Tri number seven will go down in history as the day that competitor 510 decided to be a total galah and take me out on the bike turnaround. He deserves nothing less than disqualification (or at the very least a time penalty) for deliberately trying to overtake around a cone, on the inside, when there was clearly no room to do so, and at speed, despite being warned by the marshalls to slow down. Bastard.
Here's what happened. I had a fantastic swim (2:07), despite there being so many peope in my event that they had to split the boys off and get them to swim first (suited me fine). I also had a quick and pretty great T1. I got on my bike with the help of some nice patch of kerb and headed towards turn one. I got to within cooee of turn one, having changed into a perfect gear and slowed down to make the hairpin turn. I looked back to make sure nobody was coming up behind me, and heard the marshalls yelling at a bunch of guys to slow down. Typical. My front wheel rounded the turn cone, and then out the corner of my eye a bike came flying at me from my right.
Some flaming mongrel decided to try and overtake me on the inside of the cone when I had right of way around the turn and there was clearly no room for him to do so. His front wheel hit my right foot on the pedal, then he shoved me out of the way and kept going, riding straight over my bike. I hit the ground on my left hand side, the back of my head smashing the concrete and my hip smashing the ground. Lucky I had put my gloves on, as my left palm scraped the ground too. That flaming mongrel then just kept on going, not so much as even a backwards glance to make sure I was okay. I had fortunately unclipped when I hit the ground (automatic de-cleat), but not before my left pedal stuck itself in my left shin when the bike fell on me.
I was scraped up by a marshall and was bloody furious. I had to leave the course and go to the rescue van, then re-enter the course at the point of exit. This little extra bit of fluffing around cost me four minutes. I got back on my bike after many curse words directed at Mr 510 and pedalled on. My hip and hand hurt like hell, and I still had 7.5km to ride. I rode on, passing the flaming mongrel on my way to turn 2 and hurled abuse at him in my head. I was dreaming of broken bottles, banana skins and z-nails appearing in front of him but my mental powers were not cooperating and I had to save my energy for the rest of the bike and run. At the very least, the smash caused the adrenalin to kick in and I was averaging 27kph out of anger.
I got back to tranistion and was back out again in under a minute. I got off my own bike by myself with no help, despite the pain, and after changing my shoes and removing my cracked helmet, I took off on the run. I ran over half of it, out of anger. I was so angry with that flaming mongrel that I wanted to find him and push him off his bike, then remembered I am a nice person and don't do violence. Instead, I just imagined violence in my head.
I finished the run in immense pain, but I think I've done the event in about 54 minutes. I could have achieved my goal of sub-50 if it wasn't for that flaming mongrel. I made a report to the race officials but expect that the prick will get off scot free.
But, there's always karma - and it's coming to get you, you flaming mongrel, one day, when you least expect it.
More later, have to go to A&E and get checked out.
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