The black stuff in there is rotting steel girder and James River mud. They breed us tough in Africa…

3 minutes before the start I moved a stray swim buoy to where it should be and kicked an old, rusty steel girder lodged in the mud under water. The gash was huge and completely black with rusty steel slime. I hobbled to the waters edge and the athletes parted way in a “whooooa!”

The race was about to start any moment and I had no idea how bad the injury was. One of the age group athletes (Kristen I think) is a doctor and came over for help. She said “those are tendons”, but they dont seems damaged as I could move my toes.

I somehow thrive on hardship and said: “I’m racing” A 1st aid crew quickly put gauze over it (to keep the dirt in?) and wound Ceran wrap around it.

A fellow pro yelled at me- “Race starts in 1 minute”. Fortunately there wasnt any time to think- the gun went and within a few minutes minutes so did the ceran wrap. Thats when it started hurting. Skin flapping around and I could visualize the flithy funk of the James River in flood irrigating the rusty steel girder out of the wound. I didnt care about keeping up or reading the tricky currents- I just flailed arms and tried to keep my left foot still.

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I  pre rode the XTERRA Richmond course shortly after our arrival from XTERRA Northwest Cup in Coeur D’Alene, where I had a 4 inch nail puncture my tubeless tire in 2 places. See previous blog.

My replacement tire was in the mail, so I rode the tire with the 2 nail holes, and just put in a tube. Of course it flatted. I changed the tube. It deflated faster than I could pump. Before putting our last tube in I carefully inspected for sharp objects.

It also deflated faster than what I could pump.

We still had a lot of riding to do and I wasnt going to call it quits.

I was going to make that tire tubeless again.

First I used a bottle cap to scoop the sealant from the healthy front tire and put it in the rear. With the 2 huge holes.

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