This morning I am back to normal. I woke up starving and tired. I am surprisingly not that sore. A little stiff in some weird areas. My knees (more specifically my acl area) are stiff and my butt is sore. But those 2 areas make it tough to walk, lol. Well lets get started with the weekend:
Friday:
I spent Friday trying to relax. I got off work and went to the pool for a 20 min swim. Mostly to test my new goggles and my new ear plugs. I decided that I wasn't going to wear the ear plugs yet because I felt like they were going to get knocked out. I sat in the hot tub for awhile trying to loosen up my shoulder so the headache I have been having since Wednesday would go away. Got home and gathered up my gear and tried to get to bed early. Ended up laying on the couch running through all my gear mentally because I was sure I forgot something. Went to bed about 10. Not to bad, but a little later than I wanted.
Saturday:
Got up at 6:30. Had breakfast and packed the car. I was off at 7:45. Dropped my dog off at the kennel and headed for Clinton State Park, just West of Lawrence. Very foggy day. I needed the sun just to get pumped about the race. My stomach was in knots the whole way down. I tried to drink as much as I could all day to stay hydrated. I arrived at the race site at 11:45 and parked. Walked the 1/2 mile to registration/T2 and then walked another 1/2 mile to T1 to check my bike in. It was exciting that we were able to get body marked on Saturday so that was one last thing I had to worry about race morning. The distance between the transition areas changed my race morning strategy. I went to rack my bike by the seat, but it was flopping in the wind so bad I had to rack it by the handle bars which took up 3 spots. Later I was lucky to find out that those 2 people did not show up anyway. After checking in my bike I went up to the first athlete meeting. Waste of time. They didn't talk about anything that I didn't know, but man people had some stupid questions. For example: If we are doing a relay, does the runner have to be there at the start of the race? Really people. How lazy is this runner that they can't be there to cheer on their teammates and everyone else doing the race. If I was the swimmer in that relay, I would leave before their run then :P hahaha. No I wouldn't, they had beer there. :) After the meeting, I headed to Amy's campsite. She is a triathlete I met on iamtri. I will be meeting several more of these people after the 2nd athlete meeting. I stayed at her campsite until about 3:30 and we walked up to the expo area to wait for the pros to be finished up with their meeting. Pros got out, I met Tim Deboom and I got Chrissy Wellington to sign my swim cap. She is amazing. She does not have an ounce of body fat on her. After that race we waited for the 2nd athlete meeting to finish up and met several other folks from iamtri. Most of us went out for dinner. Everyone had such a fun story. It was great to meet all these people that you talk with online and probably will never meet again. There was a small group from Pittsburg all the was to Los Angeles. After the dinner, Amy and I headed to our getto hotel. It really wasn't to bad until you walked into the bathroom. It looked like no one had cleaned in there for years. There was even one of those non slip mats in there. Gross. Can't imagine what the underside of that looked like. The curtain looked brand new though :) Amy and I talked about the race and checked our equipment and hit the hay about 8. Well Amy did, I watched the baseball college world series until about 9 then I went to sleep.
Sunday: Race Day:
Woke at 3:45 am. Immediatly turned on the weather because it was suppose to rain. Great huge storm headed right for us, with a lot of rain following. Ugh. I hurried up to get dressed, covered myself in sunscreen and was out the door at 4:15. I wanted to get to the site and get my stuff all set up before it rained. Transition opened at 4:45. I got to the race parking shortly after 4:30 and walked to T2 to drop off my running stuff. I put my run stuff in a plastic bag because I was not going to start with wet shoes. I threw all the stuff I needed for the swim and bike in my gatorade bag and left the rest of my stuff at T2. Walked down to T1. First thing for me was to get my tires pumped up. I did not bring a pump because you had to be able to fit all your stuff in this gatorade bag or it wasn't going to be brought up to T2 for you and you had to go back down and get it. I was not going to feel like doing that. I got the tires pumped up, set up my area and drank another bottle of water. I sucked down some gels because I kind of felt like eating and I figured I better do that now while I still felt like eating something. I got 3 down before the start of the race which was what I wanted so I was happy with that. I was all ready to go by 6am. I walked around transition checking out people's bikes because I love looking at bikes. I found some of the iamtri folks and talked to them for a bit. At 6:15 I got all body glided up and put on my wetsuit and headed to the swim start to watch the pros off. By this time, My stomach was in knots again, I wanted to throw up and wanted to go back to bed.
