Three words best describe this race: Hot, Hot, and HOT. By the time of the 8 AM start, it was easily topping 90. The heat index for the day, which is measured in the shade, was at least 105. You have to get yourself to just not think about it. At least that's what I do. Because if you dwell on it you'll just be miserable. And it'll still be just as hot!
Swim: There were 3 waves. All females were in the 3rd wave (it was a very small race). The water was almost as hot as the air! It was like a bathtub in there. Fortunately it was also as calm as a bathtub, which made sighting easy even for me. There was one girl who insisted on swimming into my butt the entire way around. I got an elbow to the goggle one time too which was nice. She seemed to be trying to get me to move over. I'm sure she was frustrated, but hey I was just swimming in a straight line, I wasn't about to alter my course just because she wanted me to! If she wanted to swim to the inside she could go around me. But she seemed to prefer my butt. Oh well. I think the swim was quite long. My friend, who was an NCAA swimmer, looked at all the times and thinks it was at least 100yds too long. For a 400 meter course, that's pretty significant. I heard them say "3rd and 4th women coming out of the water!" as I got out, which was very cool (that would be me and Butt-Girl).
T1: I opted to wear socks, which I would later regret. Other than that, I was pretty fast for me, although that's still not fast. I think I lost 2 spots by the time I got out onto the bike.
Bike: 13 mile straight, flat, out & back course. A bit of a headwind on the way out provided some challenge, but I knew the way back would be sweet. I chased down some women in front of me and tried to keep a mental note of my position. I passed a coworker of mine to get into 3rd place. She passed me back and I got to watch another girl draft off of her for about a mile until I passed them both again. On the way back, a few miles from the end, I found myself in a back-and-forth duel with two other women. We were trading the top three spots back and forth. I was leading the race two different times, though only briefly. It was really exciting. We were zooming by other riders like they were standing still. Eventually, one girl pulled far enough away that I knew I wouldn't catch her, but I kept her in my sights (not hard on a straight road) and finished the bike in 2nd place.
T2: I opted to not take my feet out of my shoes before dismounting the bike, another decision I would come to regret. Again, fast transition for me but still not that fast.
Run: Whoa, this was the longest 2 miles I've ever run! I could see the girl in 1st ahead of me. She wasn't pulling away, but I wasn't gaining much ground either. By the time we passed the first mini-aid station, which was two people handing out icewater towels, I was well in need of some cooling off. I reached out and received... a dry washcloth. What a tease! The next aid station was a water stop. A little girl was handing out water and Gatorade. I was about to ask for water, when the guy right in front of me took the cup of water she was holding. I passed by as she was turned around to get another cup. Foiled again!
Then we turned off the road and entered a shaded section of trail. I guess the shade was nice, but the real thing I noticed was we were running on a thick pad of pea gravel. As if my legs weren't heavy enough, now I was running on what felt like sand. "Turnover!" I kept telling myself. "Just keep running!" I thought about what it would feel like if another woman came blazing past me, putting me into third. I might not be able to catch the girl in front of me, but I certainly didn't work this hard to lose my second-place spot! After we finally exited the woods, there was another mini-aid station. I reached out for water, but all he had was Gatorade. 0 for 3!
I could tell there wasn't anyone immediately about to pass me because I didn't hear any cheers for anyone else after I passed a group of spectators. Coming up on the water-and-Gatorade aid station for the second time, I could see they were handing out water bottles. And they looked COLD. Sweeet. I reached out for one... and a guy right next to me (where did he even come from??) grabbed it. And that was it, we had passed by. Are you kidding me?? At this point I let out an audible "AAGH!" I was passing a guy who said, "here, you want some of mine?" I managed an "I love you!!", guzzled some precious H2O and gave him the bottle back. I then came up on my friend Clay, got out a quick "missed EVERY aid station!" to him, and he mercifully splashed me with some water from his bottle as I passed. Then, up ahead- the finish line! So close, but so far away... had it really only been an hour since the swim start? One hot, tired foot in front of the other, and I made it to finish 2nd overall. And promptly drank 2 bottles of icy cold water. Aaaaaaahhhh, finally.
Results: I was 2nd overall, which is way cool! (remember though, it was a small race, something like 46 women total, so it's not quite as impressive as it sounds) But looking back over the results, what do you think made the difference? Yep, you guessed it, transitions. The girl who won was about 25 seconds ahead of me, and that's about how much faster her combined T1 and T2 were than mine. Our other times were startlingly identical (I outswam her by one minute, she outbiked me by one minute, and our run times were 0.2 sec apart). Guess who needs to do some transition work?? Talking to my coach though, I realized a few things. 1) This is not unexpected, since we've never really worked on transitions before. For the half and full IMs, they don't matter as much and I've always had bigger things to work on. She gave me some good tips that I will be practicing. 2) This is a good problem to have! For a race to come down to transition times means I'm making some good progress.
My bike average was good, 21.1 mph. I was a little concerned that it was the same average that I had in Heatwave a few weeks back, where the bike course was almost twice as long. But Heatwave was a slightly rolling course, so I was helped out by some downhills. This one was pancake flat. Heatwave, despite the name, was also nowhere near as hot. But in any case, my biking has definitely improved just in the last couple of months, and that in itself is a major victory.
My run pace was 7:46, which was slightly disappointing. I ran 7:10s for a longer race not even a year ago. But, I hadn't biked nearly as fast, nor was it nearly as hot. And I went into this last month or so of training knowing that the strong bike focus for this phase was going to take something away from my run. I've hardly done any run speedwork at all in the last month at least. So I do understand it. But of course I want to be faster, who doesn't, right?
And in the end, this race was for fun of course, and I had fun. So I was more than happy with it.
I almost forgot the best part of the race- the Headsweats visor in the goodie bag! Seriously, that was the main reason I signed up for this race.
Lots of great GNOTri performances, including several AG wins and places. Congrats to all! Now go find some air conditioning :)
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