BSLT, Or How Training in Austin is Great!

lilbslticon

 

We made it!

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Here is the long recap of not just the race on Sunday, but the time leading up to and back from the race.

Thursday: We had everything packed and in the car by bedtime Thursday night. I had worked a long day and knew that I had a ton of work to squeeze in Friday. Once it was all packed and loaded in we went to bed, nothing too exciting but it is strange to get everything race ready 4 days before a race.

Friday: Work was crazy as I anticipated, I had way too much work to do, and not all of the deliverable s to me, It was also a “half day” of work and the other half was our fun day at the new driving range across the street. So for as aggravating as the first part of the day was the second part of the work day was nice. It was a catered lunch, then we sat down and played a board game with some co workers (It was Betrayal at House on the Hill), Then we went out and hit 20 or so golf balls each. It was a fun driving range, each ball was chipped and you swiped your player card at the tee, so it knew what ball belonged to what person. The monitors would show where your ball landed and score your shots.

Next we headed back to the office to get my pain killers, since I had half a root canal just a few days before. Nothing crazy just Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen over the counter.  We got in beastly hit up a gas station and filled him up, grabbed 2 big cold waters and got going. We stopped at a DQ near gold-withe and had a chocolate cherry blizzard. We stopped in Post to use the bathroom. It looked like a nice little Texas town.

Once we got to Abilene we found the hotel, checked in then went to red robin where I ate my favorite burger of all time, the banzai burger! I also might have eaten a basket and a half of fries… So fat feeling but awesome by the end. On the way back to the hotel I saw a used game store and stopped in, picked up a new dance game and a movie quote type game. Then I had us take 1 more stop at the Target right across from the hotel, to walk around and help the digestion. Thankfully we did since we found sunscreen on sale and we needed some.

Back at the hotel we dorked around a bit with the tablets and talked about going to the hot tub. When we got up the guts to go hit the hot tub it was a bunch of teenagers in it. It wasn’t the warmest and it had some sort of brown growth at the bottom. Needless to say we got out, I showered then we attempted to sleep.

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Saturday: There was breakfast included at the hotel, so I grabbed some eggs and french toast sticks of doom, loaded up Beastly again and got back on the road. I took a wrong turn and we got on the wrong highway, for about 10 minutes before we figured it out. So we went back and got going the right way. This part of the drive was very pretty, lots of clouds, some lightning and lots of rain. We stopped for a bathroom break in Post, then kept on going to Lubbock.

I was a little anxious to get to packet pickup and then go check out the course, it was about 1 when we got to the packet pickup hotel, and it wasn’t the nicest hotel, so glad we didn’t stay there. Also packet pickup was supposed to open at 11, but it got delayed until 1 so there was a good line to get everything. After getting all the stuff we walked around the expo. I found the tri top I wanted, and it was 25% off, so I bought it. The booth was from Lane 4 Swim, that is just by our house back home, but I never thought to look there for tri gear. I know for next time. We went to the official booth to look at the finisher shirts and the hats and asked if we got a hat at the end. they said no so we ended up paying way too much for the official visors. But I will wear it proudly for a long time so I guess the price is ok.

Next was driving the course, we got to the park entrance but didn’t go in yet since we didn’t want to have to pay to go in before driving the bike course. We had it printed out and I wrote out turn by turn directions for us, but that didn’t do anything to keep us from not getting lost. We got very lost, dirt roads abandoned farm houses, super steep hill that I was thankful to have the Xterra for, because I think the Prius would have just laughed as we rolled back into the ravine.  So yeah driving the bike course took almost 2 hours.

We then went down into the park to where we thought the transition was going to be, we were on the wrong side of the lake 🙂 We didn’t realize it right then so we found a parking spot, went to the porta pottys and changed into swim clothes. then walked down to the beach to get it. It was so crowded that there wasn’t any way we could get a swim in with the way they had it roped off. So we put our feet in, decided it was warm enough and headed back into town.

Stopped at a grocery store and picked up a bottle of bubbly for the next day after the race and anything that looked like it would be good for a post HIM stomach. Once we at the hotel, checked in and had all our stuff in the room we ate a big dinner of mac and cheese, then I washed and lubed up the bikes. Finally to bed, sleep didn’t come very easy to me that night, I woke up dozens of times it felt like just waiting for the alarm to go off.