Swim: 40:37 Goal: 45 min
My wave was off at 6:50 so I didnt have to long to wait until I went. It was a water start so you had to tread water for about 4 min. Thank god we had wetsuits because I cannot tread water. It was so hard because everyone was kicking their legs all crazy and arms were flailing about. This was before the start of the swim. Gun went off. Holy crap it was crazy and there wasn't that many in my wave (18-29 women) Could not imagine any more people. We took off. I spent the first 300 yards fighting off people and trying to find a good draft. It was good until just before the first turn when the wave behind me started catching me. (men 40-44) They were so violent. I got kicked in the face for the first time ever because of those assholes. I also got raped for the first time too. 4 times to be exact on that swim, holy hell. There would be a group of about 3-4 guys that would just swim right over me. Really? There isn't enough room to go around. Geez. The end of the swim was crazy. It felt like I was in a washing machine. The water was so rough. We ended in between to docks and you walked up the boat ramp. Everyone stopped at the end of the docks. I was like get the hell out of my way. They only had carpet on 1/2 of the dock which was retarded. I looked at my watch 40:45. Awesome! I was way under my goal of 45 min so that gave me some extra adrenaline for the bike. There was no way I was going to beat 6 hours if my swim was to much longer than 45 min. I just felt really smooth and relaxed. I think it was because I was able to catch a draft for a good 1/2 of the swim.
T1: 1:53
My bike was racked at the end by the swim exit so I didn't have far to go. I put my goggles, cap and wetsuit into that tiny ass bag and grabbed my bike. There was so many tiny rocks and crap. It was painful. It was also very crowded and this stupid guy was just walking right down the middle of the aisle. I was like get the fuck out of the way dude. Finally he stopped and I ran past him and out to the mount line. I was surprised that my time wasn't longer. Felt like it took me 5 min to get out of there.
Bike: 2:57:43 (18.9 mph) Goal: 3 hours
I hop on my bike, but one of my shoes flipped upside down so I figured I would just go and spin it back around. Nope. Shoe hit the ground and I about wiped out. Had to stop to get it turned around. Ok, now I am off. I knew I was going to have to hit the bike hard because this was going to have to absorb my transition times and my extra run time to beat 6 hours. The first part of the bike was with the light wind so that helped a little, but not a lot. I felt really great. I hammered the first 20 miles. My HR was about 7 beats higher than I wanted, but I figured it would come down after awhile. This was just because I was so excited to get going. Nope, I had a hard time getting it to come down. By mile 20 my stomach was getting upset. Great. This is what happened to me last year in my HIM. I ended up not being able to keep anything down the last 2 hours of the bike which made it very miserable. This time I slowed down and kept drinking water. I kept eating the gels as planned. I started burping a bit, but it all stayed down, thank god. This year I eliminated any other liquid than water. Everything else gave me an upset stomach. Well upset more than it was. I had a 21 mph ave after the first 20 then it started slipping in the next 20 because I felt like crap. Mile 40 came up and I knew the next 10 miles were almost all downhill so I picked it up again. Mile 50 was half way up the huge hill and I knew there was only 1 more big hill left and 2 short steep hills in the park. I also realized at mile 50 I could still make 3 hours. This pumped me up and I gunned it for home. I quickly looked at my watch. Just under 3 hours, YES!
