A visit to Mexico

[Archaea]

for a tri.

Mexican organization, at least south of the border, is something to behold.

Let me explain.

In the tri world, there are different things for different people. For the obsessed, there is Ironman, a long distance and a long day, which consumes people. Some of us are just interested. I'm not consumed but interested.

Ironman is a corporation making lots of money.

A subset of Ironmnan is 70.3, or half ironman, a distance of a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run. They now, just this year have a world championship in November, November 11th in Clearwater Florida. And it's marked by age groups, which means old dogs like myself, need not perform to the same standards of young dogs.

In Mexico, there are two qualifying races, one this past weekend in Ensenada, and one in September in Cancun.

Mexico is okay by me, but I would recommend skipping Ensenada. It's a former fishing town that smells. Cancun is much nicer. PV is old but okay.

Any how, this is how the weekend goes. Normally for one's entry fee of $250 bucks, you get a hat, a shirt, a medal if one finishes, during race support and a post race meal. If you're truly hardy you receive an award's dinner and qualifying spots.

There are hard and fast rules for qualifying. If you don't show up, you don't get it and it "rolls down" to the next racer.

Well in Mexico things work differently.

First the race course, usually disclosed one year in advance, is changed the day before the race.

To understand how obsessive triguys and gals are, we will finish a race, sleep overnight in line to sign up for next year's torture. To have a race change the day before, when the truly obsessed will have ridden and run the course dozens of times in advance is truly unsettling. Tripeople have their pooping and peeing timed in advance so as not to waste time. I tell you no lie. I have my regularity figured out so that I'm emptied out by 5:00 or 5:30 am so as to not interfere with racing on race day.

And all races start at 7:00AM. Why? I don't know. It's just the way things are.

So prerace day unsettles us with a course change. And the prerace bazzar was nonexistent. I mean where am I supposed to waste money I don't have?

Race day. Course officials announce a delay, because unlike at other sites, the bike course was still not cordoned off. So we start at forty minutes late. Now, our internal clocks are off, with our bodies which would be biking still not in the water. Manana time syndrome.

This course was a figure eight. I hate those.

A little slow.

So we get on the bike and notice the second and third gears don't work. Oops and this is a hilly climbing course. So now I must big ring it or use the fourth gear.

As we pass the "support" stations, little guys sitting down until we go whizzing past, some hand out agua in plastic bags. Do I drink water from a Mexican in Mexico placed in a plastic bag? Hmm I break bag over head and push on, taking gatorade instead.

Not very many stations. Ride is fun but riding in big gear takes a toll and I notice a power outage in legs. Oops. Slow time.

Run is a double loop up and down but my legs are down even though I don't feel bad, just legs are in cement.

Finish, find two kids and we have no meal, no welcome, just medal. Shuttles were supposed to be operating, but Mexican organization dispensed with this needless display of courtesy. So I walk back to hotel pushing bike and kids up the hills that I really didn't want to see again.

Sticking through the end. There is no post race meal.

And awards dinner, dinner start at 6, but 7. Awards drag on and the highlight of the night is the roll down, at least for us morons.

So do they follow protocol? No, of course not. Some guys in my age group declare they have earned spots but do not want to wait, could the organizers change the order and allow them to go first because they did not want to miss it. More anxiety. You see, I saved my worst performance for this weekend, but still managed by dumb luck to be in a position to have it roll down. And by 9:38, it did.

So my day started at 4:30 am and finished by 12:38 am, time I crossed the border in Tijuana into the San Diego.

In the end, the natives were friendly, town stinky and race course actually nice but poorly organized.

I doubt more than the three or four regulars will read this, but that's my weekend. How did the rest of you do?