Sunday: Once I finally just gave up on sleeping and got up the alarm went off and it was a nice and early 4:30 am, I used the facilities, showered, got into my clothes and sat at the couch watching bad MTV and tried to eat breakfast. Once Leah started to get ready I took the bikes and transition bags down to Beastly. It was raining good when I took the first bit down, but it lightened up to barely a drizzle by the time we left. We got on the road probably at 5:30… Way too late, but the day before it only took about 10 min to get to the hotel from the lake so at this point I wasn’t too worried.

Next was the drive to the park, from where we were yesterday to the hotel only took about 15 minutes and transition didn’t close until 6:15 so no problem getting there. As we got on the highway there were other cars with bikes on the back or trucks of the like. The sleepy town of Lubbock had not woken up yet this early on a Sunday. Once we get to the park entrance there is a small line of people having to go past the ranger station, where they are making sure to get fees from any spectators. Then they tell us how to get to where we are supposed to park. Strange to me, it wasn’t where I thought we were going from yesterday. Well there ended up being a huge long line to get into parking, it was a little bit crazy. We got parked with about 15 minutes until transition closing, but still had to put the wheels back on the bikes, air in the tires then take the bikes into transition for safety check and body marking. Where we ended up parking was all cactus and prickle bushes, so We carried our bikes about a quarter mile to the main road, along with at least 40 other people. It was a mad house. Once we got onto the road we had to walk the bikes down a very steep hill to the bike start. This was the 8.9% grade hill we bike up and down later. I was doing what I could to not run down it, and Leah was taking her time walking down it as to not injure her self. At about the time I saw the body marking people I heard the announcer say that they were closing transition in 5 minutes. I was a bit worried, but thankfully all racks had assigned areas, so I was able to find my exact spot and lay everything out. (Good thing I practice laying it all out.) The only snafu I had at transition set up was the guy next to me asked if I could turn my bike around on the rack to make more room. No biggie.

 

Swim: 51:10:00

Made it to the swim start before the first wave went off!  It was a running swim start from the shore and I haven’t ever had to do one of these before, but it sure made it more interesting. I gave Leah lots of hugs and good luck, then I got up on double deck. I talked to the guy next to me, he seemed a bit nervous, but so was I. It was his second triathlon ever, His first being a sprint the month before. I wonder how he did.

So running into the water once the horn goes off, I notice that there are a good number of older guys in the wave with me and that way too many of these people are walking in, instead of swimming in once it got deep enough. Oh well Ill swim over them and get out on the course. So swim swim swim, I figure most of the pack will leave me by the second marker, and I wasn’t far off of that since I had swam over the slow guys. There was a guy with a snorkel I had never seen before, it let him breathe with a snorkel while swimming back stroke. Very very strange looking.  He ran into me about 3 times during the swim, and each time was snorkel first.

As I rounded the 2nd turn marker, the first Ladies wave caught up. I ended up getting pushed under water as a rounded that marker with 1 lady on each side, super fun! Its OK, I got a little revenge with some elbows as they went by. The next few hundred meters was just swim, sight, swim. At the 3rd turn marker I passed one of the wheelchair racers with his life vest. He was struggling, I didn’t see that guy again until I was finishing the bike, then again when we were driving out of the venue as he was finishing his bike. Those athletes are champs!

Between the 3rd and 4th turn marker Leah ran into me, and we got about 5 seconds to say hi to each other as she swam over and past. At that point I was also getting passed by the faster people from the last wave in the water, and started to think the swim would never end. Then I took a chance to look behind me and noticed a whole bunch of other yellow caps back there and knew I wouldn’t be last in my division. At the 4th turn marker I started to feel like I was swiming strong and that I could go much further. Perfect time for that kind of feeling to kick in with the last 200m of the race to go! So up and out of the water and head into T1!

T1: 5:09:00

As I ran into T1, I saw Leah just about ready to leave so I shouted a goodby as she walked by my spot in T1. I spent longer here than I would have at any other race distance, but I knew I was going to have at least 3 hours of bike time and I wanted to make sure it was as good as I could do, so I took extra time to make sure to apply sun screen all over, since I figured most of it got washed off in the swim just prior. I also doubled up on the chamois creme, I wish I would have tripled up on it though. I put my socks on, bike shoes, helmet, gloves, sun glasses and camel back. Had a hit from my inhaler as per my doctors direction, then walked out to bike out!

