Athens Tri and the Missing Timing Chip

The photographic evidence is in - my timing chip was lost in the pool during the 300m swim. Mystery solved!

Notice the bare ankles.

One ankle should have a Velcro strap containing some sort of RF ID device that tracks my position and time as a I cross from swim to transition to bike to transition to run to finish line.

A bunch of zeros appear on my official results. Bummer, eh? I had a great time nonetheless.

That's why we do these practice races, I suppose. Learn, and avoid these mistakes on the day of the big race.

Update (3/21): while volunteering at the Texas Double Play Du, I spoke to the team at RunFar, the company that does the event time keeping. It was the same crew who did the Athens race, and it turns out I was one of two athletes who lost their chip at Athens. He said in pool swims, it's usually closer to four or five lost chips. Come Lone Star, I think I might reinforce that Velcro with some duct tape!!

Athens-YMCA Triathlon

That's Coach Tom pictured right (showing off his big guns!)

Back in January, while we were all still triathlon neophytes, Coach Tom told us about this great event in Athens, Texas, sponsored by the town's YMCA. It's a Sprint distance triathlon, which is about half of an Olympic distance, and exactly half of Quarter Iron Man distance that our team will divide up to conquer on April 1 - just 15 days from now. Lance Armstrong ran this race when he was a young Texas triathlete. Tom offered this race as a great practice event.

So the majority of the Winter North Texas Forth Worth Triathlon team of TNT traveled to Athens on March 10, (about two hours drive from Fort Worth) to compete in this event.

A more beautiful day nor more idyllic weather could have greeted us. It was beautiful, even with a patch of fog that forced the local police to delay the race start to ensure the safety of the bicycle portion of the race.

I had a fantastic time - an absolute blast. TNT was well represented from our team, Team Starr's Bret and Jennifer and Team Magma, aka Dan M., and other local teams such as Dallas.

My only misstep was losing track of my timing chip, which began the race strapped to my ankle, but was separated from me without my noticing. So I have no official results, but I'm pleased with my effort.

And our team looked great today; I'm very proud to be a part of this group.

Coach Tom had us very well prepared for this race.