Last night's Tuesday Night Worlds went better for me than I expected since I hadn't been on the bike since last Thursday morning. I stayed with the main group for the first five miles and it was fast. I showed a top speed of 36.7 mph at one point and another time I went to the front and chased down Jason who had gone off on a little flyer. But just before the crossroads my legs had had enough and I dropped off the back. I need to get back into a regular ride pattern and get my endurance back! I caught up with Jon and Brian and the three of us pushed on at a pretty brisk pace. Later we caught Paul which ramped up the speed a little more. At the end Brian and I added some extra miles and I ended up with 44 miles all told at a nice 20.1 mph average. We did get a little lazy toward the end!
This past weekend Jonnene and I were in Lubbock, Texas at the National Collegiate Triathlon Championships where we took two students from Centenary College to participate. Aside from the crisis at home with Farley, it was a great weekend to see all these young folks from all over the country representing their schools in a sporting event NOT sanctioned by the NCAA. This is not unusual...there are other sports like water skiing that are not recognized by the NCAA but that doesn't keep these events from happening. USATriathlon was the sanctioning body for this race.We arrived at Buffalo Springs Lake, site of the race, on Friday after lunch after spending the night in Fort Worth, Texas. Our two racers, Jacquelyn and Jonathan, had to spend some time in the lake in their wetsuits to get a feel for the cold 58-degree water (which you won't find me in!) and ride their bikes over part of the bike course. Then it was off to race registration and the pre-race meeting late in the afternoon. We had dinner at the local Outback restaurant where I usually tease Jonnene about how it feels like we're actually in Australia (she just rolls her eyes at me). We were joined by Jacquelyn's boyfriend, Keith, and his parents who were just marvelous people to get to know. Keith was doing an Olympic invitational triathlon after the college race (he would finish 24th overall).
After we got back to the hotel I worked on the bikes and then we got word that something was wrong with Farley. We stayed on the phone monitoring the situation until we got the word around 11:30 pm that he had died. Jonnene and I spent a lot of time out in the hallway during all this so the kids could sleep. I hardly got any sleep and would spend most of the next 24 hours awake on will power alone.
We got up at 4 am Saturday morning, packed up everything and headed out to the race site about 20 m
inutes away. It was 38 degrees and everyone was rugged up for the cold! After number markings and prepping the transition area, we finally started getting some sun and some warmth as Jacquelyn and Jonathan did their warmups and got their wetsuits on. Then their races began and I stood off to the side, worried and hopeful, since I had arranged all this and hoping that they were prepar
ed enough to survive such a hard test. We knew they wouldn't place in this race and looked at it as preparation for next year when this race will be held at this same location. The main thing was for them to learn.Well, they survived! And they did well, staying within themselves and raced smart based on their level of experience. Maybe they did listen to everything Jonnene and I had told them? Jacquelyn finished the Olympic distance event 513th overall (135th of 269 women) in 3:00:11 and Jonathan, in his third ever triathlon, finished 545th (310th of 366 men) in 3:04:24 among the 736 total finishers. The winner, from UC-Berkley, said it was one of the hardest courses he had ever completed in.
Jacquelyn talks about her race with Jonnene as she tries to get her legs back.It was a great experience, both for them and for me. I'm hoping we can get more students from Centenary to come next year.
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