My friend, Cathy, did her first triathlon today: the UNC Wellness Center Super Sprint in Chapel Hill, NC. I went to cheer her on…she did great and had a smile on her face the whole way. GO CATHY!

While waiting for her to come in off the bike, I sat on the curb for 40 minutes cheering all the bikers on, and observing them. I actually have never been a spectator at an event before – it was quite educational.

Here are my observiations:

  • I saw several people slip their feet out of their bike shoes before dismounting, leaving their shoes clipped into the pedals. The problem with this idea is that once you get off the bike, your shoes flop over upside down and drag on the ground (this is also a problem at the bike start!). Most of the people doing this had all sorts of problems such as the shoe falling off the pedal, the insole falling out of the shoe, or worse, not being able to push their bike along because the dang shoe getting in the way. The people who knew what they were doing picked up their bike and carried it up high so no chance of shoes dragging. I imagine they also glued their insole into their shoe or something. I had practiced mounting and dismounting this way once, and decided I just wasn’t coordinated enough to pull this trick off, so I abandoned the idea. Now I see that was a wise choice!
  • I also saw several people fumble with their clipless shoe cages.? ? Those also would flip upside down and drag on the ground and just get in the way.? ? The people who had the smoothest bike mount and dismounts were the people who were just using plain old pedals with sneakers; and the people with clip-in bike shoes who didn’t try any fancy stuff with them.? (I used a plain old bike with plain old sneakers for my first tri season…and it was just fine!)
  • I saw one woman unbuckle her helmet about 100 yards before the dismount line. Her expression told me that she was having a really bad day. The volunteer at the dismount line told her to buckle it, explaining that not having her helmet properly buckled while on the bike was a DQ. The woman ignored the volunteer and just went on. The volunteer just shrugged it off. I think they were lax about the rules at this race because it was a beginner event.
  • The hero of the whole race was the woman who came in running alongside her broken bike. She had a smile on her face despite her predicament*. I heard someone say her chain had broken. Bummer. I wondered how long she had run with her bike, only to have to run another 5k to finish the race. Bravo for her!
  • Right after the dismount line, there was a curb that the racers had to go over and then run across the grass to the transition area. Most people didn’t notice this curb and smacked their bike hard into it. I hope next year they put a ramp in this spot, or at least paint the curb with orange paint so people notice it. When you are going fast in a race, you just don’t always see that kind of stuff. I sent a note to Set Up, Inc. and they replied, “Spoke with the wellness center, we’ll have a ramp there next year.”

*Hmmm…right after typing this I recalled how I failed to do the swim at my Kure Beach triathlon. I did not have a smile on my face that day. I’ll have to work on staying positive despite things going wrong! Something I need to work on in my whole life, actually…