Bi Polar Block's and his pet Triceratop

Just when you thought we were somewhat normal, today we will be diving into the split personality of our very own Block.  As many of our loyal followers know, Sickboy Block is new to the underworld of mountain biking.  Before us, he was your normal next door neighbor Joe who enjoyed 'triathloning' in his spare time along with something called fishing.  The Motor Club was mostly aware of how to spell this 'triathlon' word but that was about as far as our knowledge went on the subject.  Last week Block, despite his Sickboyism, did his first triathlon of the season.  And in order to make us fully understand his other life that doesn't revolve around us, he brought his own media coverage team with him to cover this event and report back to us.  So sit back, grab a drink and enjoy the read:

"Block rolled in early for the first of 3 races in the T Rex series.  He went over to pick up his stuff and get his number.  After a certain Addison incident that involved his race number, Block felt more secure about getting a 2 digit number and being in the elite wave....plus Jon wasn't around.  But when he walked over to the transition area and checked out his surroundings, he realized the numbers did not relate to waves and it was a bad draw for him as he was all the way against the fence, farthest possible distance to cover in transition.  I guess the USAT inserted a new rule stating that persons taller than average will be placed farthest away from the best transition area so they will not trample the smaller contestants to death.  Plus they have longer legs so it takes less energy to run the extra distance, therefore leveling the playing field.  Block was content with the new ruling as he figured it would only cost him maybe 10 seconds and he would be able to avoid all those weird people who grew up to be less than six feet tall.  So he set up his transition area and relaxed as he watched the smaller folks waste energy taking so many small steps to go back and forth to their vehicles.

(We never got the chance to ask Block why he had Zippo Lighter stickers on his hubcaps)

He then noticed one of the 'petite' people.  It was none other than the Motor Club's Mrs. Diesel who was there racing with her Mytriguys.com teammies.  Block tip toed around all the other little people with the better transition positions to go over and make sure she was all set but she was on top of her game and needed nothing from him.  She had a great draw for transition, just off center.  Two bikes down from her bike was a Cervelo P5.  Damn impressive, not sure how someone got their hands on one given that the Garmin team only had one of them in the Giro d’Italia just a month ago...and being in the center of the transition area mans a short person got it.  

Block then got into his wet suit and was happy to be 178 instead of the 195 last time he put it on....altho being black we were sure the color was very slimming when he was 190+.  He thoght about his target goal of 70 mins but still being sick he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get there.  So next he went into the water, then took a piss but we are not sure if he said he peed in his wet suit, the lake or over in the little people transition area.  

Of to the starting line he lined up behind some fast looking guys that looked like good draft targets....for swimming?  Off they went and turns out he made a bad choice, as the guys were slow. He faked right but saw too much congestion (that’s triathlon speak for too high of rate of getting kicked and elbowed) so he moved way left and found a great set of feet to draft.  He followed him all the way to the first turn and then lost him in the usual turn congestion but found another set of feet to follow to the second turn.

(We are guessing he is one of the longer looking people in this shot)

  The guy must have been sick of Block hitting his feet as he put a burst in at the turn.  Block drafted on and off on the long leg back to the beach.  He hit the sand and saw 14:43 on the clock, a real good time for tall people.  T1 seemed smooth and fast.  He mounted the P4 and as much as being tall is awesome it means you have big meaty hands, unless your last name has a 9 in it.  Block fumbled with trying to get his Garmin set mashing his big fingers onto those poor tiny little buttons.  In the end,he gave up and just got into aero position.

He Passed some people right away on the bike and was looking great from our angle.  But then he came to the first little uptick in the road it was like he threw an anchor out the back.  Two guys flew by him as he dropped down to 17ish on the mph scale.  Once back on the flat tho he was okay and actually caught 1 of the 2 guys but every little uphill was the same.  The Sickboy in him held him back from powering up the climbs like he normally does.  The one big positive was all the mtb cross training gave him some confidence on the fast downhill corner and while all the riders around him sat up, Block stayed in the aero position and did the "See ya suckers!" as he flew down the hill.

Next up he slipped out of the shoes and started running to drop off the P4.  Then it was full out run time.  At the 1 mile mark, the course loops back on itself which gives racers a chance to see who is within a minute or so in front or back.  There were lots of guys not far behind him and closing....and he took notice  He saw Rachel Jones about a minute behind him and thought to himself it wouldn't look good to lose to a girl, especially one he knew.  So he tried to up his game.  After the turnaround near 2 miles, he saw that she hadn’t really closed on him so that threat of losing to a girl was gone.  

His final splits were 14:45 swim (800 meters), 1:05 T1, 32:53 bike (12 miles) 1:07T2 and a 23:32 run (3.1 miles).

(I guess his media team didn't have any cameras so there was no picture of him crossing the finish line.  So we decided to make up one of our own...okay, we are not this creative but it was the 

best picture we could find on short notice and we'd like to think we could come close to this if we tried)

After the race he was quoted saying:  "Just shy of the 3 mile mark I felt tightness in my chest and thought this is really bad, Doctor #1 with his elevated heart attack risk prediction may be right after all.  But it went away real quick, so I said the hell with Doctor #1.  Put a push into the final stretch as I could hear a guy behind me and didn’t want to get passed.  I went under the banner at 1:13:22, about 3.5 minutes longer than target.  I was both happy and disappointed - happy to have finished but disappointed that the pneumonia set me back when I was so close to top form."

So that takes us through what it's like being Block for a race that doesn't require tires with treads.  We are damn proud of our Big Fella as he finished despite battling pneumonia in recent weeks.  He still has two more of these planned and we hope he'll recover quickly so he can reap the rewards from all the off season work he put in.