Doing longer races in the summer is not my
thing. If you know me well, you know I hate the heat and humidity. So, unless
I’m traveling way up north to escape it, I have no interest in doing any longer
distance races until the fall. Lake Logan in North Carolina has always been a
good August race though. The weekend of racing includes half, international and
sprint distance races. For numerous years I’ve done the international distance
while training for a big fall race. It’s a beautiful race venue, tucked into
the mountains.
I originally said I wasn’t going to race there this year since it was the first full weekend in a while to focus on the kitchen. But the lure of racing pulled at me. I debated heavily between doing the international distance again or doing the aquabike version of the half. I’ve been training enough to swim 1.2 miles and bike 56 miles, but not run a half marathon. Given I’ve raced the international distance probably more than any other race, it seemed like a good time to mix it up. I signed up for the aquabike with a few intentions: have fun, experiment with pacing on the bike and enjoy being in the tri community with friends. I didn’t plan to take the race too seriously. I did two days of less training than normal as a pseudo taper, didn’t bother switching to racing wheels and kept forgetting I was supposed to be eating less fiber.
The morning started at a startling 2:46AM. This gave me an hour to drink enough coffee to keep me awake, eat breakfast and get ready to go. I told Bill to stay home to work on the kitchen (evident from my lack of pictures) so unfortunately this time I had to drive myself vs sleeping a bit in the car. After a two-hour drive, I arrived at the secluded race site well before sunrise with over an hour before the first wave started. The benefit of a smaller race is you easily run into friends. After the usual packet pick up and transition set up, I swung by the car to drop my bag off and do a short warm up run. I had to swing back to transition to drop off my keys and do the wiggle dance into my wetsuit. I got into the water to swim back and forth a bit to warm up. Not nearly as much of a swim warmup as I wanted but at least it was something.
In my usual pre-race fashion, I had to
somehow hurt myself. It’s amazing how many races I’ve started with some type of
scab or open wound. I’ve hurt myself anywhere from crashing my bike 4 days
before an Ironman to falling off the road during a pre-race warm up run. While doing
the swim warm up, during the downward part of my kick, my ankle hit something
hard. Maybe a tree in the water? I ended up with a small scratch, bruise and
cranky ankle when in plantarflexion.
Since I was doing the aquabike, I was in the fourth and last wave to start the swim. The course was switched to two loops this year. I actually like wave starts since you quickly sort yourselves out based on pace. The chaos of one mass wave start is fun but rarely done in races anymore. Unfortunately, multiple wave starts normally means that as a female, I will always be in a later wave. I started front and center of my wave and had my eyes set on the waves ahead of me. By the time our gun went off, most of the first wave was on their second lap.
I decided to swim based on a normal 70.3 effort, despite not running. I wanted the first portion of the race to simulate 70.3 pacing and effort as much as possible. Despite five minutes between waves, it didn’t take long for me to catch up to green caps, then blue caps. The last straight away of my first lap I was swimming in line with a guy from the first wave on this second lap. He was on my right which was less than ideal since he had to go straight and I had to turn right. I decided to slow down and pull behind him for a few seconds before peeling off for lap two. Lap two was a bit lonely. At this point the field was more spread out and other than around the turn buoys, I was mostly swimming alone. The swim ended going up the cold river which certainly makes you want to hop out of the water quickly.
I’m not a fan of the transition area of the race since it’s a lot of running with your bike on wet grass that ends up cakes on everything. The bike course starts with a short uphill followed with a nice windy downhill. It’s just steep enough to tap my brakes a bit to send the grass on the wheels spraying all over my legs. Afterwards I settled into the rollers on the course. Overall, Lake Logan is a pretty hilly course which I enjoy the challenge of. Especially when I know I don’t have to run afterwards.
As I said earlier, I wanted to start my effort like I was racing the whole 70.3. I also wanted to practice fueling as if I were running. Unfortunately, between bites I noticed that I was holding an empty wrapper. Somehow, I had pushed the rest of my bar out the other side of the wrapper. So there went part of my fuel.
I was feeling strong and happy with my effort at the start. Then as I was slowly rolling up a hill, I noticed something didn’t feel right. It felt like a rear flat tire, just like I had earlier in the week. I pulled over in someone’s driveway, gave the tire a quick squeeze and confirmed I had a flat. Awesome. I then proceeded to somehow spend a whopping 16 minutes fixing the flat. How, I don’t know. I accidently dropped the nut that goes on the valve stem into the grass and never found it. Not critical. I spent a while trying to find the hole in the tube because I was worried there was something in my tire despite not feeling anything. The tire wasn’t completely flat when I changed it so I figured it was a slow leak. I could not find the hole though. I played the usual game with the CO2 cartridge of being afraid I’m going to put too much air into the tube and not enough. As always, I ended way too low on pressure. I pumped it up when I got home and it was 60psi. Good job me. I brought the tube home, mostly because I wasn’t going to leave it on someone’s lawn and because my brain had to find the hole. I had to pump it up, and stick it in water to find the tiny, slow-forming air bubbles on the backside of the valve stem.
I spent the rest of the ride praying I didn’t
get another flat and thinking if I did, maybe it would be another slow leak and
I could just keep topping it off with my CO2 cartridge. It took my legs a while
to come back around after being on the side of the road for so long. After
watching half the field pass me, I was eventually back in the groove and ready
to get to work. I started riding harder than 70.3 effort to test what it would
feel like to overreach. Several times I thought “yep I can’t sustain this and
run well off the bike” which is actually the type of information I was hoping
to figure out. I was attacking the hills more than I normally would. Mile 42 is
where the climb was and I decided to let it rip. After recovering a bit from
the climb, I tried to keep the pressure on and actually start racing it as if
it were an aquabike. I kept telling everyone I passed good job. I wish I had a
sign that said “I’m not running!” to explain why I was passing people so
quickly. They probably thought I was going to blow up on the run. It was fun
pushing hard at the end of the ride knowing I didn’t have to run. It did not
make for a fun run back into transition though.
