IS THERE A SEAMSTRESS IN THE HOUSE?

The Big Event for my tri team each year is the Nautica Malibu Triathlon. We should have about 300 people racing at Zuma beach in September. It's one of the more difficult sprint triathlons out there: 1/2 mile open-ocean swim, 18 mile hilly bike, and a 4-mile run. This weekend we had one of our dress-rehearsals; we go out to Malibu and run the exact race course.

Maybe my heart wasn't in it, maybe it was because I had just come back from vacation, or maybe it was just too hot, but I bonked it near the end. I should have had no problem running the 4 miles but at the halfway point I just decided I was tired and did walked a half-mile or so before running again. There will be plenty of workouts where it won't matter how tired I am and I'll have to just keep pushing myself, but this wasn't one of them so I took it easy.

I had a strange experience on the bike. I was climbing one of the hills, and someone rode up next to me and asked "are you ok?" I thought it was an odd question: It seemed to me that I was riding at a pretty good pace, did he think I was struggling up the hill? So I just said "doing fine." About 30 seconds later he came up to me again: "did you crash earlier?" Now I thought it was making some sense. Somebody on my tri-team wearing the same jersey must have crashed, this guy thought it was me and was checking that I was OK. That would have been thoughtful of him, but I said "that wasn't me, it must have been somebody else." Then he said "no, you have blood on your face."

Well that got my attention.

I can be pretty oblivious at times, but I would think I'd remember if I had crashed earlier that day. Maybe I had chapped lips that had cracked open in the dry heat? I started feeling my face, trying to distinguish between sweat and blood, but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. The guy tried to point where the blood was (while we were still climbing the hill) and I discoverd my "injury": I was wearing a brand new jersey, and some strands of red threads had found their way out of my shirt and onto my helmet. As the threads billowed in the wind, I guess it looked like dripping blood.

At least it's good to know other cyclists are looking out for me. Had it been actual blood, I think I would have liked to know.