 

Bike: 3:40:22

Knew I was a few minutes behind Leah, so pushed because I wanted to catch up to her by the first Big hill. I passed her on the first big hill, then only see her again on turn around. I was flying at this point, at least in my mind, we turned North Into the wind just before a old house that had a huge Domo painted on the side. It made me think about happy domo’s running in a field. Just past the Domo house was the first turn around and I got to see Leah, then we got to the next long north stretch against the wind. My average speed went from the 20mphs to 15mphs. Down the big hill and back up the other side. Some guy asked if my age was in the 300’s because apparently thats what it looked like as he flew by. A few miles later we turned right onto the chip seal road. I was still doing great at this point, I was eating a gel every 30 minutes and drinking my fluids on a regular basis. After a few miles on the chip seal, we turned down another hill, and at the bottom of this hill was a beautiful wooded road that you turn out of into a switch back hill going up.

I was quite terrified of the switch back hill, it was steep and it looked intimidating. People had written motivational messages on the road, so that part was nice. This is the spot where the title of the post comes in “Or how training in Austin is great!” because I started to pass people going up this hill. Many people, people on better bikes. I know Austin has some hills, but this really helped confirm that what I consider a hill, really is a mountain compared to some of these people I race with these days.

At the top of the switch back hill, I started to laugh UN-uncontrollably. It was just so easy and I was expecting the worst. As we hit the more flat areas and people started to pass me again, I got some strange looks for sure. Up to the next turn around I was just giddy, a great feeling to have on the bike at about 30+ miles in. There was a turn around and then I saw Leah, probably about 7 minutes behind me, I said something like “I love that hill and you and how are you doing?” and whoosh we pass. All I heard from her was “OUCH MY CROTCH!”, so I know she is doing OK if she can still talk. I rode the breaks hard going down the switchback hill and then turned into the uphill with the wooded area and the slightly steeper uphill after that. I started to sing a song. ” My crotch your crotch our crotches hurt together.” Over and over at this point. I hit a bump that had made me kinda hurt, and my chamois cream was wearing off and I was getting some unconformable rubbing in the nether regions. Going up this hill I think I was down to about 5.5 mph, I saw a scorpion on the side of the road and at that point I really thought it was going faster than me.

At the top of that hill we got back to the chip seal road, and I ate and drank more and just road out these next half dozen miles in crotch pain. About mile 47 of the 56 I ran out of fluids, but I didn’t want to stop at the rest stop to fill up, so I just kept on peddling to the finish. Once in the park itself there were 2 more hills that we had to tackle and I ended up passing at least 5 people in that area. At the very last hill there was a nice lady standing at the top yelling at us that it wasn’t that hard and we could go faster. Thanks to that lady I was flying into the bike finish.

T2: 6:39:00

Once into T2 I figured Leah was only a few  minutes behind at this point, so I took my time getting things ready. I thought it would be lots more fun to run together than have her blow by me at some point. That and well my legs didn’t quite want to get into run mode right then. So I took off the camel back, gloves and bike shoes. Switched to my running shoes, handheld and hat. I looked around for Leah and she still hadn’t gotten in yet so I grabbed the sun screen and fully re-applied everywhere I could reach. Again I looked for Leah and didn’t find her so I dug through my bag and tossed a few more gels into my handheld and number belt, ate one of them then decided to head out. As I was getting to the back end of transition I saw Leah there ahead of me, and what do you know, we got to start the run together!

Run: 3:03:41

We ran together well walked together. I had to use the bathroom, porta potty 1 2 3 4 no tp. Leah had the good idea, take the ice cold paper towels they were handing out at the water stops and improvise. So I did, at mile 4 rest stop the hula themed one. I made some loud trumpeting noises, apparently so loud that the volunteers out there started laughing. that got my spirits up even more, and got back on the run, caught back up with Leah, then we went up big hill #2 before energy lab. I couldn’t just walk it like Leah was so I jogged/ran up the rest of the hill, hit energy lab and started trudging away. Leah passed me at some point here. I started to talk to a random lady who was going to do the Tahoe IM as her first full, wished her luck and went on. Talked to 2 guys that just called me Austin, they were some Dallas tri club. I passed them and saw them again at the turn around but they had just started walking the next time I saw them. Finished up Energy lab, with Leah in my sites, I saw her slow down at one point and start an angry looking walk, but only for a few steps then she was back at it.

