Notch No. 4

The Patriot Sprint on Sept. 7 was my fourth Setup event for this year, so I’ve accomplished my goal of qualifying for an age-group award. As of August 26, having done three sprints, I was ranked 1/10. I’m signed up for a fifth sprint, the Giant Acorn on Oct. 4, so I’m pretty sure I’ll keep my top spot, because I will have done more events than any other woman in the age group. But even if I get relegated to second or third, I will still be within my overall goal.

The Patriot presented a new and different experience. Because of the rain from tropical storm Hanna on Sept. 6, the swim was canceled. Instead, we ran what we were told was a 1.25 mile loop around the event site. According to my Garmin, however, it was longer than that, and the web page for the event now says it was 1.5 miles. Considering the trek to the transition area, my time of 18:11 for the first leg was okay.

The bike ride was mostly on Route 5; while I didn’t like being so close to speeding cars, I felt more confident on my bike than in past events, and even passed a few riders. My time of 58:23 was slower than I expected for 12 miles; but, again, there was some discrepancy on the actual distance. Both 12 and 13 miles were mentioned in the pre-race briefing, my odometer showed 13, and I heard two other riders say their odometers registered 14 miles. So, I’d like to think I rode more than 12 miles – otherwise, somewhere on the course I must have stopped and taken a nap, and don’t remember doing it!

We finished with a 5K run on the Colonial Parkway. I set a new personal low for slowness on the run, and my overall time was a disappointing 2:07.40. Even so, I got a nice bottle of wine and a glass for finishing 2/2 in my age group.