Early morning. Bad night of sleep. Comfortable hotel bed, but I’m lately struggling. Shoulder, other shoulder, neck, old age, perhaps. It’ll get better. But that doesn’t keep me from being tired today. But what a day!
This is at the largest sand beach in Georgia (non-ocean category), at John Tanner Park. We were here for a race earlier in the year, and this time The Yankee was out to show an even better time than she did on this same course in the late spring.
Here she is starting the 600 meter swim. She’s one of the pink dots. If this were video you’d know her from the almost perfect stroke. A lot of people are flailing around in these things.
You can just see some canoes and jet skis out there for the just-in-cases-of life. I only saw them fish out one person today. Everyone else did well, including this girl, who came out of the water third in her division:
And then off through the transition with an incredible time and then out to the 14 mile bike course. I rode this course the last time we were here. It has some hills. And they are different hills than we have at home. (You can have different kinds of hills.) These hills require you to keep working over the top of them, which is sometimes easier said than done. And yet, her she was, blowing away her previous time, sneaking inside the goal that she had set up.
And at the end of it all, there was great success. She finished second, and fairly close to the winner, time-wise. There will be a great rivalry at these events when they start up again next season.
Today the sky was bright and the sun was mild through the morning and everyone had a lovely time. I saw a man and a woman each lay down their bike right by the transition area. An older gentleman wrecked his bike coming back into the park. There is a speed bump and he tried to go over it, instead he twisted his ankle and scrapped up his shoulder and put his bicycle in every condition except the one he liked.
I saw him after the race. He was moving a little gingerly, but in good spirits.
And so now we have more race bling at home.
