With the temperature hovering at around a million degrees, we had six hardy souls who showed up for the start of the Short TT this evening. While we huddled in the shade of the one tree on Sugarloaf St at the start, we got to hear about Madeline's exploits this past weekend, whereby she set a *16 minute* PR in the grueling Sea to Summit Triathlon. She swam 1.6 miles on the Maine coast, rode her bike 95 miles to Mount Washington (with 6,000' of climbing along the way), and then hiked/ran another five miles to the summit (gaining another 4,300'). "It was OK", she said, with her characteristic modesty, not mentioning the fact that she finished second in her age group and seventh female overall. (Another shout-out to fellow NCC triathlete Alicia Wendowloski, who also scored a top-ten AG finish).
(Also, after racing across Maine and New Hampshire and climbing the highest mountain in New England, Madeline sprained her ankle this morning while walking her dog, and still managed to show up for tonight's race. How was your ankle, she was asked after the race. "It was OK".)
In the "managing adversity" category, Shawn also gets a shout-out. He started 30 seconds behind me, and I kept wondering why he hadn't passed me yet. Turns out he flatted in downtown Hatfield, his second TT incident in the past few weeks, after crashing in Deerfield in June. He patched it up and managed to finish though, big kudos.
The biggest kudos of the night, though, go to Tim, who rode the TT earlier at probably the hottest point of the day. "I was feeling a bit dizzy" afterward, he said, due to the heat, and so he decided to show up at the group ride finish with a cooler full of ice-cold drinks. The cold water and ice packs felt like manna from heaven on this steamy night. Thanks Tim, you win this year's Nobel Refreshment Prize!
Tonight's results:
Full season results are here: https://www.nohobikeclub.org/Time-Trial/Hill-Climb-Series