After Energy Lab, there was the downhill that just recently before was the uphill, and this is the only part of the race where I started getting down on myself for some reason. I could see Leah just ahead and for some reason in my head I was singing we could be hero’s. And I got all emotional, it felt like my shoes were melting (because the road tar was melting) I was very hot at this point and starting to hurt and really all I wanted to do was be running in the shade where I saw Leah running. I realized that I had not eaten in a good 3 or 4 miles and slammed down a gel, picked up in probably 2 minutes then took off down the rest of the hill to catch up to Leah just before the mile 9 stop. That stop just so happened to be the hula stop again, I got my hat filled with ice, way too much so I shared some with Leah, then I put ice down my shirt and pants and went up the next hill. staying within talking distance of Leah.  At the top of the hill I started to cramp up and realized I needed more food/salt and that with about 3.5 miles left to go I was going to be hurting bad. Leah took off and I said see you at the finish, I didn’t see a way I could keep up right then. After a few more minutes and 1 loud and obnoxious truck almost running some of us off the road, that a cop did go pull over yay. I remembered I had my emergency second surge gel, its a chocolate gel with 100mg of caf, and that is a lot for me. I ate it and drank the rest of my water on the way down the mile 3 hill.

Next water stop I filled up with what ever sports drink they had and was thankful for every shady bit I could get to and the caf started to kick in. Once we got to 2 miles left I caught up to Leah again, she had been run walking, and I was just jogging slowly. Once I passed her I didn’t stop, I couldn’t I didn’t think my legs would work again if I walked, so I just kept my super slow jog. I passed probably 10 people in this last stretch, people that obviously were in more pain than I was. But the best pass of the day was about 200 feet in front of the finish, the guy was in my age group and he just stopped when I went by. I saw him finish a few minutes after me, but I guaranteed that I didn’t DFL there.

Finish: 7:46:59

A minute or two after I finished Leah crossed the finish line, then I walked up to the med tent so I could get some ice. My leg was twitching something crazy and I wanted to ice it down. I asked if I could get in the ice bath, but they said that was only for people with heat sickness, so instead I reclined on a cot and they brought me an ice pack and a few cold towels. It felt wonderful. They did the same for Leah and it was a great way to cool down and relax a bit after the race. We were surrounded by people hooked up to IV’s getting some quick hydration back. But really it was in the 80’s maybe low 90’s not bad at all. We had come out to this race expecting to end the run in the 100’s.

Post Finish:

We went to get Leah’s shoes from the waters edge at swim start then to the transition area to pack up the stuff, slowly. We trudged the bikes up the hill. Then I left my bike with Leah at the top and went and got get Beastly and drove back to where Leah and the bikes are. We took the 10 minutes or so to pack it all up and headed out. On the way out of the park we passed the last wheel chair contestant who was just finishing his bike portion. I still wonder if they let him do the run portion.

Drive back to hotel:

Sonic, burger tots and cherry lime aide and cheese sticks. Had 2 cheese sticks, and it hurt my mouth, so I just drank the lime aide. About an hour or two later I ate the burger, but I couldn’t do the tots, fried food was hurting my mouth.

Recovery:

Once back at the hotel we hauled everything back up to the room, then I took the cooler of ice I had filled the night before and made myself an ice bath. Seriously cold, but at the same time it felt great. This is going to be part of my post long race recovery from now on.

I ate the burger from sonic here and had a beer, then laid down for a nap. I might have dozed off, not too sure I was so sore I don’t think I really slept much. When I decided to be conscious again I put on cartoon network and played my game-boy in the hotel bed for a few hours. Oh yeah I also made some mac and cheese and ate that.

Drive home:

We got everything packed up and in the car by about 10am Monday morning, and we were on the road by about 11. The drive was ok, I had us stop in post again for some drinks and snacks, then we stopped at some old BBQ place that served me up 2 lbs of meat for their lunch special. It was great. We got home earlier than I expected, and we had time to un-pack, then head out for El Mercado since that is what Leah was craving. Once we finally went to bed that night I slept amazingly.

(12173)

Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon 70.3 – I Didn’t Die!

Leah here.  More catching up on race reports, this one is only about 2 weeks old at least!

When I first targeted this race I had all sorts of goals.  Then, I read horror stories of how HARD it was with the hills and the wind and the heat.  And then, I went and got injured, so I had 6 weeks of real training before the race to go from running 1.5 miles to 13.1 after an already long day.

