Race song: Mr. Jones, Counting Crows
This race wall just full of miscalculations and lost minutes and "where did it go" time. So the time will be listed at the end, to keep you just as confused as I was :) I thought there were 33 peeps in my AG, I thought my bike was shorter, etc. Well, I'll tell it all below.
Pre-race morning went great--up at 4:30. Had a yogurt,chia, banana, fake peanut butter concoction of 600-some calories (that was good) for breakfast. I only mention it because it didn't work and I was very hungry later (that was bad).
Arrived at 6am, set up TA with what seemed like a pretty minimal amount of gear then had time to relax. But I kept going back to check TA, seemed like I was forgetting something but -- no -- it was all good. The weather was remarkably PERFECT--high 70's, sunny, no wind.
SWIM: The water was 77F so wetsuit legal! This was unexpected, all summer I'd planned nervously for a wetsuit-free swim. Not that I'm complaining. I had a few minutes to warm up and stretch out, but otherwise didn't do much to getting moving. Something kinda funny as a WU'd--the wetsuit filled with water and when I stood up the weight of the water stretched the suit out and pulled it down. Thought for sure it was doing to just fall right off me!
Anyway, it was a TT start in 3s intervals. I seeded myself almost last in my AG, figured I'd be near last anyway getting out and the fewer to swim over me the better. The swim was clockwise in a triangle, with the first buoy positioned under the sun. While waiting to jump in, some of us noted the swimmers going off course to the right. I made a mental note to not do that (but guess what...!). Did a half jump-half dive in and off I went!
First thing I noticed-- the first buoy was NOT visible! Couldn't see it. Just saw sun on the water!! OK, no problem, follow the other swimmers. Second thing I noticed. My triceps were tired in just the first few 100's....I could hear CHG in my head..."notice how hard it is to push all that water back into the wall?"....OK I can fix that. Move me, not the water. Big improvement.
Still can't see the buoy. I could see other swimmers near me, but the field was pretty thin. This can't be right, all those other swimmers had to be coming up behind me! 800 athletes and only Elite, C and A, and 45+ males ahead of me....stop and find that buoy!! Look...look...there! Off to the left?!?!?! DAMN. Took a long time to find get to this first buoy.
Turn to the long backstretch....where's the next buoy. WTF with these buoys, why few guide buoys, why the faded orange colors. OK, one at a time. Piecemeal. Follow to the next one. This long backstretch gave me time to find a rhythm and I found that a faster turnover kept the arms from getting tired while I felt like I was still moving. When I passed a nav buoy (all 3 of them or so over 1.2 miles) it glided by. The field was still pretty thin around me, and it was because I was inside the triangle--I was swimming to the right. Just as in the first stretch of swim I was out of the main field of swimmers.... nuts. Correct, swim, still going right. Correct, swim, still going right. This was frustrating. On top of that, it seemed like the nav buoys in the long backstretch didn't form a straight line...but this long stretch was OK.
Last turn towards home and wouldn't you know it, the sky was full of sun. Greenwater-sun-repeat. Closing my eyes didn't help much. Looking higher in the sky did. Now the I was in the main stream of swimmers. The finish arch was this tiny red speck, but I found a feature in the treeline that I sighted instead. In previous races the last 400m or so of swim is a mess for me. IMWI was like this. It just takes forever to get to the arch. My form goes to hell, my head thinks the arch is just arms-reach away, all of me is ready to get out of the water. This last few mins of the swim was looonnnnggggg. That and I was still swimming to the right. I'd found that if I swam with my "correction" stroke that I kept straight. This really has to be fixed. It happens in the pool too, so it's not limited to OWS.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Dig The Big Pig Gig: Pigman 2011
Out of the water, and a time check. 46 minutes. F! Exact same times as CE in June. Exact. But I wasn't dizzy, I had a good jog up the beach. I was dizzy at CE and at Gateway earlier this year. Stopped to get my wetsuit off without pulling on my leg and cramping it (like I did in CE) and into TA.
SWIM TIME: 46:24, 23 out of 27 in AG. Pace of 2:12/100y
T1: in out and on the bike. no issues. Time of 3:37 which included my very slow wetsuit peel. Maybe I should practice that more?!?
BIKE: We did a preview of 80% of the course yesterday, to a huge benefit. Like CP says, landmarks. And course problems. The ride started out feeling great and even a bit cool with my skin still wet. The goal of the ride was a steady pace that set up a good run, high cadence, and light feet. No grinding or mashing. I did the first 20 miles in 1hr-- a bit fast so I made a mental effort to slow it down. Then around mile 21 I noticed that half of the straw on my aerobottle was gone! Damn! I refilled the bottle and pulled the remaining straw up where it stayed. This slowed my hydration a bit at first but I got better at dipping lower for a drink soon enough.
Somewhere between 23 and 25 miles I hit my first mental low. Confused and rambling thoughts, loss of form, poor pacing. Review of systems--eat! I had only eaten a lara bar to this point. I selected a caffeinated gel that kicked in around mile 26-27. Simple fix. The next fix was the water in my nose from the swim. This happens a lot, I end up snorting and sniffing a little cuz I don't want to make a mess of watery snot on my skin. I was going to wait to pause at the upcoming turnaround, but around 26-27 I couldn't take it anymore. Road behind me was clear--then so was my nose!! WOW what an improvement! Turnaround right on schedule: 1hr 25 mins.
