The last month has been chock full of activity. We've
enjoyed the Seville Fair; we've done the Romería of El Rubio, Encarni's village
(a romería is a short pilgrimage where a religious iconic figurine—usually of
the Virgin Mary-- is carried and accompanied from a principal church to a
corresponding hermitage somewhere in the countryside); we attended a wedding of
friends from Chapel Hill; and I did the Seville Triathlon. I've compiled the pictures in the posts below.
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| The swim was the hardest I've ever done. We started out treading water for about five minutes before they let us begin, and people were so close that we were kicking and slapping each other relentlessly. It got worse through the first 300 meters of the swim, and then finally there was some separation and I found a decent rhythm. |
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| The bike course was "draft-legal", meaning riders could work in packs instead of having to maintain several meters of separation like they do in the States. I enjoyed this format but it was extremely dangerous! I think the Spaniards followed the same rules as when they drive: "just try not to hit anyone." |
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| First "finish" in over four years! Even after having completed some 25+ triathlons in my life, this felt sort of like the first. |
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| My post-race goodies: a banana and a box of strawberries. |
Even though I don't have any pictures, I wanted to mention some of the biggest differences I noticed from the way we do triathlons in the US versus this one. Here they had a full bar set up next to the start for the spectators, and people were tailgating all along the race course; at the finish line there was a stage with a man and a woman dancing Flamenco as racers came in; mirroring the way Spanish pedestrians interact with traffic, people crossed the street in front of bikes with reckless abandon, causing the volunteer course marshals to literally go on cursing sprees; people were chatting while doing the swim portion (I poked my head up and swam side-stroke to get my barrings, and three people were having a conversation in the middle of the river); people shouting encouragement in Spanish: "venga!", "vamos!", "campeon!", "tú puedes!". Aside from this it was really similar to races I've done in the States.
