Half Triathalon Triumph

I did my first half triathlon today!

Despite the major setback of getting a flat tire 15km into the 40km bike ride, I finished all three parts of the race. My flat tire had me walking my sorry bike along the Danish countryside for a good half hour before I was overtaken by a good samaritan - my fellow coworker (Ulrich). I was overtaken by many, many others, but Ulrich was the only one who stopped and declared that I was not leaving the race as a DNF (did not finish). He saved the day! Attempt to save, actually - he dismounted my tire, inspected it, found the metal spike that punctured my inner tube, took it out, and then tried to patch up my inner tube for me. I am now aware of the grave importance of biking with a spare inner tube, bike pump, and some contraptions to help pull the tire out of the wheel. The patch job was unsuccessful three times in a row, as the glue did not have a chance to dry. Finally, we were approached by the "sentinel", the person whose job it is to push the stragglers onwards or else call in the paddy wagon to carry them back to headquarters. He helpfully gave me an inner tube and fixed up my tire. Whee! I was on my way again, accompanied by Ulrich and the friendly sentinel.

My favourite part of the race was actually the first event, the swim, amazingly enough. Something just clicked and I swam the whole 500m uninterrupted on front crawl. Lera easily passed me during the swim, but I caught up with her very quickly because I changed faster. I even had time to take in a few swigs of my hyldeblomst drink as she spent an inordinate amount of time picking grass off her socks. We biked off together and when I got my flat I sent her onwards to call for help. Help did arrive (in the form of a paddy wagon) but Ulrich had reached me first.

The running part was a little lonesome, since I was the last to arrive from the biking stage. I changed faster than Ulrich did, and he just never caught up. I saw people running in as I was running out early on, including Lera who I high fived at the 2km (8km for her) mark. But after 3km I saw nobody coming in. I made sure I never stopped, and I did actually manage to pass one person along the way (he was muching a granola bar and walking at the 5km mark). I was on my own after that, and so I finished the triathlon 3rd last, woohoo!!

Kendrick was there at the finish line to take my picture. It was 3.5 hours after I started the race, during which I had ingested nothing but a small bottle of hyldeblomst for energy. It didn't take much persuasian for us to hang out a bit to have some BBQ with Lera and Nuno; a friendly co-worker who explained everything we needed to know right before the race started.

So I learned three important things today: that disappointment makes me miss Kendrick's company, that a helping hand is the stuff of world peace, and that I can change my clothes with lightning precision. :)