Tri-ing in Central MA

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I started tri-ing the summer of 2000, one year after my daughter was born. I figured I could do all the sports seperately, but could I do them all together? Well, did Danksin that year and there has been no looking back...

Monday, August 27, 2007

Cranberry Country Triathlon - Pre race

First time doing this race, first time doing an Oly. Suzy twisted my arm back in February to sign up for this race and despite the HHH environment on race day, glad she made me do it. To say I was nervous was an understatment. I was caught in that not so fun place of wanting to do it and wanting to go home.

The whole family came with me down to Lakeville. We stayed overnight at a local hotel, so the kids could use the pool and I wouldn't have to get up at some un-godly hour to drive to the race.

We met up with Suzy at registration late Saturday afternoon and checked out the course. The buoys were out and it really didn't look too bad. Not sure the actual mileage as the race website said 0.8 miles in one place and 0.9 miles in another. I had emailed the RD, and he didn't give me a straight answer, saying that it would be determined when they put the buoys out. Nice.

We figured out the transition area - the racks had spaces with our names on them - so no need to worry about getting there super early to set up. But man the run from the swim was pretty long and getting out of transition for the run was just as long. Oh well, everyone had to do it right?

We were also checking out the locations of the port-o-potties, as I figured I would need to use them before I went out on the run. There were 3 near the bike in and out, but nothing along the run out. I spoke with one of the race organizers and asked him why there weren't any near the run out. He said that last year the run out went right by them, but they changed it this year. He said he'd look into moving at least one to the run out. I thanked him profusely. (phew) As we were leaving, they had 1 hooked up to the back of a pick-up and were moving it.

We then headed over to the hotel, checked in and decided to beat the evening rush and get dinner early. Found a local diner and had some good food. After getting back to the hotel, my daughter and I headed down to the pool, while DH and son stayed in the room and watched the Red Sox. DH was recovering from his 75 mile ride and my son was recovering from 2 days of off and on fever.

Suzy joined us and we chit chatted about the race, our jitters and our WW friends doing an Ironman...

Cranberry Country Tri - Race Day

Ah, the moment of truth...I did sleep good despite having the weirdest tri-dream ever. I dreamt that I had done the race, but didn't finish the run and needed to go back and finish it, so I wouldn't DNF. Mind you, in the dream, I could remember running the first 4 miles of the course, but not the last 2.2 and I couldn't figure out where I had left off either. AND it was the next day that I was trying to finish. What the?!?! Bizarre.

Anyway, met up with Suzy around 6:15 to head down to the race site. It took us literally 10 minutes to get there - saweet.

Headed over to transition to set up and there were quite a few people already there. Very official race, checked the bikes AND your helmet before they would even let you into transition. Off course, my helmet was buried in my tri bag, so had to dig it out and held up the line. sheesh.

I set up transition as usual and helped Suzy out with taping GU to her bike. I used my new aero-bottle and my fuel belt for the run. Had forgotten about the fuel belt and ran out of fluid. Whoops! Bummed some Gatorade off of Suzy for my pre-race bagel & peanut butter.

At this point, you could tell it was going to be hot and humid...

After getting all set up, we hit the port-o-potties and got body marked. Met Cheryl at the body marking and chatted for a few minutes. I also ran into another friend of mine who was doing the run part of a relay team. Fun to see other people you know at a race. :)

They weren't letting anyone swim at the start line, so we went into the water at the finish. Did a nice long warm-up and got my breathing (and heart rate) under some semblance of control. Adrenaline was in full gear now. Headed over to the start and watched the first wave go off. Smokin' fast! Suzy was in wave #5 and I was in #6, so we had a little bit of a wait...yikes, here comes that adrenaline again.

Gave Suzy a pat on the back and into the chute she went...OMG I'm next! Into the water we went and we had to go under a starting banner, so we were pretty bunched up. I tried to stay to the side, but it really didn't matter. Once we started, I thought, yep, now I really know what it feels like to be in a washing machine. This was by far the worst start I had ever been in. The pond was very shallow in spots. At the first buoy, there was a pole directly across from it. As long as you stayed between the buoy and the pole, you were ok, but if you got on the left side of the pole, you were walking (which many people did). I was able to get into a decent rhythm and found some feet and bubbles to follow. We had to swim the perimeter of the pond (counter clockwise) and I did fairly well until I rounded the end and swung too wide (towards the middle). Saw a kayak on my left, and then looked and saw the next buoy wwaaaaayyyyy over to my right. whoops. So a little added yardage to the swim...other than that there were enough people around that you really couldn't go too far off course. I did pass some people in the previous waves and only counted ~5 white caps passing me from the wave behind (yeah, I know, I know, but it was giving me something else to do besides counting strokes). I rounded the last buoy and headed towards the swim out, touched ground, got up and over the mat I went. Swim: 25:58