The way back was less perfect. My leg muscles were tired and starting to ache dully. They felt like they'd been through the wringer already, almost like I'd raced Saturday too. I think was residual Louisville camp fatigue. It didn't seem to be slowing me down, but I was distracted by it. On the way back to TA this discomfort became more noticeable.
There were also less riders around me, and the ones I was seeing was mostly those slower riders still on the outbound. At first they looked good, but the ones at the end I felt for. I took my eyes off the riders and back to the road in front of my wheel. My race. And only my race. Focus. My pace still felt good, I was hydrating good. It wasn't hot and there was no wind to worry about. Just nice road ahead of me. I did some math and forward calculated that every 16-17 mins I should see a 5 mile marker sign and for once my math was good.
But around mile 45-50 my attention slipped a bit. I reached a point at which I didn't want to run! Just wanted to stop! EAT!!! Ah, that's better. Miles 50-56 were a bit of a blur. I had calculated a 2:50 finish on the bike, so later in the day when I saw the results with a 2:56 ride I had some surprise. Where were those 6 minutes?!?
BIKE TIME: 2:56 19.1 mph 13/27 in AG.
T2: I left my shoes on the bike but couldn't do a flying dismount due to dismount line congestion. The U-turn into the TA wasn't helping anyone there. Jogged to my rack and found that I had a painful muscle or tendon or connecting tissue in my right leg right where the bike seat contacts. Not the skin, but in the leg. This made for some painful jogging and some worry about the run ahead. Smooth T2 with a biobreak, the first since the swim warmup. That's normal for me. T2 in 2:47.
RUN: Out-n-back course along a highway. No shade, long slow hills. PR'ing the run, or at least having a strong run to the end was one of my main race goals. I'll say right now that neither happened. I started out great. Glances at the Garmin showed sub 8:30 moments so I slowed down. Up the hill out of the park, around the corner, down the hill, and onto the flats. These first 4-5 miles all felt great. I took a huckleberry gel around 2 miles then started grabbing ice and water. I hit 6 miles in about 55 mins, did the math, and was disappointed. I had wanted to hit 6.55 miles in 55 mins. Instead I climbed the hill to the turnaround at 58 mins. This doesn't seem like much time sitting here typing it up, but at that moment I was frustrated! I kept telling myself that the way back was more downhill. That I'd negative split. That the race wasn't over yet.
None of the self-talk worked. By mile 7 the race changed. I reached for one of my caffeinated gels ... and couldn't find them in my back pocket. Did they fall out?! Did I miss packing them in TA?! No, I packed them. They fell out somewhere along the roads. :( Litterbug! Took another gel from the aid station. Ugh, another Montana huckleberry. Started hunting for each mile marker, breaking the run into pieces. By mile 8 I was substantially slipping off pace. Mile 8 at 1:20...do the math...no PR. Further self-defeating. More self-talk. More fail. Mile 9 came and went, don't remember it except that Montana huckleberrry kept coming up my throat. I hate that gel flavor now. Montana chuck-up-berry!
Mile 10 at 1:37. My HR was high and not coming down. My thirst had reached insatiable levels. I just wanted ice cold water by the tall glass, not these luke warm half cups they were handing me. Most of the ice I was taking was being dumped on me. Then I started hating ice. Mile 10.5 started a long, slow, long, boring, long, unending climb to 11.5. There was an aid station at mile 11, and I promised myself that there was no way in hell that I was going to walk this hill. And I didn't. But when I hit the aid station I walked. More water, which my stomach was tolerating surprisingly well by the way, more ice. One more up hill. I managed to run it. Yay me.
Miles 11.5-13.0 were long. Again, sitting here all comfy with my feet up it seems nuts that I struggled this last 1.5 miles. My legs were dead. My form shot. My will to continue out the door. Why do I do these races again? I hate triathlons.
What happened?!?
As expected the last 0.1 mile felt great. Where was that energy a few minutes ago?
Followup note-I did find the gels in my back pockets after the race. With all the mental fuzz during the race, I didn't realize that my tri top had 3 pockets. They were there all along.
RUN TIME: 2:02 (My watch said 2:00 but whatever). 13/27 in AG. 9:20 m/m pace.
First 6.55 miles in 8:52m/m
Second 6.55 miles in 9:31 m/m
Overall: 5:50:56. 13th out of 27 in AG. 11th if you remove the OA winners. So much for that top 3rd percentile finish I thought I had, there were only 27 of us, not 33.
Once again I fell apart in the run. On the plus side, my feet didn't hurt like they did in Cutting Edge! They started to around mile 3 and I thought I was in trouble, but they didn't keep hurting. Another good thing was that I had a strategy from CP. I'd ask myself sometimes, what would CP tell me right now? I looked at a hill as a potential match to burn. I geared down or slowed down knowing that's what I needed to do. Huge help to have that strategy!!
Again, what happened?!? Poor nutrition seems to be a suspect. I really noticed the up/down that followed my gels intake. I should look into a longer lasting nutrition option. I took only water and 2 gels in the run, I can definitely improve there!
Fatigue also a suspect. I never really recovered from last weekend. I hate to use that as an excuse but it's there as a fact--my longest training ride and weekend all summer long was just 7 days ago. Can't ignore that.
Next up is Savageman, and I have lots of thinking to do!
There's a side of me that just won't stop
Dancing in the flame
Maybe I just get off on the pain
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