Ginger’s little sister agreed to do this triathlon with her last minute as a prep for next weekend’s Pittsburgh Olympic distance. She’s such a trooper, and did a great job for her first time ever AND on a bike she never rode before AND deciding to do it at the last minute AND having flown in the night before. This is the fourth year Ginger completed this race, and it remains one of her favorites mostly because so many of her tri club friends do it also.
They arrived early to the race venue so that Ginger could help Chris register and set up her transition. There were just over 300 competitors, so there was plenty of rack room and no pressure to pack it in tight. With so few competitors, this also meant the swim waves were very small, giving Chris a gentle opportunity to experience an open water swim before the larger event they’ll be doing next week. The water was as warm as a bath, and the competitors were super civilized. While Ginger finished a minute slower than last year, Chris finished faster than Ginger’s time from last year by a full minute. The biking was a little more challenging since Chris didn’t get much of an opportunity to ride hills while in the UK. She was able to borrow a cousin’s bike when she arrived in the states, but given the short amount of time she had to train she did quite well. Unfortunately on the last leg of the ride we discovered that a number of runners had been given the wrong turn directions by a volunteer. When Ginger ran her bike into T2 she asked one of her friends if they had changed the route this year and was assured that they hadn’t. By the time she and Chris ran to the same turnoff the volunteer had stopped trying to tell people to go the wrong way.
The finish time for each of them wasn’t terribly far from Ginger’s first HockYTri. What was really surprising to their mother was how tired she was after the race. She learned that spectating is hard work, especially when trying to keep up with Lou, who was running around taking pictures the whole time.