I’m actually quite pleased with the day I had, considering the circumstances, and hit almost every one of my goals.  Let’s get to the recapping, shall we?  Settle in, this will be a long one…

Friday:

We had a company fun day at the driving range, which was bad because everyone was getting drunk and we had to be teetotalers (hehe), but great because we got to get on the road much earlier than expected.  For lunch I ate a full plate of veggies, salad, some mac and cheese, and a few bites of beef and salmon.  After we got in the car, it was calorie infusion time (as I’ve been operating at a debt, I don’t want to go into a race underfed), so I nommed on some pretzels and sesame sticks, we split a small DQ chocolate cherry blizzard (that made me feel a little sick, WAY more sugar than I’m used to), and when we got to our stop in Abilene, I ate a chicken burger and a TON of fries at Red Robin, to the point where I felt overfull.  It could have been healthier calories, but mission accomplished.  We chilled for a bit, hit the hot tub, and I slept well.

Saturday:

We drove the rest of the 2.5 hours to Lubbock (if we knew we would have been able to leave early we would have done the whole drive Friday, but it was fine).  We rolled into packet pickup around 1 (and they delayed opening it until 1 so it worked).

Got our shirts, bought some visors (they weren’t giving them out at finish, rude), Joel bought the tri top he had been looking for but couldn’t find for 25% off, and then we headed out for some lunch.  We hit up Baker Bros Deli, and I got a santa fe turkey sandwich and a salad.  The same meal, essentially, I had at Play Tri that worked really well.

Then, we set off for adventure – driving the bike course, the run, and swimming at the lake.  We started out, things didn’t look so badly (one killer, but manageable hill), and then we took a turn and HOLY CRAP we got sent off pretty much a rollercoaster chute down (and then up) a horrible, gravel, unstable road.  We both started freaking out until Joel took the map from me and looked again.  I sent us in the wrong direction.  Oops.  While one hill actually haunted our nightmares (it was about a mile of steep switchbacks), it was nothing like the gravel monster that we were both looking at and ready to pack up and go home.  We counted the hills – one up/down/up out of transition, one canyon, the canyon coming back, the switchback of doom, the long, steady, kill-your-quads climb, and then the last “screw you” hill for the last half mile before transition.  6 hills.

Then we tried to scope the run course and couldn’t find the exact route out of the lake area, but knew it would be a STEEP hill, and then saw the massive down/up getting to energy lab II, which was a nice, flat stretch near a power plant, with no shade, where we did about 3 miles out and back (then, back to the steep hill, down the killer hill into the lake area, and then back home).  3 killer hills.  I knew it wasn’t going to be a fast half marathon, but I was way more concerned about the bike.  We tried to swim, but there were so many boats out on the lake, we just put our feet in, noted it was lovely, and then took off.

This all took many hours to do, so we didn’t get back to the hotel until way too late.  We made our organic mac and cheese and Joel lubed up the bikes, and we got all our pre race stuff together and settled, and headed to bed at 9, falling asleep at 10.  Considering parking opened at 4:30am, and we had a wakeup call at 3:30am, this was also way too late.  However, my brain did a good job at turning itself off quickly, I just asked my body to hold it together tomorrow, and zonked pretty well.

Pre Race:

Woke up at 3:30-ish, groggy, and really wishing for many more hours between then and the race start.  I drank my tea, ate my mint oatmega bar, had a good use of the facilities, dithered around, unpacked and repacked my transition bag, did some other stuff and holy crap, it was 4:45.  We got our stuff in the car, I ate my second Rise bar in the car, and got there around 5:20, and sat in line for ~40 mins to park.  Woah.  We are usually at transition at open, and while we expected that we were running later than normal for us, we didn’t expect to be rolling into transition to get body marked 10 minutes before RACE START.

Let’s just say my nerves were running at 110% at that time.  I didn’t have time to do anything but rack my bike, take 2 minutes to lay out my stuff (thank goodness it’s second nature by now), and get out just before they kicked me out.  I kinda wanted to try and use the portas one more time, but there was no time.  We got down to swim start just as the pros were off, and I realized that swim exit was on the other side of the lake – no time to get my flippie floppies over there so I just ditched them on the beach, gave Joel a kiss and sent him off to his wave, and I just tried to breathe and center myself.  I really, really, really was nervous and rolling into the race so late (no warmup run, swim, potty, second chance to check transition stuff, etc) was not helping but I lined up on the beach (my first running start), they counted down, and then it was go time.

Swim:

I got somewhere in the middle of the pack, high kneed my way in and started swimming as soon as I hit thigh deep water.  There was a little jostling but it wasn’t too bad.  The one thing I had neglected to really analyze was the swim course, so the little plastic castle (buoy) was a surprise every time… and we were swimming into the sunrise.  Stellar.  Actually, I did a REALLY GREAT job sighting, so great, in fact, that I got swam over EVERY TIME the front pack of a wave decided to make a break for it.  M dot events – much more full contact swimming than I’m used to.  I had some stray thoughts of “I don’t belong here” but when I did get relief from the mob, I really felt like I was swimming strong at minimal effort.

