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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...

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!

4 Comments:

Blogger smcheslock said...

LOL about the "old man"! That makes me an ancient! Awesome race for you! Very true about racing with friends, Jackie. I loved this race too, and being able to train with you on the course beforehand was great! --Suzy

7:02 PM  
Blogger KLN said...

What a nice race, and you smoked it, Jackie. Hopefully next year I can join you all out on the course!

6:13 AM  
Blogger PuddyRat said...

Good grief! You are a regular speed demon. GREAT job on the race and the report, Jackie. Thanks for sharing. So glad the trail part of it didn't "trip" you up.

7:50 AM  
Blogger Tinkerbell said...

Jackie...you're a speed demon as always. Way to race, girlfriend! I'm going to guess your wetsuit must not be as skin tight as mine and that doesn't allow the water to stay in long enough to get benefit from the flooding? Sorry it didn't work for you.

4:46 PM  

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