last year, the roles were reversed. His conclusion was that we are so close in ability that the sharper person usually wins. And his definition of sharper was the person that had raced the previous week. Last year, that was me, and this year, it was him.
As I made my way back to Transition to collect my gear, I stopped by to chat with Rory. I thanked him and Deanna for putting on the race again this year, even if it did rain on his parade. I also apologized that I was not going to stick around for the awards, because I was cold and wet and needed to get home, clean up, and warm up. I checked on the results on my way out, and saw that Bruce had won for the third consecutive year, that I had biked REALLY slow, and that I had finished 9th and won my age group. My bike split allowed two young ladies to "chick" me, even though they never passed me on the course. Oh well, I was intact, and that was the biggest accomplishment of the day.
When I got home, I got out my bike, took out the seatpost, and flipped the bike upside down. Over a cup of water came pouring out of the seat tube. Yes, it was a wet race! And a fun way to finish my somewhat short season.
