the week leading up to this race kind of blew. i had a bad tuesday and didn't get any of my workouts in. we had our mini tri tuesday night and traffic was horrible and i had high hopes of getting in the water to at least make up for some of the fact that i slept through all of my alarms in the morning, but i got there late and the ladies were already out there and pretty much on their way back in. i guess i was lucky to have gotten there late since the water was about 4 degrees and they were all frozen solid when they got out. i did get in a nice bike ride but could barely function when it was time to run, so i didn't. the rest of the week was ok, went to see the ART guy - love him!! rest day on thursday and then a good swim on friday morning! so excited to be feeling good and effective!! and i wore one of my new swim suits! i have finally figured out what size i am, too! i wont even mention work and then it was hot and sunny in the evening, so i got in run. everything hurt, a lot. i wondered how in the world i'd be able to race the next day! i was starving by the time i got home so i chowed down like 6 bbq chicken legs from the big green egg and a recovery smoothie then we headed out to meet some friends at the pine lake alehouse. i was looking good - one step up from the house uniform piled on top of all my sweat and filth - it was awesome. we didn't get home until late, i started packing up my stuff, tried to work on my hydration and then eventually got into bed around 10:30. oh i slept horribly. my left leg and ass were hurting so bad, every time i rolled and stretched it would cramp up and i was thinking the race would be terrible. and then of course i woke up before my alarm went off at 4:50 to the sound of rain. awesome.
i got up, ate my breakfast, finished the last bit of packing and out the door i went.
it was dumping so much rain and the car was hydroplaning on the freeway and there were times when i couldn't see out the windshield. awesome again.
i got to the race site super early and was happy to see one of the girls from our workouts and that made me instantly feel better. eventually i gathered up my towel and running stuff, put it in a garbage bag and set it in my spot in transition.
then i geared up in knee warmers, my tri kit, a long sleeve jersey and rain jacket to head out on a warm up. i was supposed to be out for a 1/2 hr and i wondered if i would be able to do a whole loop or not but after about 12 minutes or so i just turned around and came back. i was moving in and out of my big ring and then all of s sudden it stopped working! i stopped 3 times to try to fix it but couldn't. i started to panic, i got lost, got back on track and then booked it back to transition. i found all the girls, and jenny's husband fiddled with the bike, eventually we all decided it would be best if we just got it into the big ring and left it there. so that is what we did. then i ran my bike in to rack it and people put their bikes on my stuff. :( we had assigned racks and there were to be 8 bikes to a rack. i feel bad because i totally bit this one woman's head off about how there are supposed to be 8 to the rack when she said there wasn't any room, but i was totally running late and panicking and i should have just chilled out, so i appologize! but we got the bikes moved around and i set up my transition with my run stuff and took all my biking stuff off. then i ran to the car in my socks to put on my wetsuit. i decided to try something new on race day! i decided i was going to wear both my knee warmers and arm warmers under my wetsuit. i spent 5 minutes in transition at onionman fiddling with that stuff, so this time i decided i'd try it out and see how it went.
i was finally all set with wet suit, booties, two caps, goggles and ear plugs and headed down to the water. found jenny, kate and kristina and we stepped in the water and were all like - oooh! the water is really nice! so sad considering it was 63 degrees but totally warmer than anything else we had been in this year.
it was a 3 wave start where they blew this crazy horn thing, but the swim started out good. it was definitely crowded but i wouldn't say super aggressive. not a lot of pushing or kicking, just a lot of closeness. after the 1st buoy it spread out a bit and then the 2nd buoy in was totally fine. i was super happy with how i was swimming. i was able to decide pretty quickly that maybe i wouldn't do the arm warmers under the wet suit again since my arms were getting super tired but the knee warmers were feeling great. my swim time wasn't stellar but i was still really happy that i felt as good as i did.
t1 was so much better than my last race since i had everything on already pretty much and skipped the socks! i was in and out of there in just over a minute!
i was so happy to have those arm and knee warmers out on the bike! even though they were wet the were warm. my hands were frozen and when i tried to pull my clif shot off my top tube i could barely grasp it. i laughed a little. i was having fun, pushing hard and hoping i wouldn't need that smaller ring up front. the course is pretty much rolling so i was all set although there was one point i would have like to have been able to shift down. the first lap was done pretty quickly and the 2nd one went well, too. next thing ya know i was back at transition, trying to go in the run exit. :( i had to back it up and then go the correct way - better pay more attention to that stuff next time.
t2 was fast, the biggest issue was pulling off the knee warmers, especially with hands that couldn't move. i did discover that my hand was bleeding for some mysterious reason.
i took off on the run and wow, everything was super tight. i threw my arm warmers to jenny's husband and then took teeny weeny super fast steps. like tiny, like i swear my stride was microscopic and i am pretty sure i looked rediculous. but i did pass a few people with that funny stride and i kept going. i didn't have my garmin so i didn't know how fast i was going but i kept on keeping on. again, the course was rolling and i was able to lengthen it out a little on some of the downhills but the uphills and flats it was tiny stride again. the fun flew by and next thing i knew i was crossing the finish line.
i wound up being 11th overall, 3rd in my AG.
i was super happy with this race for a few reasons - this course was the 2nd triathlon i had ever done back in 2006 so it was fun to come back and do it again.
i felt good on the swim!
so excited to discover the knee warmers under the wetsuit trick - awesome!
and i think most of all i was so happy to have friends there, it definitely made the miserableness of the day much less miserable!
1 comment:
I always wondered if wet was better than nothing. And you did the test - thanks! I will definitely try the knee warmers. But not arm warmers? Maybe I'll try that in advance. Or maybe I don't need to worry about it because I might not race until the end of the summer anyways.
But good job on your race! Sorry your week was crappy and your body still hurts a little. Things will get better!
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