NOLA 70.3 Race

Race morning I mostly did my own thing. Set up transition, got body marked, did my warm up, and then I hung out with my team. Out of everyone on my team, I was in the earliest group to start. This meant they weren’t in a hurry to get to the swim start and I decided to stay with them. When we reached the start area it didn’t look like anyone was in the water and I wasn’t really paying attention and before I knew it I saw navy caps standing on the dock. Shit. I started pushing my way through the sea of black wetsuits trying to get to the dock. SORRY, EXCUSE ME, SORRY! It was too late, my age group already left. Luckily it was a TT start and not wave start so I didn’t have to worry about time. I still pushed my way to the front as fast as possible through all the men. I was quickly throwing my cap on and someone told me my wetsuit wasn’t zipped and I couldn’t find the string so 10 seconds before I’m about to jump in the water a volunteer is zipping it for me. I quickly threw my goggles on and didn’t properly set them in place and started fumbling with my watch while waiting on the mat with a bunch of men to jump in the water. I heard some noise and the guys on the mat started jumping in and I followed.

Swim: 42:20 

This was certainly a unique way to start the race. Oh shit go! GO NOW! No time to think. No time to sort my thoughts. In fact, no time to even look at the water I was about to jump into. And you know what, I’m kind of happy it all started that way.

I had no idea how choppy the water was since I truly didn’t look at it but I knew it would be bad based on the previous two days I looked at it. Yea it was choppy. I haven’t done a lot of open water swimming but this was the worst I’ve ever experienced. The first straight section felt like a cluster fuck (excuse my language but that’s what it was). Right off the bat people were breast and back stroking. I found out afterwards some people decided not to start the race, got picked up as soon as possible or handed their chip in after the swim. I’m not in this picture but it sums it up. This was at the beginning of the swim and you can’t even tell what the correct direction is people are supposed to be swimming (hint: to the left).

I wasn’t thinking about the chop that much though. I was focused on trying to make up “lost time” from starting late and wanted to catch up to the women in my age group. It didn’t take long before I was in a mixture of different cap colors. I felt like I was plowing through people, I felt strong. That feeling kept me focused. Sure I got a few mouth full of nasty water and I wasn’t particular enjoying when we started getting spray on top of the chop but I managed it well.

Honestly my main goal for the swim was to not swim off course so naturally I swam off course. After the first turn around buoy I started swimming back to the start of the race (just like my last race). A kayaker yelled enough to get my attention and set me straight. Number one lesson I learned (finally): If you are not swimming near other people, you are off course! I started focusing equally on looking for the masses of swimmers and the buoy to keep myself on course. Might have gone a little off one more time… maybe. It didn’t help that when I was deciding between goggles it was cloudy so I picked my clear pair. Of course by the time I was swimming the clouds had disappeared. I already suck at sighting buoys but it was extra challenging when the sun was right above them.

The physical swimming aspect went fairly well. I still breathe primary on my right side (I know I know!) so naturally I did that 100% of the time during the race. That made my left arm more tired than the right. But I swam hard and steady other than when I’d breast stroke for a few seconds to fix my goggles and make sure I was on course (where is everyone?). When I stumbled my way up the stairs of the dock I was surprised to see my time. I was expecting in the 30s. On the other hand I knew it was tough conditions and I felt like I passed a ton of people so I didn’t pass judgment on my time.

T1: 4:10 

Apparently I had a hell of a time finding the string on my wetsuit. This was the first time I’ve had the experience of laying on my back and someone ripping the wetsuit off me and it was kind of fun in a weird way. Unfortunately that meant running while holding the wetsuit and it was a long run to the transition area. The wind had clearly knocked my helmet off my bike so everything wasn’t set up exactly like I had left it. After I got everything ready to go I just spent a few seconds staring, convinced I was missing something. It’s been 7 months since I last raced a tri. 

Bike: 2:55:07 

Wind. I could simply leave it at that one word but I’ll type way too many more words instead. IT WAS WINDY! I knew it would be but it still felt worse than I expected. The course was an out and back, mostly flat. On the way out we had over 20mph head and cross winds. It was brutal. When I’m pushing along on a flat course and see 12mph at times, well there is nothing positive that can roll through my head. Despite the conditions, I held it together fairly well mentally. I knew it would be windy and I knew everyone was dealing with the same conditions. What I did not appreciate was expecting an awesome tailwind on the way back and only getting it part of the time. I averaged 8mph faster on the way back than out but I was expecting better. The cross winds were still beating the shit out of us. The whole ride it was about staying in aero, staying small and not letting go of those bars unless absolutely necessary for fear of being blown over.

I was (or should have been) in the first age group of females for the swim and I passed the majority of them during the swim. Therefore, I spent the entire ride surrounded by men. I remember a time when I found the men somewhat intimidating to race against but that was not the case this race. I assumed all of them would fly past me but once again, that was not the case. Sure, there were plenty of men literally flying past me but I could tell from their legs they were the super-fast ones from the age groups behind me. I did my fair share of passing the men though. It felt good like I could play with the big boys. It was even more entertaining to have some pass me and then pass them back later in the ride after they burned out.

I’ve been training with a power meter for the last few months and this was my first race with power numbers to hit. Having those numbers really helped because I knew I was putting in the correct effort irrelevant of my speed. I knew what I had to do to properly execute the ride and I focused on that. I ate when I was supposed to, I drank when I was supposed to. I stayed in my power range, I road hard, I road steady. I started out a bit easier as planned to settle in and I picked it up the last hour only a tiny tiny bit like planned. From Katie’s review of my data and what she told me, this ride was pretty spot on perfect. For that I am thrilled irrelevant of my time. It did happen to be a several minute bike PR which of course is nice as well.

T2: 2:35 

Nothing exciting to note here other than I forgot I don’t really need a visor and sunglasses (season opener). I noticed I had to pee but for whatever reason decided against sitting down to take care of that. I just wanted to start the run. 

Run: 2:05:00 

Of course my main concern about this whole race was the run since I’ve done verrrry little in the last 5 weeks since my half marathon. I thought very little about the run though during the race until it was actually time to run. Nothing seemed painful when I started. I was given an easy pace to start at due to the little running I’ve done recently and the conditions. Naturally my body wanted to ignore that and when I saw I was running about a minute faster pace I had to slam on the brakes. Or so I thought. I felt like I was slowing things down further and further trying to get in the range and yet I kept running at a pace too fast. I felt good though. It felt like an easy run to me (spoiler: tailwind).

My stomach however was not happy. As soon as I started running I had a horrible pain in my stomach. I sometimes get this pain in my stomach and you can literally see the upper part of my stomach bulge out. Normally the only way to get the pain to go away is lying down and waiting it out. Well obviously that wasn’t an option so I kept on running, took TUMS and didn’t eat or drink anything. The pain started to calm down so I ate a packet of chews but that made my stomach angry again so I had to essentially let myself become dehydrated so my stomach would calm down. It was in the 70s which was a manageable temperature especially given the wind so at least I wasn’t sweating a ton.

The way out my legs didn’t feel too bad. Once I hit 5 miles I thought “this is further than you’ve run in 5 weeks!” but it still didn’t feel that bad. My pace had slowed down a bit but I was ok with that. This wasn’t like my last race where I was focused on negative splitting each mile. I would have been thrilled just to hold the pace I started at. I really just wanted to finish and to keep running. My plan was to walk through every other aid station but I ditched that plan because I was afraid if I started walking, I would keep walking. 

As soon as I hit the turnaround I realized I was turning into hell and that the last half of the run was going to be miserable. I felt like I was suddenly running with a parachute on my back. I saw my pace drop by a minute. I obviously knew it was windy from the ride but I never thought it would be that bad while running. Well it was. I passed Katie about a mile later and said “this wind really fucking sucks!” She seemed to hear something else but that was my way of warning her how miserable it was about to get for her. There was a lot of swearing out there among the athletes. We were all struggling. Although I apparently gave my other teammates the impression I was doing well since I would smile and wave when I passed them. Trust me, I was only trying to be supportive, I was dying too.

At this point the low running volume was catching up to me. My feet were hurting, my legs were hurting. All I wanted to do was walk. I finally finished my bottle of OSMO after 90 minutes which was supposed to take me an hour to drink. At the second to last aid station I decide to pick up my tossed out plan and walk it so I could get something to drink. I was going downhill mentally very fast at this point. After that aid station was the last bridge we had to go over. The thing is, I was under the impression this was a flat course but there were several bridges. Normally I like some elevation change but when you are tired, haven’t been running a lot and are dealing with wind, the last thing you want to do is run up a bridge. I started running up it but with the wind I literally felt like I wasn’t moving. Several people around me started walking and I gave in. I was pissed off at myself for walking but I didn’t care. I told myself just walk to the top and then jog it in.

I started running again at the top but I felt horrible and I couldn’t stop thinking about walking again. With a mile left I told myself this was the time to try picking up the pace a bit. That was a mistake. I didn’t have it in me to run faster for another mile and with maybe half a mile left I started walking again. That was the lowest point of the race. I was angry at myself for walking with so little left in the race. I did start running again though and I managed to find that final gear for the finish chute.

Overall: 5:49:12, AG 7/48 

My goals for the year included having a PR for each split and overall. I accomplished a PR on the swim, bike and squeaked by with a 2 minute PR overall. 3/4…. not bad. Would I have liked a larger PR? Sure, but I’m happy with what I got given the conditions of the day. I was curious what the last several months of hard training had gained me. I don’t think the times tell me what I’ve gained though. I know inside what I’ve accomplished and I know I’ve made progress. Forward progress. At the end of the day that’s all I can ask for. I’m happy with how I raced and how I handled the conditions. I’m also pleasantly surprised at how high I placed in my age group. Makes me hopeful for what I can accomplish in the years to come. One month until I get to race again!