Tri the Pee Dee: Michael's Story

My goal in going to Florence this weekend was to get more practice in going through the motions of the triathlon. I would like to enjoy the comfort of going from one event of the tri to the next like it's second nature to me. Well, it appears that I need a few more tri's to get to that state. The Setup events folks have done a great job on this sprint triathlon. It is a flat fast course, a spectator friendly set up and they have taken some of the challenge out of riding a skinny tired road bike on a sandy dirt road. My daughter, Christi, and youngest grandson, Owen, got up early Saturday morning to travel down to Florence with me. Tim Eichstaedt and Bob Carpenter were also there to represent the LRC. They, of course, did a better job of that than I did. My swim time was within 8 seconds of last year's. I tried again to push the bike harder which shaved 3:30 but this probably cost me the 1:44 increase on the run. My overall time was 1:49 slower. This is a result of my adding an extra leg to the triathlon. Usually it's S,B,R with T1 and T2 transition times. I modified this slightly when I came into transition and began to put on my shirt and helmet. HELMET!! I yell out "where's my helmet?" Like someone was really going to answer me. I look all around, assuming someone knocked it off my usual handlebar placement. It was nowhere to be found amongst the other outlayed equipment. Christi is standing nearby and I say to her "run to the car and get my helmet". Well, she was ready to go as I asked but Owen is strapped to her chest in one of those papoose things. I take off by her and she does a great underarm toss of the car keys. Through the rows of cars I go with my biking shoes on to yes, the next to the last car in the lot. There sits my helmet in the back of the car right where I sat it to put the race number on. Then it's a dash back to the transition area to finish the standard T1. Christi made a nice catch of the keys as I came back by her and Owen. By the way, Christi got a nice action photo of T1A. You all know how us stopwatch freaks can be so you can bet that I timed my T1A sprint out of the transition zone. By the way nobody beat my T1A time of 2:32 on Saturday. Well, last years T1 was 1:18 and this years was 4:24. With the 2:32 dash and probably :30 in a total funk, I'm back to my 1:18. So, I netted a 1:28:01 triathlon and a 1:31:07 quadrathon. As I'm packing up my gear to head home after the race, some smartelic yells from the transition area "Hey, did you remember your helmet?" Thanks Tim.