Road Rage Duathlon #2 2-28-15

This year they changed the location so it wasn't at my work.  That was sad but there was a lot less traffic out in Santa Clara where they decided to have it.  Unfortunately, it rained and rained and rained.  Everyone was soaked.  As you can tell we weren't prepared.  When we were leaving our house the sun was out and it wasn't raining at all.  So, Josh was only wearing his tank top and bike and running shorts. That's it!  Joel had at least worn a long sleeved shirt over his tank top just to be safe.  We searched through the van when we got there and found a couple pairs of stretchy gloves for them, thank goodness. When we got there they had to pick up there packets which was lucky because then Josh at least got his Road Rage shirt to wear.  But by the time he had gotten his bike set and was done setting up he was soaked and the wind kicked up and now it was freezing.  They told everyone that because the roads were so wet that they wanted everyone to only do 1 lap of the bike.  The sprinters were supposed to do one 1.5 mile lap for the run, one 10 mile loop of the bike and then another 1.5 run.  Those doing the Olympic length wear supposed to do 2 laps of everything 2 runs, 2 bikes and then 2 more runs.  So they got off easy with only 10 miles to bike instead of 20, to make it safer.

 Here are Jana Terry and her sister getting ready to do the Sprint with Josh.

While we were waiting it started to hail. I hurried and called Sophie and told her to forget whatever they were doing and to drive as fast as she could, legally, to bring Josh a hoodie or jacket or something because I just new he was going to get hypothermia.

10 seconds before the race started Sophie pulled up and ran a PVHS hoodie over to Josh to throw on.  She was a life saver.  He was already shivering.

 As it started he was trying to get the hood on, but it wouldn't stay up.

 There they go.  Josh just wanted to get warm.  So he took off fast.  Most people slow down because of bad weather but for some reason it speeds him up.  Which is good.

 Here are Jana and her sister leaving and Josh coming back to get on his bike.

This lady's job was to buckle helmets because peoples fingers were frozen and they couldn't get them to snap shut.

 Look how bad it was coming down!

Here is Jana coming in before her sister and Joel.

 Her transition was pretty fast.  She got in and out pretty slick.

 Here came Joel.  He came into transition before Shawn but Shawn left on his bike before Joel.  Joel always takes forever on the transitions.

 Shawn Jaca.

It wasn't too long after Joel left that Josh came flying back on his bike and was off running again.

Here's Joel coming into the transitions again.  At least he was smiling.  The rain had let up by this point and the wind had died down but everyone was drenched and cold.  You can see Sophie's car parked right behind Joel.  She, Ben and David stayed inside it and keep warm.  They had a perfect view of the entire race.

This is how slow Joel is in transitions.  By the time he came in I saw Josh running down the street to the finish line.  So I ran down there thinking that I would just miss Joel leaving on the run but I'd catch him finishing.  So here is Josh getting his chip removed and is looking around wondering where everyone is.  

This part is funny.  Take note of the guy getting his chip taken off after Josh and the look he is giving Josh for sprinting past him right before the finish line.  Here is Josh and the Schimbecks!  We love them!  They love to do all the same races that we do and their daughter is a grade younger than Josh so they see each other everyday at school.  We talk to them all the time and Josh came in right behind both of them. 

OK - Back to Joel, I looked around after all this had happened and he was just leaving the transition!  He definitely needs to work on that.

So I took this picture of Josh and then the photographer for the race asked if he could take our picture.

Then we went up to the car to watch for Joel and to get Josh dry.  His hoodie weighed about 10 pounds.  Here is Joel coming to the turn around point.

After that we knew he only had about 15 minutes left so Josh and I left the kids and went down to the finish line.  We caught up to these two goof balls.  So cute, even soaking wet.

 Then came Joel.

 Everyone was waiting around to see who won.  We knew that Josh had taken first in his age group but after awhile we found someone and they said that they weren't doing age group awards.  Just top 3 overall in the Sprint and Olympic distances for men and women.  We were bummed.  But we waited anyway just to see what his official time was. 

At one point I had gone to stand behind this generator that was blowing out hot air and it was perfect.  Josh had taken off his hoodie because it was drenched and now that he wasn't running around he was starting to freeze again.  So we were nice and toasty by this generator until these 3 ladies with their garbage bags came over and pushed us out of our own spot.  I was ticked but I wanted Josh to stay there and have some heat so I moved to make more room for him.  But after about 2 minutes they had pushed passed him too and he walked away shivering.  Dumb ladies.  Look at them.  I hope they see this and feel bad.  Big dorks.  Notice Ben, he stayed there.  He's not as nice as Josh.  Or maybe they just didn't care about him because he was little.  I don't know but I was mad.  I wanted to go rip off their bags, push them in a puddle and put the bags on Josh.

They took forever until they announced the winners which was really dumb because if all they were doing was top three then they would have the results before Joel was even done running.  Anyway,  they announced that Josh took 5th overall in the Sprint and 3rd in the men's!  3rd place!!  5th overall meant that 2 women passed him.  We knew that the Schimbeck girl did but apparently she took 2nd.  So that explains why that guy was giving Josh a look that could kill.  He came in 4th in the men's and they don't give out plaques for 4th.  Hahaha!  Josh felt bad but Joel reassured him that that's what you do in a race.  You try to pass as many people as you can at the end.  If there is someone in front of you and the end is on sight then it should be your goal to beat that person.  He felt better after he saw all the cool stuff he got and the awesome plaque.  Good job Josh!