Again in NW style RAIN!!!!!!! Driving out to the race had to use wiper
blades the whole time.....sigh!
Thursday was 85 degrees and perfect Friday raining and looking to be
the same for sat. We drive out to the lake to set up T1 (T2 is in a different location and will be set up Sat. morning) but it is DUMPING
RAIN so I skip my ride since I did not want to be wet and cold the
afternoon before my race. and did not swim since it was 58 degree
water and I am a sissy apparently. The skies cleared in the evening so
I got to do a little run at least to get the legs moving.
Friday night we get an e-mail that they are delaying the start to 1000
so the bad weather will clear and they don't have to shorten the bike
leg due to SNOW on the pass at 6500'
After a nice calm morning of being able to sleep in, we go down to set
up T2 and get on the bus transport to T1 and the swim start...yes it
is still raining and had to bag up my T2 stuff so it would be dry upon
my arrival, while waiting for our bus to leave they announce that the
bike is being shortened to Oly length (28mi for this course) due to
3-4" of fresh snow and temps around 32 degrees, bummer again for me
since I am a cyclist and that is my strength, although the full ride
goes from 4000' to 6500' there is an awesome 14 mile descent that I
could put a ton of time into those pesky runner types that kill me on
my feet.
This is my first non-sprint distance tri so i was pretty nervous
since I have not done it before. My goal was a 40min swim, 3 hr bike
and 2:20 run (about 6hr)
Got into the water for 3rd heat, was not cold enough to take my breath
away but was pretty cold. Started out feeling tired and those buoys seemed really far away, I was getting a little nervous about getting
tired before I was done, then my right goggle started leaking a little
so I rolled over to my back to clear it and fix the seal and noticed
that most of my heat was BEHIND me!! WOOHOO! I all of a sudden felt
much better, shortly after that sight in my rear view I picked off the
first person from the heat before me....again Woohoo! to me all of
this before the first buoy. From that point on I never felt tired
again, the rest of the swim was me picking off people from the
previous heat and coming out of the water @36:min below my goal. While
on the swim, the rain stopped the skies cleared a little and the sun
poked it's beautiful head out into the race which makes a huge
difference on moral.
T1 was unremarkable except you have to bag everything up in a bag with
your number on it so they can bring your stuff to the finish line for
you. not a big deal, you just can't forget it so you can get your
stuff. I also put on socks due to temperature and did not put on
gloves or arm warmers due to the sun poking out and tricking me into
thinking that it was warmer than 45 degrees (OOPS!)
Started out and we immediately started with some rolling hills but i
was feeling really good, was watching my HR and power as I started
climbing and I soon started picking off people left and right, some
little climber types some other "normal sized " folks (I am a
Clydesdale remember) I was wearing my calf sleeves so my age was
hidden and as I passed this 29 yr. old guy up a hill he said "hey
that's not fair I can't see your age" I yelled back "40" "no way" was
his reply I said "I promise" and I heard "Oh man" as I pulled away
from him, that was one of my favorite parts of the ride, I only got
passed by 2 people on of which got 3rd overall so I don't feel bad about that at all. The other guy I never saw again so he was just
better than me as well. in full disclosure, I did get passed a couple
of times by young punks that blew up within a couple miles of passing
me and I repassed them so I don't count them as a pass.Since I decided
not to use gloves my fingers we frozen and made feeding myself very
difficult even gels were hard to manage without being able to make a
fist....(that would cost me on the run, lesson learned) This was also
my first ride ever with my Quarq PM and my average was 210 over 28
miles I don't know what that means yet but I will figure that out as I
learn more.
T2 meant a change of socks so my feet would be dry and maybe regain
some feeling, they were numb and cold for about a mile into my run, I
was going along pretty good, holding a 9:40 pace or so then about mile
3 the temperature dropped about 10 degrees and a crazy wind picked up,
it was still blue skied and sunny in front of me and finally turned
around to see the BLACKEST & MEANEST clouds I have ever seen. I bet
it's nothing like you mid-westerners have but for us it was black and
mean! shortly there after it started HAILING yep HAILING, lasted about
ten minutes followed by 5min of rain then the clouds cleared and it
was 60 degrees and sunny the rest of the race. I wish I could blame
the weather for my poor run, I just suck at running still. I could not
hold my pace, I did not eat enough on the bike and then could not
drink the HEED that they provided, tasted like armpits. I did eat 2
gels with no bad outcomes but my pace just kept falling off till I
ended walking every ten minutes or so and feeling pretty lousy. I
finished in 4:19 something was kind of bummed till I saw the results
and realized that I won my division!!!! Wow! now all of a sudden I
felt great!!!!!!!!! I felt a little jilted by missing the other 30
miles of the bike, so I could of put more time into some of those guys
but it's hard to complain about winning really. Within my pre-planned
goals for the most part
OVERALL: 4:19:44
Swim: 36:41
Bike: 1:20:17
Run: 2:15:54
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