T2: 1:41
I got off my bike and ran through T2, well for about 10 steps then my calves gave me a hollar. I did not want them to tighten up or I was going to be screwed. I walked a bit, mostly because people were in my way and I was all the way to the other end. I got to my rack, dumped out my stuff. Almost forgot to put my socks on. Geez, that would have been bad. I hate socks. Grapped my visor and belt and was off.
Run: 2:01:01 9:14 pace Goal: 2:15
Oh I felt like I was going to be hurting, but I wasn't. I actually felt really good. Awesome. I wasn't going to push myself at all and just run comfortably because I haven't run more than 6 miles in 3 months. I was also very cautious of any pain that could arise in my foot. Before I knew it I was at the first aid station. I grabbed some water and gatorade. I love those sponges. I was going to make sure I got one of those at every station. The miles actually went by fast because I was thinking about how crappy my stomach felt and what I was going to get at the next aid station. Those came up way to fast because I did not want anything. I always grabbed atleast one water and one gatorade since I was not going to eat any more gels. Just before mile 3/10 (2 lap course) was the only hill. It was steep enough that I wasn't even going to waste my energy trying to run it. The first pass I had to walk backwards up it because my calves tightened up. The run went by so fast. I was able to keep either a 8:45 or a 9:15 pace. I was very surprised at that. I thought, yes, keep this up and you will make your 6 hours. I did not realize how far under 6 hours I could finish until I was at mile 7. I actually felt a goal of 6 hours was going to be a huge task ahead of me for how prepared I felt. Mile 7 also brought 3 girls in my age group to pass me. Grrr... I was not even going to try to keep up with them. There was so much race left. I got to mile 8 and was at 4:55 on my watch. Alright if I can keep a 10 min pace, I can finish in 5:45. Yes how cool would that be. So now at mile 10, I could see 2 of those girls. One had started walking, YES. I can catch her. I just kept at my pace and it slowly ate away at theirs. I passed girl 1 just before mile 11. Girl 2 was about 60 feet in front of me. I got to mile 12 and decided I had enough left to pick up the pace. I went for it. I knew I had to pass her early enough that she would not try to keep up with me and out sprint me at the end. She didn't even try. Ok this is great. At 12.5, I was just about to back off my pace, when another girl in my age group was right in front of me. Awesome, I am going for it. I kept the pace up until the finish. Coming down the shoot I turned around to make sure she wasn't there then jogged it in. Oh my gosh, I was so excited to finish. From the times last year, that would have put me in the top 10 in my age group. Not this year. That got me 23rd. Really. That was sad to find out, but I was so happy with my time. I ended up running a pr in the half marathon with a 2:01:01. That is a 9:14 pace. Wow. That was my pace at the last olympic. I need to learn how to run faster at shorter distances, lol.
Final time: 5:42:55 PR by 43 min!
Summary:
Things I learned:
Do not get your shoes wet. I got water in mine at mile 3 and it was horrible. The bottoms of my feet burned so bad. I don't have any blisters but man they burned. I am sure it is because my feet have 2 inches of thick callusted skin on them from never wearing socks that saved me. I need to work on getting my stomach ready to accept food at the pace I want to go. After all of that, I am dissapointed with my bike time. Well the middle 20. A massage after a race is awesome. Beer after a race tastes very yummy, but water does not. A very cold sponge on a hot day takes your breath away. My wheel hypnotises people. Even though I was starving after the race, I did not want to put food in my mouth which made for a miserable night. Getting kicked in the face hurts. Even though the guy in the wheel chair is flying past you on the downhill in the run, he does not have an advantage over you. He is just awesome. Be sure when you grab a water, you know if there is ice in it or not because you could choke on it. Very dangerous.
Now that this race is over, I will work out my aches in the next couple days and get ready for Hyvee in less than 2 weeks now. Need to get my derailer fixed. It wanted to jump gears a bit. I am also highly considering a massage. Oh yes, a massage. But right now I am burnt and don't want anyone to touch me. They could work on my butt because that is not burnt and that is the place that needs the most work. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment