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.