After I figured out where to hand my chip in, I decided to do a 10-minute shake out run. There was no option other than on the race run course. Once again, I wanted a sign explaining I wasn’t still racing as people kept cheering for me. When I made a random u-turn, I’m sure one of the other racers thought I was cheating by turning around early. Oh well.
I got 3rd place for female
aquabike. I came in 42 seconds after 2nd place and 7 minutes after 1st
place. Safe to say I probably would have had 1st place had I not
spent 16 minutes changing a flat. It was a good experience though. I’d much
rather get a flat and practice changing it mid race during a “just for fun”
race than an “important race”. I know I should better reflect the mindset I had
in this race for all my other races. But alas, I still take some races a bit
too seriously as if it matters at the end of the day. As I always say, unless
you are a pro, this is all just for fun and to challenge yourself. I
accomplished what I wanted out of the day and am happy for it!
I originally said I wasn’t going to race there this year since it was the first full weekend in a while to focus on the kitchen. But the lure of racing pulled at me. I debated heavily between doing the international distance again or doing the aquabike version of the half. I’ve been training enough to swim 1.2 miles and bike 56 miles, but not run a half marathon. Given I’ve raced the international distance probably more than any other race, it seemed like a good time to mix it up. I signed up for the aquabike with a few intentions: have fun, experiment with pacing on the bike and enjoy being in the tri community with friends. I didn’t plan to take the race too seriously. I did two days of less training than normal as a pseudo taper, didn’t bother switching to racing wheels and kept forgetting I was supposed to be eating less fiber.
The morning started at a startling 2:46AM. This gave me an hour to drink enough coffee to keep me awake, eat breakfast and get ready to go. I told Bill to stay home to work on the kitchen (evident from my lack of pictures) so unfortunately this time I had to drive myself vs sleeping a bit in the car. After a two-hour drive, I arrived at the secluded race site well before sunrise with over an hour before the first wave started. The benefit of a smaller race is you easily run into friends. After the usual packet pick up and transition set up, I swung by the car to drop my bag off and do a short warm up run. I had to swing back to transition to drop off my keys and do the wiggle dance into my wetsuit. I got into the water to swim back and forth a bit to warm up. Not nearly as much of a swim warmup as I wanted but at least it was something.
Since I was doing the aquabike, I was in the fourth and last wave to start the swim. The course was switched to two loops this year. I actually like wave starts since you quickly sort yourselves out based on pace. The chaos of one mass wave start is fun but rarely done in races anymore. Unfortunately, multiple wave starts normally means that as a female, I will always be in a later wave. I started front and center of my wave and had my eyes set on the waves ahead of me. By the time our gun went off, most of the first wave was on their second lap.
I decided to swim based on a normal 70.3 effort, despite not running. I wanted the first portion of the race to simulate 70.3 pacing and effort as much as possible. Despite five minutes between waves, it didn’t take long for me to catch up to green caps, then blue caps. The last straight away of my first lap I was swimming in line with a guy from the first wave on this second lap. He was on my right which was less than ideal since he had to go straight and I had to turn right. I decided to slow down and pull behind him for a few seconds before peeling off for lap two. Lap two was a bit lonely. At this point the field was more spread out and other than around the turn buoys, I was mostly swimming alone. The swim ended going up the cold river which certainly makes you want to hop out of the water quickly.
I’m not a fan of the transition area of the race since it’s a lot of running with your bike on wet grass that ends up cakes on everything. The bike course starts with a short uphill followed with a nice windy downhill. It’s just steep enough to tap my brakes a bit to send the grass on the wheels spraying all over my legs. Afterwards I settled into the rollers on the course. Overall, Lake Logan is a pretty hilly course which I enjoy the challenge of. Especially when I know I don’t have to run afterwards.
As I said earlier, I wanted to start my effort like I was racing the whole 70.3. I also wanted to practice fueling as if I were running. Unfortunately, between bites I noticed that I was holding an empty wrapper. Somehow, I had pushed the rest of my bar out the other side of the wrapper. So there went part of my fuel.
I was feeling strong and happy with my effort at the start. Then as I was slowly rolling up a hill, I noticed something didn’t feel right. It felt like a rear flat tire, just like I had earlier in the week. I pulled over in someone’s driveway, gave the tire a quick squeeze and confirmed I had a flat. Awesome. I then proceeded to somehow spend a whopping 16 minutes fixing the flat. How, I don’t know. I accidently dropped the nut that goes on the valve stem into the grass and never found it. Not critical. I spent a while trying to find the hole in the tube because I was worried there was something in my tire despite not feeling anything. The tire wasn’t completely flat when I changed it so I figured it was a slow leak. I could not find the hole though. I played the usual game with the CO2 cartridge of being afraid I’m going to put too much air into the tube and not enough. As always, I ended way too low on pressure. I pumped it up when I got home and it was 60psi. Good job me. I brought the tube home, mostly because I wasn’t going to leave it on someone’s lawn and because my brain had to find the hole. I had to pump it up, and stick it in water to find the tiny, slow-forming air bubbles on the backside of the valve stem.
After I figured out where to hand my chip in, I decided to do a 10-minute shake out run. There was no option other than on the race run course. Once again, I wanted a sign explaining I wasn’t still racing as people kept cheering for me. When I made a random u-turn, I’m sure one of the other racers thought I was cheating by turning around early. Oh well.
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