Long, hot summer

Good god, will this heat ever end?? Thank god for Banana Boat 30SPF Waterproof Sport Sunblock!

I drove up to Peterborough today to watch my friends compete in the Half-Ironman and Sprint triathlons. In case you're wondering, a Half-IM is a 2000m swim followed by a 90K bike and a 21.1K run. The sprint race was 750m swim, 20K bike and 5K run.

There's something wrong with the fact that I got up earlier both days of the weekend than I often do during the week! I was up just after 5:30AM and on the road by just after 6AM. After grabbing a coffee to go, I drove the 75 minutes northeast to Peterborough. I managed to find all my friends and wish them luck on their races.

While the athletes were out on their bikes, I hooked up with two friends to go for a 90-minute run. It was insanely hot and sunny and there wasn't a spec of shade on the route. We got to see some of the bikers and runners along the way and cheered and shouted encouragement to them. I was very glad to be done my run. We were actually out for 1:38 as we walked a bit more on the way back. I figure we ran about 14K.

When I got back from the run I found some shade near the finish line and just sat there and waited for people to come in. When I did venture out into the sun, I couldn't believe how hot it had gotten and can't imagine that people were running that far in that heat. Their medals were well deserved today!

My friend CL was doing the sprint. She informed me the other night that she had looked up my results from when I had done that race back in 2002. Although she didn't say so, I think she was hoping to beat my time. Well, I am happy to report that she did not! And I'm not even secretly happy about that: I'm overtly ecstatic! Our swim and run times were within seconds of each other, but where she lost a lot of time to me was on the bike and in transition. I only beat her by 3-4 minutes in total (I was 1:29, she was 1:33), but I'll take it. It's just a matter of time before she's able to beat me - as long as it's not this year! Ha ha.

I went to a friend's parents' place for a BBQ after the race and that was quite nice. I expected the drive home to be nasty with traffic, but it really wasn't that bad. I just turned up the tunes and sang all the way home!

Back to the old grind tomorrow. Blech!