About 3/4ths of the way through, I smashed my hand into someone and looked up to take a breath and thought, that dude has Joel’s goggles.  I breathed again to that side, and it WAS Joel I ran into.  We smiled at each other a few more breaths and swim-waved, and then I took off ahead.  First time actually bumping into him in the water.  That made me happy.

Since I hadn’t studied the swim course, I wasn’t sure after the next turn if we were done – I saw a big round orange buoy ahead that looked different than the other ones, which made me think it was over, but I remember there was some sort of zig zag in the course that I wasn’t sure we hit yet.  I swam towards it and lo and behold, it was swim exit.  I was almost sad to be out of the water, both because I felt pretty good in the water, and because I was not looking forward to that big hill out of transition.

Swim time: 42:30 (1.2 miles – 2:22 for 100m pace).  I’m jazzed.  I knew I’d beat Kerrville’s time of 53:55, but I wasn’t thinking it would be by 11 minutes and 25 seconds.  Also, I know next time I can give it a little more.  I probably had a sub-40 in me, but I knew it would be a long day, I was undertrained, and I just wanted to finish.  Very content with this.

T1:

Not having my sandals sucked.  The concrete was rocky and hurt and transition was BIG, so I had to walk the whole way to my bike.  I was even walking so funny a volunteer asked me if I was ok.  I missed my rack, found it, and then did a nice slow, smooth, methodical transition.  I tried to get a little bit of sunscreen on my body and apparently did a crappy job, but I didn’t want to take enough time to suncreen up completely.  I was walking out and I heard Joel in transition say he’d see me on the bike, which made me happy.

T1 time: 4:44.  A little slow, maybe, but not offensive.  Pretty much the same as my last 70.3.

Bike:

Got out to the mount line, got on my bike (almost fell over just being dumb next to the railing), got going, and steeled myself for the first hill.  I felt like how that hill went would set the tone for the bike, and it kinda did.  I put my head down, spun through it in an easy gear, and emerged at the top… sorta fine.  Then we went down the rollercoaster, and I rode my brakes a bit and was scared, headed over a bridge and then got to work again on the second part of hill one.  Oddly enough (to me, I’m sure this is old hat to anyone else that’s been riding a bike for more than a day), getting in granny gear and just chugging up hard hills works.  I got to the top feeling a-ok about the day, especially because I knew the flat we had here would last for a while.  It dawned on me then I’d forgotten my ride glide (or any sort of chafing protection anywhere), but nothing I could do about that now.

My goal was to eat something every 2 miles.  This didn’t quite pan out, but I got quite a bit of nutrition down (about 3.5 packs of chomps – 700 calories total).  I also took a little more caffeine than normal, topping out at about 2.5 cups of coffee equivalent on the bike, which for this lady is a LOT (I drink one diet coke or iced tea and I’m wired for the day).  At one point, I took a caff chew and my stomach twinged a bit, so I moved to the half caff and no caff ones.  I got down about 3/4 of a camelback with one lemonade nuun in it.  It was still pretty cool (probably mid to upper-70s on the bike), so I didn’t feel dehydrated through the race at all, which was nice (considering the expectation of the possibility of the bike ride starting in the upper 80s and the run being in the 90s to 100s like last year).

Back to the course, I spun easy and conservative on the front part of the course – I knew I hadn’t trained to push a hilly 56 mile course and I didn’t want to be too cooked on the run, so I kept with my ~3:40 per mile pace.  Oh yeah.  Another thing I forgot to do with the time crunch was set my garmin to bike mode – so it was giving me run pace on my bike.  Oops.  Killed some time trying to figure out what pace = speed though, so there’s that.  I screamed (literally) down the downhill at 10 (hill 2), and got to work on the mile uphill at 11 feeling fine.  This picture did not do it justice, it was pretty steep.

Right around then I heard Joel come up behind me, pass me, and work his way up the hill just a little faster than me and I never caught him again, he stayed about 3 minutes, give or take, ahead of me the entire time.  Then, we went back to what I thought was flats and saw my speed keep improving.  Killer!  I might kick the crap out of my Kerrville bike split!

Then, we hit the turnaround and I realized two things – 1) tailwind is nice, expect when you have to head back into it for 10 miles, especially when you didn’t notice it on the way out and just thought you were doing well, and 2) false flats only suck on the way up, which is the way I was heading.  So mile 18-28 or so was just slightly uphill and into the wind (minus the return of the up and down screamer, which sucked worse into the wind – hill 3!)

