Tri Rock Austin Olympic: Leah’s Recap

The whole week before this race, I was really sick with a tummy bug.  I was hopeful, but there was a chance I was going to DNS (did not start) this race.  The night before I wasn’t feeling well at all, so things were rocky even 12 hours to gun time.

However, in the morning, I woke up feeling intact, so I knew I could at least give it a try.  I did the normal half a starbucks mocha and half a peppermint cliff bar (I’m buying a case when they come back at Christmas) and all seemed to be settling well.  I only got about 6 hours sleep, but it was magical healing sleep, and I was incredibly rested from the week of doing barely anything training-wise, so again, all signs pointed to go.  Leah launch!

We got there, set up transitions, walked the bike pump to the car, found real bathrooms instead of porta potties, and ran back as warmup.  We had 10 mins til transition close at that point so we did final adjustments, sunscreened, and got down to the swim start.  I made some changes to normal race procedure in prep for things I’d like to try at Kerrville, so it would be interesting to see how it went!

We saw Brian and Celeste, said hi, chatted a bit, then it was time for Joel to get on deck so we cheered him off.  Then, I thought I had a lot of time before I started, but we’d read the waves wrong, and I was called to double deck quickly, so I went and then we jumped in the water and found a place not at the front but right behind, and then it was time to race.

Swim:

The first thing we noticed was NATURE.  Oh my dear fluffy lord – NATURE in ALL CAPS.  This wasn’t just a patch of plants, this was unending and tangling NATURE.  I was glad I had done an open water swim at Lake Pflugerville just two days before which was also nature filled or it may have really bothered me (the lake zombies hide in plants, right?)  I concentrated on keeping a strong stroke even if I was pulling weeds and making sure not to stay on slow feet and get past them.

I did not like the white buoys – they didn’t show up as well to me as the normal orange or yellow ones, especially going towards the sun, and I got off course a few times.  I also HIT a buoy because I didn’t see it and then had to swim under it.  Also, the fact that they were all white – no difference in color between turn buoys and straight buoys – meant I started to cut the course at one point and had to back track.  At the end, I got trapped behind this large guy in a blue tri suit who at that point of this course I not-so affectionately nicknamed the whale, in my frustration.  I tried going left and ran into people, tried going right and ran into more people, so I coasted a bit behind him until I saw an opening and sprinted a bit to find open water and then I was getting pulled up the ramp wearing a lot of nature (seriously, I got undressed at home and half the lake fell out) and I was off to transition.

While it was not all rainbows and sunshine on the swim, there were some happies.  I felt very strong when I was actually going the right way and not running into buoys.  I passed plenty of people, and I even started pretty far up this time.  I’m getting better at sprinting around slower people and not getting stuck and not freaking out when people molest me (accidentally, of course) in the water.

Swim time: 37:39.  Not nearly what I was aiming for, but 2 minutes exactly faster than last year under worse conditions (lake was much lower this year, going off course, etc).

T1:

Is it really weird to be pumped up about how your transition went?  If so, call me crazy.  I skipped the sandals (I think I may have kicked this crutch) and ran pretty fast barefoot through the huge transition area to my bike.  I worked on paring down what I had to do this time.  Now that I have a bike bottle, I don’t have to deal with the camelback, which is AWESOME.

I tried two more time savers this time – garmin on the bike (no fumbling getting it on my wrist) and stashing my bike gloves in my bento box instead of fumbling with those before I can go.  I did a practice run with getting the gloves on Saturday, and it worked fine, but the garmin was a last minute change.  I did that two years ago at Kerrville Sprint, forgot it on my bike in T2, and haven’t dared since.  My helmet and glasses were propped up on my aero bars instead of on the ground, which is a little risky if they fall off, but they stayed put and quickly I was running my bike out and up the long path to the mount line.

T1 time: 3:43 (almost a minute better than last year)

Bike:

I got out, onto the bike, and going.  Thankfully, when Joel had cleaned and lubed the bikes the day before, he had shifted me down into a lower gear, so that was nice (though I quickly got out of it once we got up the hill).  I did the first loop of the bike without even looking at the garmin, just trying to keep a good, solid, steady effort and seeing what that got me.  That got me 17.6 mph, which was 1 mph better than last year.  I was totally great with that. My pie in the sky goal was in the 18 mph range, and I was pretty close.

Usually on looped courses, I have a tendency to speed up each loop, but a few things were working against me:

• The wind picked up.  It wasn’t Lake Pf wind, but it was noticeable enough that any extra effort I may have put out went into just maintaining what I had built on lap 1.
• I finished the gatorade in bottle #1 and due to a mixup, I had citrus nuun in bottle #2 instead of more gatorade (it was still frozen, and I figured nuun would be better than water or risking it not be unfrozen by the time I needed it).  I forgot that citrus nuun is just about the most vile thing on the planet so I sipped sparingly (though, this may have been a good thing because I sucked down the first bottle so fast I thought I was going to have to learn to pee on the bike in a very crowded Olympic race).  This also may have lead me to under-nutrition because I had planned on getting all my calories from gatorade, and I was 130 calories light (and I forgot to eat anything to offset).
• I think my subconscious told me to back off a little and not cook myself for the run since I had been sick all week.  My subconscious was a smart lady.  I don’t remember ever thinking about backing off, but I definitely kept a nice, steady effort instead of escalating like normal.
• Also, it started getting more crowded and I got crotchety at people.  I don’t know if that slowed me down, but how many times do you have to yell “On your RIGHT!” when someone would narrowly miss me as I was legit passing someone?  Sigh.

