e-race this, end of summer -- what the __________?

how can it be - that the time of year my teacher friends deplore is already here? I must agree it is not my favourite long weekend of the year, however one mustn't stew over things one cannot affect. Let's hope the sun stays with us until tuesday!

so I have to give the race in Parry Sound last weekend a mixed review... nice setting, decent course, but a little disorganized and chaotic. on the first run we went totally the wrong way -- someone, a disagreeable teenager probably, changed the direction of an arrow on a sign about 2 km into the run --- and we ended up on the bike course much to the surprise of a policeman, whom I think was quite unfamiliar with the idea of triathlon and / or duathlon. He then managed to point the lead group of 7 runners (me included) even further the wrong way, of course by this point there was no right way so it really didn't matter which way he pointed... much confusion, and whistling and then we all turned around and I went hard all the way to transition to try to gain some of the spots I had lost... so this caused me to have a bit of trouble for the first 5k on the bike, although I did pass a couple of people who proceeded to draft behind me... still I never felt comfortable on the bike, went hard but seemed to lack the lung capacity that was needed (perhaps the sore throat of the past week had a bit of influence). anyway it was a long (26k instead of 25) undulating course, very windy too, and onto a fairly busy highway that wasn't closed to traffic. one close call but nothing to cause me such great anxiety. Len Gushe passed me just before the hill at the turnaround, and I actually almost saw him go by me. silver bullet! envy!

the second run was only 3 km and I ran decently but not great... there was a guy about 300m ahead of me out of transition and I slowly began catching him on the out leg. then I saw Sam and the other 2 leaders coming back from the turnaround. when i reached the t/a point (located at the bridge where we went the wrong way on the first run) the sign had been blown over, yet "duathon turnaround" was still visible --- I was quite surprised by this because the person I was chasing and the 2 others who were inbetween had not returned on the path. I said to myself, "how did they miss this?"and started heading back to the finish. I finished 4th overall but didn't push the last half since there was no one ahead of me or behind me, and it was only a training race... and I didn't feel all that great. But in two weeks there will be no excuses or reasons for not pushing it.

'train on' mes amis --- MIKA!