I was officially called out on being a crappy husband the other day. I was checking out my brother Jake's family blog and I saw a post about Jake completing his first sprint distance triathlon and his wife Ashlee completing her first olympic distance tri. Other than there being a paucity of pictures of my stick-in-the-mud brother, I thought it was awesome and commented on it to my Ashley. That's when I got it: "you forgot the camera so I can't even post about my triathlon"! D'oh!
This is it - the only picture we have of her entire event. Women, feel free to gaze all you want and envy her rockin' body in all of its muscle-definition glory. But men are limited to one glance - thou shalt not covet my hot wife.
She had left early in the morning, as the start was at 0700 (the event was on the air force base, so all times will be given in military format in this post). I got the kids ready and made it to the pool in time to see Ashley swimming her last few laps of the 1 mile swim, but I made the rookie mistake of forgetting the camera. Standard olympic distance is 1500m, and this race is 1600m so she was already 100m ahead of the game. She looked great in the water and seemed to be feeling the same during transitition #1. She finished 1600m in 31 minutes.
She used my titanium Douglas road bike but hadn't gotten used to the aero bars, so I just took them off for the race. Thankfully she is a pro with her Egg Beater clipless pedals. After she left the transition area, I loaded the kids in the van and hustled to our first spectator spot. The bike was three 7.1 mile loops around the base, which means the 21.3 mile course was about 3.5 miles shy of the standard olympic distance. We trucked it back and forth between two places on the course where we could see her race by. She looked great on the bike, but would definitely shave some minutes off her time if she could get comfortable in the aero position.
At transition #2, she still felt fine and was ready to tackle the 7.1 mile run, a full mile longer than the standard olympic distance. Personally, I would much rather bike 10 extra miles than run one. After she left T2, I had the assignment of getting Georgie to a birthday party and Isaac to soccer practice before Ashley made it to the first spectator spot so we could still cheer her on. I was a little behind schedule, but Juju and I caught her soon after she had passed it and drove alongside her for a few hundred meters. Then we went back to the party, which was near the run course, and waited to spot Ashley again. She was really moving well and passed us before I had even realized it. I hustled the girls back into the car and we cheered as we drove alongside her again towards the home stretch.
At the finish line I asked Anna Harter to take a picture of Ashley to try and salvage something from my camera failure. She came around the last corner still looking strong and ended up in second place of all the females with a time of about 2:48:00. This was her redemption olympic tri that came two years after her first attempt, aborted as it was by the homicidal dog incident. I was so impressed with her ability to train and be a full-time mom, all while accommodating my ridiculous training schedule (my Aquabike was two weeks after her tri) and all of the times she had to come rescue me from heat exhaustion and mechanical failures. Way to go, Ash!
Hopefully Aviano Air Base in Italy has a base triathlon so that Ash can continue her meteoric rise in the sport. Better yet, hopefully we can find an Italian nanny to teach our kids the language and enable both of us to train. Don't hate us - join us.
This is it - the only picture we have of her entire event. Women, feel free to gaze all you want and envy her rockin' body in all of its muscle-definition glory. But men are limited to one glance - thou shalt not covet my hot wife.
She had left early in the morning, as the start was at 0700 (the event was on the air force base, so all times will be given in military format in this post). I got the kids ready and made it to the pool in time to see Ashley swimming her last few laps of the 1 mile swim, but I made the rookie mistake of forgetting the camera. Standard olympic distance is 1500m, and this race is 1600m so she was already 100m ahead of the game. She looked great in the water and seemed to be feeling the same during transitition #1. She finished 1600m in 31 minutes.
She used my titanium Douglas road bike but hadn't gotten used to the aero bars, so I just took them off for the race. Thankfully she is a pro with her Egg Beater clipless pedals. After she left the transition area, I loaded the kids in the van and hustled to our first spectator spot. The bike was three 7.1 mile loops around the base, which means the 21.3 mile course was about 3.5 miles shy of the standard olympic distance. We trucked it back and forth between two places on the course where we could see her race by. She looked great on the bike, but would definitely shave some minutes off her time if she could get comfortable in the aero position.
At transition #2, she still felt fine and was ready to tackle the 7.1 mile run, a full mile longer than the standard olympic distance. Personally, I would much rather bike 10 extra miles than run one. After she left T2, I had the assignment of getting Georgie to a birthday party and Isaac to soccer practice before Ashley made it to the first spectator spot so we could still cheer her on. I was a little behind schedule, but Juju and I caught her soon after she had passed it and drove alongside her for a few hundred meters. Then we went back to the party, which was near the run course, and waited to spot Ashley again. She was really moving well and passed us before I had even realized it. I hustled the girls back into the car and we cheered as we drove alongside her again towards the home stretch.
At the finish line I asked Anna Harter to take a picture of Ashley to try and salvage something from my camera failure. She came around the last corner still looking strong and ended up in second place of all the females with a time of about 2:48:00. This was her redemption olympic tri that came two years after her first attempt, aborted as it was by the homicidal dog incident. I was so impressed with her ability to train and be a full-time mom, all while accommodating my ridiculous training schedule (my Aquabike was two weeks after her tri) and all of the times she had to come rescue me from heat exhaustion and mechanical failures. Way to go, Ash!
Hopefully Aviano Air Base in Italy has a base triathlon so that Ash can continue her meteoric rise in the sport. Better yet, hopefully we can find an Italian nanny to teach our kids the language and enable both of us to train. Don't hate us - join us.
