I'm Number One! (out of one)

For some reason this Wall Street Journal article is mistitled "How to Win a Marathon", but it's mainly about triathlons. Specifically, it's about the trend of finding a small enough triathlon so that there's no competion in your age/gender bracket (e.g., male 35-40) and you actually have a good chance of winning an "award".

Pictures from the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler

These Cherry Blossom 10-Miler pictures were taken by Danny.

Binni and Chris, we're almost at the finish.
Chris, Binni , Sylvia, and Danny (my running buddies) after the race

Capitol Hill Classic 10K pictures

Escape from Fort Delaware...Our crazy adventure

FRIDAY, JUNE 8:

9am - 3pm: It's Deloitte Impact Day and Chris (along with other Deloitte employees) has been volunteering at the zoo. His job: sandbags...Shovel sand into large bags and load the bags onto a cart. This is not a fun job to begin with but to make things worse, it's nearly 100 degrees in DC on Friday.

3pm - Binni leaves work

4pm - Binni arrives in DC

4:15pm - Bikes and bags are loaded onto Chris's car and we hit the road

4:35pm - The radio in Chris's car powers off...

5pm - Lights on the dashboard are flashing and the car is slowing down. We park the car in a legit parking spot on West Virginia Ave (at New York Ave, NE) and the car dies...Bye, bye alternator.

5:02pm - Chris calls Geico for a tow truck...The plan now is to tow the car back to his place, load the bikes and bags into my car, and take off for Delaware.

5:35pm - The tow truck has not yet arrived. We decide to leave the car there (and we'll deal with it on Sunday), call a cab to take us back to Chris's so we can load our stuff in my car and go to Delaware. Chris calls a cab.

6:15pm - A cab has not yet arrived. I notice a man dressed in a mechanic's uniform walk out of a building next to where we had parked. It's AYT Auto Services! A stroke of good luck (finally)!!!

6:30pm - The car is in the shop now, and we still have not yet seen a cab. The auto services shop closes, but the owner is nice enough to stay with us until we get a cab. We try to flag down cabs that drove by the shop, but they wouldn't go to Northwest, had passengers, or were going somewhere else.

6:45pm - Chris notices a cab in the Shell station on the corner of New York Ave. and West Virginia Ave. and convinces the driver to take us to Northwest.

7pm - Our bikes and stuff are loaded in the cab, and we're on our way to Chris's.

7:30pm - Our bikes and bags are now in Binni's car. It's too late to make it to packet pick-up and the bike inspection, so we grab a bite to eat.

8pm - Four hours later, and we're on our way to Delaware.

9:30pm - We driving to Delaware, and it is thundering and lightning. It starts to rain (pour!). This is not good weather the night before a triathlon (We're swimming in the Delaware River).

10:30pm - We arrive at the hotel.

11:15pm - Sleep!

SATURDAY, JUNE 9:

3:30am - It's time to wake up and get ready for the triathlon.

4:30am - We arrive at the event site to get our bikes inspected, pick up race packets, and set up our transition areas.

Chris is #201.

Binni is #104.

5:30am - Transition closes, and we wait for the ferry to take the participants to Fort Delaware State Park for the swim start.

This is a picture of the Delaware River. It looks a little choppy, doesn't it? Supposedly the river is the calmest at 7:30am (the official start time of the tri).

We're at the swim start, Fort Delaware State Park. From here, we'll jump into the water and swim across the Delaware River back to the transition area.

Chris and Binni before the event.

7:30am - The first wave jumps in the water and takes off...

7:32am - Binni's wave is ready to start.

7:34am - Chris's wave starts their swim.

Swim summary: Swimming across the Delaware River was the hardest thing I've ever done. The water seemed relatively calm for the first 10 minutes of the swim, but as we swam, the current got stronger and the waves got bigger. I would swim a stroke, breathe, and see this wave of water go over my head. With every stroke, I felt like I was going two strokes back. To make matters worse, I couldn't see any other swimmers in the river. I thought I was the only person left in the water. I know I swam off-course but eventually I made it to the end. About 3/4 of a mile across the river, Chris had had enough due to exhaustion and nausea from the waves. He hopped in a nearby boat that was picking swimmers up.

Bike: The bike course was relatively flat and should have been fast, but the crazy, ridiculous head wind made this flat course feel like a giant hill.

Run: Another flat, fast, "scenic" course. It was an out-and-back course. Definitely flat but not exactly scenic. Trees on one side, a school and other random things on the other. At this point, many people were walking because they were hot (it was in the 90s at this point) and exhausted.

Overall time: 3 hrs, 35 minutes, 55 seconds.

Binni after the triathlon...I'm happy to be done as EFFDT was the most difficult and least enjoyable endurance event I've ever done.

Our post triathlon lunch was at the Charcoal Pit in Wilmington, Delaware. It's a local institution that has been around since 1956. Fantastic vanilla milkshakes (not pictured). So-so burgers. Something must have happened with the Charcoal Pit. We were at the originial location on 202 and had the burgers. Unfortunately, the burgers looked and tasted exactly like a 'food service' burger.