We had to run up a stone staircase, around a building and all along the side of the transition area just to get into it! Sheesh. As I was doing so, I remembered that I had forgotten to fill up a spare water bottle with lake water for my feet - crap! Oh, well, I have a towel. Get to my bike, get the wetsuit off (almost fall over doing so) and notice that my feet are fairly free of any gunk. sweet. Get my stuff on, eat 1/2 a Z-bar and head out. T1: 3:18

While I had put my bike in an easy gear, I didn't have the pedals right and couldn't for the life of me clip in. FINALLY get that all situated and head out. Once out on the course, I had to remind myself to go a bit slower at first, since it wasn't a sprint distance, so took it a bit easy the first mile or so. Suzy and I had ridden the course a few weeks ago, so knew what to expect - it's mostly flat and was going to be FAST. Woohoo! Anyway, tooling along, minding my own business, go to shift and hmm, somethings not right....yep, chain is OFF and hanging onto my crank. What the?!?!@? Tried to shift and pedal it back on to no avail. Pull over out of the way and the dang thing won't go back on. Now I am REALLY frustrated and swearing and ready to heave the bike in the bushes!! Up until that point I was CRANKING! So, after swearing some more (mostly under my breath) almost in tears, I lay my bike down (more like a gentle throw) and am able to get the chain back on. Have no idea how long it took me and I am truly frustrated with the whole thing. All this happened ~7 mile...had to make up a lot of time.

So once back on, I pick it up and get back into the groove. Go to take a drink from my aero-bottle and there's nothing there. What the heck?? Then I figure that I must have lost all of my fluid when I laid my bike down to fix the chain. So now I am down to my single large bottle for the next 18 miles or so. Then my lower back decides it's not happy and starts to tighten up...jeez, what next?? This has happened the last three races so not sure what is going on, but I couldn't stay as aero as I would have liked. I had to keep rearranging myself, trying to get my back to work its way out and trying to keep my mind off the pain. I just kept looking ahead and picking people off. I did eventually catch up with some of the crew I was riding with before my chain came off, so that made me feel better. The race officials were out in force and were tagging people. I got caught in a pack, but fortunately they weren't around then. phew.

The last bit of the bike course is the same as the last bit of the run and there were people already there - they looked great and told them so. Able to crank it right on into transition.

Bike: 1:21:54 (my bike computer had me at 1:19 and change, so w/o my little stop, I was averaging ~19.1 mph)

Heard my family cheering me on in T2 as I ran my bike in and racked. My son started telling me about the number one finisher (just under 2 hours) and told him it wasn't helping...he promptly said, "Sorry, YOU'RE LOOKING GOOD MOM" Made me laugh. then I heard him tell his Dad, that since he saw me first, my husband owed him a dollar. Made me laugh again. By this time, I had my fuel belt and shoes on and out I went. T2: 1:35

Well, the port-o-potty was there, but I didn't need it. So waved at it and kept on going. I was worried about this part the most. I hadn't done too many runs longer than 6.5 miles in the recent weeks, but had done a ton of 1 hour trail runs in the heat. I felt good and got into a good groove right off. I had planned on taking walk breaks, as I had trained that way, but wanted to do longer run segments. May not have been the best idea. Started off with 9:1 and that worked well for the 1st 1/2 of the run...then I pretty much self-destructed after that. Did I mention it was HOT and HUMID? I went down to 6:1 for one segment, then I ended up doing the rest of the race at 5:2. I was getting overheated after the 3 mile mark and had visions of having to walk the rest of the way in. Talk about a head game. I was running with another lady in my age group and we were doing well keeping each other going, but once I dropped my interval to 6:1, I couldn't catch back up with her. Bummed me out. HOWEVER, I was determined to finish and running the math in my head showed that I would still break 3 hours, with some time to spare, so that helped immensely. I was drinking out of my fuel belt and pouring water over my head at every water stop. At the beginning of the run we had a nice breeze, but it all of a sudden stopped 1/2 way thru...dang it. I kept plodding along, and there were a group of us all in the same boat, helping each other finish. I was running with another woman at one point and I said to her "we have less than 1 mile left. You've run a mile before right? Just think of it as running 1 mile on tired legs..." she laughed a bit and said thanks. I was saying it just as much for me as I was for her. I had to walk a bit just before the 6 mile mark and everyone was great and encouraging. At this point I saw a runner getting help from the EMTs - he did not look good and he was really wobbly and soooo close to the finish too. I'd say less than 0.25 miles. My feet were killing me and I could tell that I had a couple of blisters brewing, but after I walked ~1 minute to regroup, I was able to get back to running. I passed all the people who wanted me to keep going and I was around the corner and into the home stretch. I was never so glad to see a finishing arch in my life!! Done D - U - N Done!! Run: 1:01:00

