Triathlon at Retirement

This is a mountain bike race largely on the Vasa trail. This year I settled for 45km, which is half distance. Last time I did this distance was in 2019, my time then was 2h 26 min. In early August, I did several training runs on the trail and my splits were not anywhere near those needed for my previous competition time. Weather in Sweden has been the opposite of USA and most of Europe, with the rainiest July and August for at least 30 years. I have never seen the local lakes and rivers so high. Of course, that made the bike track really muddy at some parts. The organizers have made a good job of improving the track, so overall it was not too bad but there were difficult patches. Competition day was lucky with the weather, a rare day with little rain! This time, I knew my approximate finishing time and I was placed in start group 2. I got off well and raced past many bikers without extra effort. In the well-known climb "Lundbäcksbackarna" I felt I was doing well. But somethin...

I am back in Sweden enjoying the lower temperatures in comparison to Texas that is having a heat wave. The trek over the Atlantic is always fairly tiring, so I take it easy the first days. My first training was to be a mountain bike ride on some easy trails (mostly gravel roads) around my log cabin in the province of Dalecarlia, or Dalarna in Swedish. Well, after 4 miles I had a chain drop in an uphill and in my desperate attempts to free my feet, I peddled and twisted until I got the chain stuck. At least I got my feet off and avoided a fall. There was nothing to do but to walk back. Four miles, but I was able to roll downhill! A quick trip to the nearest town where I found a very nice bike shop that fixed the problem by the next morning. Then, I managed to ride 27 miles without problems. But I realize, I will have to tackle harder trails if I am going to have a good time on  the race "Cykelvasan" in August. It is more or less on the same trails where the cross country ski r...