No swim - too much rain the day before (water "quality" concerns I think), so it becomes a duathlon, good for me; the swim is my worst leg.
As it turned out this race was probably my worst overall result (position wise), but I am still fairly happy!
I had a flat tire; I detected it not far into the second lap, even riding with a strong cross wind I noticed I was very "bouncy". It is difficult to see a rear flat so I asked a guy as I passed him if I had a flat, and he confirmed it looked pretty flat. Turned out it was dead flat, he had a pump but it didn't fit my valve :( so I tried riding on it for a little while, but it looked like the tyre would come off the rim.
An official on a motor bike asked if I needed help, I said I had a flat and needed a pump, but they couldn't help, but they confirmed I could go back into transition. And so I ran... about 2.5 km back to transition into the wind (which was slow riding anyway) in my bike cleats. I tried to pump the tyre, it had that magic sealant goo in it but it wasn't working, and the thread stripped on my pump fitting.
So I changed the tube for a spare (I happened to have one in my bag), borrowed a pump from someone else (people were coming into transition by now), refitted the wheel and chain. I could only get about 30psi in the tire with the mini-pump, I normally run 130psi! And then did the remaining 6km of the ride, and hit 45km/h with the wind, with a not so inflated rear tyre! Estimated time lost about 20-24mins.
Why did I bother? I had to ride the bike back to the car anyway, and I still wanted to do the run, and not get disqualified.
Nobody passed me on the second run (I was back with the first timers), and my time was in the top third of the entire field for that leg.
I wasn't last in my age group as I expected, someone was disqualified, and I was only 1 minute behind the next guy!
Need to go sort out what happened to that tube, and remember to be prepared, with a real pump, and having it (and a spare tube) on the bike woulda saved a heap of time.
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