Around that time, the lack of ride glide and the lack of training, plus a dose of chipseal road into the wind, made me hit a pretty bad low on the bike.  Everything hurt, I was only halfway through, I still had the evil switchback road, and I whined to myself a lot.  After I realized I was down, I stuffed a few chomps in my face, and then hit the really pretty 2.5 mile downhill part of the course through a little canyon and trees!!! (the only shade of the course) and I felt better.

Then, we headed down the road to the switchback, which I neglected to remember was also uphill (grrr), and then got to work on hill #4.  I got in granny gear again (a little too early, oops) and chugged and chugged and read the chalk writing all the way up (I especially liked the “Shut Up Legs”) and passed some people and then holy crap – I was up it.

I approached the turnaround and saw Joel and we exchanged the conversation of:

Me: “OW MY CROTCH!”

Joel: “something something wonder day love something something”

Apparently I gave him the seeds for the “crotch song” which went something like “My crotch, your crotch, all our crotches hurt together”, which he sang for the next 10 miles.  Oddly enough, I didn’t have much of the delirious moments this ride like normal.  After mile 30, every time I caught myself out of aero position and hurting I told myself “everything hurts, get fast and it will be over quicker”.  I spent a lot of the first half on the drops because I felt more stable, but the second half, minus some position changing for relief, I stayed in aero almost exclusively to the point where the muscles holding me in aero hurt.

The nice long downhill on the way up wasn’t even that bad until the end (hill #4 – around mile 40), and then we hit flats and then the chipseal again, which I expected to be miserable… except this time the wind was at my back so I got in aero and just cranked as much as I could.  I kept thinking to myself “I am so ready to be done with the bike” and then for some reason had to clarify to the universe that I meant I wanted to be done with the bike at mile 56, in transition, not on the side of the road wrecked or flatted.  I did this clarification each time, probably about once every mile and twice once we got to the 50s.  I know what happens when you are not specific with your wishes.

I still saw people going OUT around mile 28 as I was coming in at mile 48.  It was nice to know I wasn’t dead last.  I got off the chipseal, around the corner, and thought I was back at the park – NOPE.  A couple miles to go.  Everything was hurting, and I was SO SO SO READY to be off the bike (which I had to keep clarifying with the universe).  As I headed in, the wind hit me head on and miles 52, 53, 54 went SO SLOW (not in terms of pace, but each minute took at least 5 in my head, I swear) and I was getting really, really, down, I just wanted to cry.  My body was over it.  Finally, I hit the screamer downhill, the bridge, and the crazy half mile uphill right before transition.  A spectator really helped me and talked me up it, and then all of a sudden, I was riding my brakes into transition.  I dismounted a little before the dismount line, and the lady told me I could go a little further and I said “NOPE, I’m ready to be off the bike, like, about 26 miles ago”, and walked it over the dismount line and into transition.

Bike time: 3:45:46 (14.88 mph).  I would have loved to be closer to the 3:31 I did at Kerrville, but it was a WAY harder course, and I was WAY less trained this time.  I’ll take it.

T2:

I was definitely out of it after that bike.  It took a lot out of me.  I did my thing, made another half-hearted attempt with the sunscreen, and got going (walking) and got halfway to run exit, and then two things happened simultaneously. First, I noticed I still had my dang bike gloves on.  Second, I heard a “LEAH!!!” and there was Joel next to me.  Well, I wasn’t going back to drop my gloves, so I stashed them in two of my tri suit pockets and did everything I could to make with the quickness and head out of transition with my husband as they announced our names.

T2 time: 4:29.  This was incredibly slow, but I was incredibly out of it.  I sort of wanted to sit down for a bit, maybe take a nap, maybe sit in a corner somewhere and rock back and forth.  I did none of these things, so I’ll call it a win.

Run:

Joel started jogging slowly out of transition, so I did everything I could do to match pace.  It was SO, SO good to see him, but we kinda tanked our first couple miles running together.  Instead of inspiring each other, we both walked whenever the other one was feeling weak, so the first 5k took us something stupid like 40 mins.  This was before the first giant hill, which we had planned to walk, but we were wimping out on the rollers.  Joel stopped to use the potty, I walked so he could catch up, and then he caught me and wanted to run, but we were almost at said gigantic hill, so we walked.  At the top of the hill, he wanted to run, I wasn’t ready, so I just sent him off.  I walked about 100 more meters than he did, and we turned onto energy lab II (named because it has a power plant, and it’s almost a perfect replica of the stretch of the same name at Kona – hot, flat, boring, no shade).

