Just a basic Sunday

I'm not sure what to call it ... a triathlon ... a mini-adventure race ... all I know is on Sunday, J & I did 22 miles of activity consecutively and competitively ... and survived! This is a race in J's town we've wanted to do for the last 3 years. The first year here, we volunteered at it. We thought it looked like a nice, family-friendly event that would be cake for stellar athletes like ourselves. We thought wrong.

It started with a 2-mile run. J took off like a bullet, but I had him in sight the whole course. His time ended up being around 16.30 minutes and mine was 17 minutes. When I turned the corner to the transition-to-paddle area, though, he was already in his kayak racing down the river. I, on the other hand, spent some time at the transition area to change from my sneakers into my water shoes.

Next up was a 5-mile paddle ... into the wind. Most of it was on a section of the Contoocook River that we have never done. Besides the wind, which I continually cursed, I enjoyed the section very much. I wish I had my camera to take some pictures of the changing fall colors, the wildlife (I spotted 4 heron!) and the guy who competed in the race on his paddleboard. J's river run probably took him a little over an hour, while mine took me 1 hour, 900 minutes. All I know is it was long and tough. Did I mention that at 2.5 miles, you had to portage the dam? For the non-paddlers, that means you had to get out of the water and CARRY your kayak across the road. I'll admit, one of the volunteers helped me carry my kayak. But damn the dam.

While I was very happy to get out of my kayak, I was not happy that we had a 14-mile bike ride to finish up the race. 14 miles. With hills. At that point, I was pondering just riding my bike home, which was only 6 miles away. Or slicing my arm with my rafting knife and calling medical to escort me to the finish line. Either option seemed better than riding 14 miles.

But I hoisted my lazy big butt onto my bike and pedaled. A little over an hour later (wow! good time actually!), I was at the finish line and J was cheering me on. His bike time was somewhere under an hour.

J's Total Time: 2 hours 28 minutes
My Total Time: 2 hours 56 minutes

We finished. We pushed our limits. We survived (even though there were times I thought I might die). We had fun? Yes, we had fun.

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