Sunday, June 24, 2007

she's back with a vengeance

Christine, that is!

Today was the San Jose International Triathlon. The good people at J&A Productions were kind enough to let me change my individual entry to a relay entry at the last minute.

Christine bravely volunteered to ride the bike leg for me, to spare my tricky knees. It was her first official event since being diagnosed with Crohn's this past winter.

I had a great swim, very fast, I think. I'm still waiting for the results. I ran out of the water up to transition, handed the timing chip to Christine, and she was off! I was a teeny bit jealous of her for getting to ride the bike course; it's a very fast, straightforward course, along roads that I am accustomed to riding. Only difference was that Christine wouldn't have to heed the red lights!

I gave her about an hour and a half, and she rolled back into transition right about on time. She ran her bike up to me and threw her arms around me, crying. She was back. It was sweet.

I took the timing chip and ran my little heart out for 6.2 miles. It probably wasn't my greatest run. My left knee started to complain around mile 3.5 and wouldn't shut up. I focused on cadence and ran off pavement when I could. It was hot and the course was uncomfortably flat. I ran across the finish where Christine was waiting for me and grabbed a couple bottles of water, a bagel, and some excellent barbecued chicken.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on my laptop with my knee on ice, and rewarded myself later with a Thai chicken burrito from Aqui.

Altogether a good day and a fun race.

Now...time to shift my focus to coaching newcomers to the sport of triathlon, and to designing and implementing a new resistance training regimen for myself.

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