A goal was 1:20, and I noted that I wasn’t on pace to beat that halfway through the last lap, but I had a chance to hit my B goal: 1:25, so I stayed on it and got in just in time.  At that point, I felt pretty good, not overcooked, a little tired, but who isn’t after the bike, right?

Bike time: 1:24:43.  17.6 mph.  I am pretty excited about this one – even with the wind and the gatorade mixup and the dudeholes being jerks, I picked up 1 full mile per hour this year, beating last year’s time by over 5 minutes.

T2:

I don’t remember this one being particularly speedy, but I didn’t waste any time, and resisted transition gravity.  I noticed the heat suddenly ratchet up about 10 degrees and my legs weren’t really working properly, but forward I went.

T2 time: 3:18.  Faster by about 30 seconds from last year.  However, I could definitely pick this up a little more by running faster.

Run:

Got out and going across the grass/dirt area.  Noted that I was was doing very well per the race clock (about 2:09) and hoped I could hold it together on the run.  Tried to let that buoy me up, but I had nothing in those legs and I was already really hot.  At about .75 mile in, I saw Joel turning around and noted that if we both kept pace, we’d both finish about the same time (actually, in retrospect, he was definitely ahead – at my current pace, I needed to speed up) and hoped that also would keep me going.  I ran the first loop just trotting away, trying to stave off heat sickness and the mental demons.

I finished loop #1 in about 36 mins and just willed myself to keep going.  I saw Manu out cheering and that gave me a little boost (thanks Manu for cheering and the pictures!) I passed the finish line and was hot and tired, but ok.  Then, they made us run on the grass through the dirt again.  Something about that just broke me, and I was just getting hotter and hotter.  When I hit the concrete again, somewhere between mile 3.5 and mile 4, I realized there was no shade for quite a while and I had the chills and was feeling yucky, so I stopped to walk.  I passed Joel again just as I started power walking and said “I’m broken” and kept going.  Somewhere in there Brian also passed me, and I had nothing to be able to keep up with him either.

I walked to where there was shade, and tried to run when I hit the shade and it didn’t really work.  I walked to the next aide station and drank every cup someone held in front of my face – 3 waters, 3 gatorades… I had to go back to refill my bottle because I realized I would have nothing for a mile and that wasn’t happening.  Let’s not forget that on the run, I had already downed a full gatorade bottle from mile 1-4, and took water and gatorade at each aide station.  I was doing all the right things, but it wasn’t enough.  Either I was sloshy and nauseous from hydration, or my body wouldn’t function.  This choice sucked.

I ran where I could, walked where I couldn’t, and nothing could get me going fast.  After the week I had, I wasn’t going to push it too hard and risk missing another week or more of training and/or a trip to the med tent, but I can’t deny that some of it was mental too.  My “give a crap” just ran out.  I just watched my run time and pace go from sucktastic to unbelievably sucktastic and tried to at least keep the four letter words under my breath and finally I was up the bridge and down the bridge and around the corner and saw everyone cheering me in and got through the finish and finally, thankfully, it was all over.

Run time: 1:19:02 for 6.2 miles – 12:46 pace.  I’m not sure I’ve ever traversed a 10k that slow in my life, certainly not in a race.

Total time: 3:28:32.  2.5 mins slower than last year.  My run was over ELEVEN minutes slower than last year (1:07:56 for 2012)

As normal, Joel won on the bike, Brian won on the run, I won on the swim.  Brian beat Joel by 8 mins, and Joel beat me by 10.  I wish I could say it was all the run, but Joel had a stellar race, keeping almost a 19 mph pace on the bike and only letting me beat him on the swim by 4 minutes.  I would have had to run a 1:09 on the run to beat him, and I just didn’t have that in me, mentally or physically.

My final thoughts:

I am really happy with my gains in swimming and biking this year.  Beating last year’s swim time by 2 mins and bike time by 5 mins even after being sick all week is pretty awesome.  Imagine what I could have done on a perfect day!

I got 90 free seconds this race just by being better at transitions, that’s 15 seconds per mile on the run!  That’s pretty awesome!

I’m considering skipping the July/Aug/Sept hot summer races in 2014.  This year just broke me.  Maybe a sprint here or there, but nothing longer.  I really just have no fun walking the thin line between racing and heat sickness over and over in the dog days of summer.  The training is not really that fun for me either.  I think spending the summer going FAST (5ks, speedwork, shorter sessions) might be the way to go next year.  I feel a sense of JOY getting out for a long run when it’s 60 degrees outside, whereas I feel a sense of DREAD when it’s 80 at dawn and climbing.  Biking and swimming aren’t so bad, it’s just distance running over the summer sucks.  A lot.

This weekend is Kerrville 70.3, and the temps look to be much milder.  I’m hoping that the last few races not being optimal for me will culminate in an awesome A race for me this year!  Stay tuned!

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