Final time: 2:53:43

My family was there cheering me on and I saw them on the way in to the finish. I gave my son my finisher's medal and he wore it for me the rest of the afternoon. They handed out cold towels and water and I found some shade to recover in. After a few minutes, I felt much better and was able to walk around.

To say the run hurt is an understatement. I was fine until just after mile 3 and then everything changed as fast as you can flip a light switch. I never hurt that much so fast. I was overheating and my early long run intervals probably didn't help much. Just means that I need to work on my long runs when I do another one of these. I was just as concerned about the swim, but honestly, it felt really good.

I went back to cheer Suzy in, but missed her as I was looking for more water. I did, however, cheer in my other friend who was doing the relay. She did really well. Caught up with Suzy after the finish line and we both agreed that the run was hot and tough.

Overall, despite my nerves, biking mishap and run debacle, it was a great race and I highly recommend it. Just need to work on running long in the heat, I guess.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Appleman Tri - 22 July 07

This was my first time doing this race but have been intrigued with it, since it’s fairly close to my house. The course is short and sweet, with some trail running thrown in.

I had vowed after Webster lake to get stuff ready earlier than 9:00 pm the night before and did manage to do that, but instead of taking it easy on Saturday, I ended up running around doing errands and helping my husband to sand/steel wool my mom’s deck. This led to inconsistent hydrating and eating…nothing like eating some lasagna and 1 piece of cheese pizza at 8:30 pm as a pre-race dinner! ;)

Woke up early enough to shower up and get up there to meet Suzy, T and Guin for 6:30. I didn’t sleep well the night before and to say I was grumpy is an understatement. I was walking that fine line of wanting to do the race and going back to bed…but once I was on the road, I felt a bit better and once I got there, the grumpiness was almost gone. Most of the grumps were due to the fact that I was not really looking forward to running the trail as the trail runs I had done earlier in the week had kicked my butt and dampened my spirits and I really did not want to be sucking wind on that part…

I parked behind Suzy in my friend’s driveway, grabbed my stuff and walked down to the race start. Saw Guin right away and then T and Suzy. The transition area was really small and tight…so there were people everywhere helping squish us all together. I got my race number, got body marked (the guy was little marker happy…4 days later and I still have remnants) and then went and set up my transition area. After that, hooked up with T, Suzy and Guin and hung out on the beach figuring out how the ins and outs of the transition area were going to work. T & Guin were working on ~4 hours of sleep and a bit too much alcohol, so they found some DD coffee to keep themselves going. We got our picture taken with the “Appleman” and just soaked it all in. There were a ton of volunteers and FIRM had teamed up with the Littleton Rotary, so this race was extremely well supported.

By that time it was getting close to the start, so Suzy & I went to get our wetsuits on to do a warm up swim. That’s when I found out that someone had moved ALL my stuff over one slot and I was now next to someone on a mountain bike which would not stay on the rack. Great! Not! I do have to say though, that whoever moved my stuff did a good job and it was all set up the way I had left it, just in a different spot. Ah well. Got my wetsuit on and met Suzy & T at the beach. Suzy and I were in the 3rd wave with T right behind us in #4. The water was very comfortable and I was able to get a nice long warm-up swim in. A young girl sang the national anthem (live) and then two Buddhist monks chanted a pray before we were ready to race. The Buddhist chant was very cool.

