The kinda guy who wears racing flats to a tri.

Ok I admit I wear racing flats to tris.Why? Because I grew up a two sport athlete in high school (HC swimming and track). I was always taught you had gear for racing and gear for training. In running you always ran with normal running shoes and therefore at your meets you either whipped out spikes or XC flats ( being a two miler I sort of chose flats much to the chargin of my coaches, but I wasn't going to kill my shins if we traveled to a school with a rock hard track that hadn't been repaved since Prfontaine was an olympic favorite( dishin the love to Watertown and Torrington high schools who just redid their tracks in the last two years)). So why do I wear my flats in tris? It sort of the same thing my Tri is a competition so I want to get myself into the psycological aspect of competition ( note I have used these same flats for all my senior year track meets in high school, 2 5k's in college, a few local road races, a marathon, and every tri I have ever entered.). Also the flats tend to give me a little intimidation factor. Think about it. When you you see flats in somebody's transition, you think to yourself "holy shit this guy's/girl's going to be pure fire on the run." In my case it's somewhat true. My bike split usually sucks. I come out of the water in the top 20 overall, and I drop to mid pack on the bike, and my run is where I make up for lost time. Granted I'm not a Kenyan, so I won't be pulling any 13min 5k's but I still manage to pull decent runsplits and make up some of the positions I lost on the bike. For me my flats are that psycological edge, a message to my brain, spirit and legs that's it time for the run and time to haul ass.
Ok so now that I have defended my choice of footwear ( a pair of four year old New Balance RC 750's that are yellow-green, blue and white). It's down to the true matter of business, (not that I am a gear whore) but this upcoming sprint tri. There is talk of rain in the forecast, for most people this isn't a problem but for me it's a catch 22.
The Good:
All of my best run splits have come during major storms. In high school I broke 12:00 in the 3200meters in the middle of a downpour. Every road race or track meet I entered where the winds were howling , rain was pouring by the bucket, and all the elite or in high school the junior elite runners were bitching about their legs getting tight because of the weather, I quitely stood at the starting line licking my chops. Sure I wasn't fast enough to win but I could almost be assured a top five , because afterall for the average paced runners (like myself) it's sort of demoralizing when the wind is blowing a gallon of water back in your face and it's even worse whaen you've got some psycho (me) in XC flats smiling and ready haul ass into the nor'easter. Another case study in my running performance in the rain was my 5k split in this race last year. Last year I broke 21 min. for the first time ever in any 5k ( including those straight up road races). Now for the bad news that pure fire 5k was fueled by the anger of a lousy bike split casued by a crash 3 miles in, and a timid ride there after.
The Bad and the Ugly
Rain, despite my sucess in it on the run, is certainly not my friend on the bike. In last year's Griskus Sprint I wiped out just before the T-turn on the bike, when I hit my back brakes and locked up my rear wheel , sending me sliding into a grassy embankment tour de france style. ( leg against pavement).Neddless to say anytime after that when I hit my brakes on the decents I could feel the back wheel whobbling as it began to lock up. I was forced to descend feathering the brakes and reduced my overall speed conciderably. Fast foraward to June of this year. This year I did the Jim Calhoun ride for coaches against cancer. It was pouring. the first 10 miles weren't bad, nor the first 14 for that matter. But at mile 15 out in the middle of East Hartland, close to the CT, Mass., border my wet weather curse once again reared its ugly head. Coming off a mild descent into a sharp right hander, I made the corner reamrkably well ( granted I was riding at a whimpy 25mph), it was then that I noticed we had turned onto one of the most pitted plots of chip seal in the state, to make matters worse there was a sharp left handed into another quicker descent. Noticing the rider in front of me had missed the turn and went down antoher hill to turn around. I tried to slow, appling both front and rear brakes. (once again I felt the familar slide of the back wheel preparing to kick outand send me sliding) I aimed the font wheel to the left to try to make the turn. Instead of making the turn, or slidding on to my side against the pavement. my front hit a pothole bucked upright and due to a physics arguement between my rear wheel which wanted to slide down and to the right spokes against chipseal and the front wheel moving up and to the left I found my self and my water bottles dismounting right shoulder over handle bars. After a painful tuck and roll, I found myself lying half way down a hill 200 meters from my bike with my water bottles lying against my feet. For a moment I thought I had broken my right collar bone but after getting up a watching a panicked volunteer make a dash toward my fallen steed. I began to move my shoulder, everything felt right except for the cut on my right hand under the cycling glove, the small scrapes on my legs, and oh yeah the big ass gash slightly above my right elbow. I prepared to remount as I watched some of my teammates/coworkers (who talked me into this) blow by. I asked the volunteer two questions 1 Got any bandaids? to which his response was no. 2 Helpme fix my brake lever. He grabbed onto the front wheel as I pushed the brake/ shifter ( Yes I'm cheap my bike has only Sora componets. I will be starting a charity Buy Bob Dura Ace this fall with an address to send donations) into a more natural position. I left with one last question Where's the next aid staion? after getting it shouldn't be more than 5 miles I embarked on a 12 mile oddessey , descending like a granny, climbbing like a beast, and hitting the flats with what speed my nerves allowed, over the driveway quick sealed roads of Mass. All the way I passed or was passed by fellow riders who gwaked at my uncovered, bloody right arm. When I finally got to the second aid station I met up with my team mates, my arm was tended to by a nurse named Florence ( who had she been 20 years younger, unmarried and a yankee fan I might have concidered dating .) After getting a "now you look like a roadie" We hit the road again to finish the ride. ( I will share other details of how I on went on a break and was reeled in by their blue and white freight train in a later post). So needless to say
me+racing flats+ fast run split
me +rain + run= good
me+rain+ bike=bad.