While he was in the restroom, I finally popped my 303s (herbal muscle relaxers).  I had 2 with me on the bike which I resisted, but I.just.hurt.so.bad on the run and I wanted to not suck so bad at running anymore, so at mile 4, in they went.  Around energy lab start (mile 5), they kicked in, and I decided I was going to run until the hill at 9.  Ambitious, because the most I had run without stopping so far was maybe half a mile, but on I went.  I passed Joel, and I was cooking down the street at 11-ish minute miles.  And I didn’t stop at mile 6, or 7… I walked .2 before mile 8 because my stomach did a belly flop after taking two chomps, but then it went away and I picked it up.  Joel was behind me close enough I could hear him talking with other people and saying delirious things, but I needed to just ZONE on the road ahead and play the quiet game, so I stayed ahead.

Mile 8.5 found the epic downhill (which was the epic uphill before), which I ran down in the 9s (wheeeee!), until my shoes started melting and sticking to the pavement.  Seriously.  That’s what I thought.  Actually, it was TAR that heated up and stuck to my shoes, but it made every step feel like I was walking in gum once I hit the flats.  HOLY DEMORALIZATION, BATMAN.  I stopped at the bottom to rinse off my shoes, and then I decided it was walking time even though I wasn’t to the hill yet.  Joel caught up to me there and we talked and got water and ice and powerade in the hula station at mile 9, and then hiked up the half mile hill.

We then did our own thing.  Joel was running pretty steady at 13-14 min/miles, I was run/walking – 11 min miles when I could muster it, and better on downhills, but anytime I hit an incline, my legs shut down and I had to powerwalk, so we kept ping ponging.  Finally, he got a bit ahead of me the last 2 miles (always in my sights, but I could never catch him), and then I ran into the finish and tried to do a silly little jump, but my legs weren’t working, so I’m sure that didn’t turn out.

Run: 3:04:15.  Yeah, that bad.  This was easily one of, if not the most challenging half marathon I’ve ever run (even standalone), coupled with the fact that I’m so under-trained, and it kicked my hiney.

Total time:  7:41:44.  This would be 17 minutes longer than Kerrville, but y’know, I’m stoked to finish and not die.  Six weeks before this race, I couldn’t even run and barely bike, and Sunday, I did a half ironman that was SO much harder than my first, and only missed my time by 17 minutes.  My HR wasn’t the limiting factor either – it was average low 150s on both the bike and the run.  I just hurt too bad and my brain died.

Post race:

I went with Joel to the med tent, he needed ice for his knee that seized up, I took some cold towels to cool off and some electrolyte water, but I was remarkably… fine.  The rest of the day involved hiking our friggin bikes up that stupid hill out of transition to the car (one last leg of the tri…), a stop at sonic for a burger and some tots and a diet cherry limeade (I wanted nothing sugary after all those blox), and then climbed into bed and drank beer and ate mac and cheese and tried to nap unsuccessfully (too much caffeine during the race) and watched cartoons.  It was lovely.  The next morning we packed up all our stuff, ate BBQ, drove 6.5 hours home, ate tacos, drank a margarita, and relaxed.

A few other thoughts:

  • No post race sickies.  I felt awesome.  Total win.
  • Soooooo sunburnt.  Time crunch = no sunscreen application before, and I tried in both transitions to sunscreen but it was a big fail.  I caught a bit of my arms but that was it.  I look like a dumb triathloning lobster.  It’s hilarious.  My age is sunburnt into my leg due to bodymarking.
  • It is pretty clear to me what I need to work on before Kerrville, in which I actually care about the time, but we’ll get to that later.
  • I gained SEVEN lbs of water weight between Friday AM and Tuesday AM’s weight.  Crazy.  The first half of the week after the race, I was peeing like every 5 minutes and everything felt swollen for days (though I was back to normal weight by the second half of the week).  Though I did enjoy the diet of crappy carbs, the aftermath sucked.
  • I took a full week off after, and my body appreciated it.  Now, I’m really fired up for the second half of the season and the July/Aug/Sept training plan!!

Thanks for hangin’ in there, if you’ve gotten all the way through this!  This race was killer, but I don’t regret doing it at all.  It helped me whip myself back into shape after being injured, and was a great mental toughness training day.

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