The waves were 3 minutes apart, so we had a few minutes to watch the other waves and see what was going on. It was a triangular course; GPS marked so pretty much a true ½ mile. The only problem I could see was that there weren’t many buoys so it would be easy to swim off course. I positioned my self to the front and right to stay out of the way (if that’s even possible), which worked well for the most part. Gave Suzy a high five and we were off. I was able to get into a clear pocket fairly early and was doing well until I got kicked in my left leg, right above the knee…my knee shifted and I thought, “Is it possible to twist your knee during a swim?” Kept going and the leg worked its way out. The stretch between the two large turn buoys was the longest and during that portion, I really started overtaking the previous two waves. It was very bizarre and at one point I found my self stuck between a breast-stroker, a side-stroker and some one doing the back stroke right in front of me. What the?! I was able to dodge around them, but there were people scattered everywhere and it was hard to get back into a good rhythm.

I rounded the last buoy and started for home…~1/3 way from shore I was overtaken by those pesky blue caps in wave #4…boy those ladies were FAST! I swam until I touched bottom, tried Tink’s trick to flood the wetsuit (not sure if it really worked or not) and got up and out. Swim: 15:25

Ran up the beach and they had put out two kiddie pools to run thru to get the sand off your feet (nice), so I had minimal rinsing to do after I got my wetsuit off. Ran down my row…went a bit too far and got disoriented, as I saw lower numbers, but not my bike. There was a helper and he pointed to my bike and said right there…first time I’ve done that! Stripped the wetsuit off, put it under the rack (more on that later), put on socks, shoes, glasses, helmet and I was out outta there. T1: 2:19

There was some congestion getting out of transition, and it took a bit to get away from some people. As it was I almost clipped the back of a guy’s bike ~0.25 mile down the road as we turned onto another road, they were directing us over to the right and he slowed down and cut me off. Stood on the brakes and somehow didn’t hit his back tire or fall over. Had to go around the volunteer and on the wrong side of the cone, but managed to get away from him. This was a fun course, rollers, no significant hills and some great flat sections. My only gripe was that a lot of the men seemed to forget bike etiquette and come out of seemingly no where and cut you off. THAT really ticked me off. Almost got clipped a few times and had one guy deliberately slow down in front of me ‘cuz he didn’t want me to get into transition before him (ha – didn’t work tho). Legs were feeling it a bit and my back tightened up again (not sure what is up with that!) around mile 7, but I spun them out a little and was able to push it home. Heard Guin cheering me on just before I hit transition (that’s always nice) Bike: 31:24 (ave speed: 19.8)

T2 was pretty uneventful and I was able to get in and out fairly fast. T2: 0:48

The run is always interesting for me, never know how my legs will feel and I wasn’t sure how my back would be. Fortunately, both of them decided to co-operate that day…only needed to get my breathing under control. Out of T2 you have to run along the beach and then into the neighborhood. All I wanted to do was get past the point on the run where it veers off from the return runners before the lead athlete came thru. Managed to do that and concentrated on getting up the slight incline for the 1st part of the run. Suzy and I had trained on this earlier in the week, so I knew what to expect and was able to relax and concentrate on getting my legs under me. At about 1.5 miles, the run course turns onto “Two Brothers Trail” and goes thru a field and woods for a bit and then pops back out into the neighborhood by the lake. The trail part takes a lot out of you. While I was on the grassy field, almost to the woods, I hear, “old man overtaking old broad” behind me. I start laughing and tell him to go after the “even older broad” in front of me (there was a 45 yr old woman just ahead of me). The “old man” was 47. It was rather funny. Once in the woods, I just tried to maintain my pace, but ended up walking up the 2nd part of the large hill (heck everyone else was walking too). A good thing I decided to do that, as I recovered a bit and was able to come out of the woods stronger. The rest of the run was downhill/flat and I just wanted it done at that point. I tried to stay with the “older broad” but couldn’t do it, so just tried to pick it up the best I could. The run ends on the beach which made the footing rather interesting when you are trying to sprint…but did my best. Run: 26:31

Overall time: 1:16:30 (6th in AG)

After I recovered a bit, I went back on the race course and cheered/ran Suzy and T in. T looked great for someone who was using a sprint triathlon as detox!!

After everyone had a chance to recover, get some food and check the standings, we headed out to get some breakfast at a local restaurant. While I was packing up my stuff in transition, I found that my wetsuit had somehow gotten stuffed under the bike rack support and is now sporting a nice “dent” in the left leg. It didn’t puncture, but could tear if there is enough pressure. Lovely, guess that’s was patch is for.

A very fun fast race! And the weather was perfect although it did start getting hot afterwards. The local support for this race was phenomenal. There were people all along the race course cheering us on; ringing cowbells, spraying the runners with water…it was wonderful! And racing with friends is even better!