Today was race day. Today is my birthday. Welcome to age 39. Let's celebrate by getting no sleep, stressing and getting up at 4:30 am.
Remember yesterday when I said this should be the easiest race I will ever do? Well it wasn't. I've decided if you are truly racing, then no race should be easy. You lay it all out there and in the end should be spent. I'd say I layed out about 80% of what I had. Which is a good thing. If I pushed it to my limit then recovery would not go well and it may effect my race in 6 days.
The early morning brought mist, no sun and no wind. Perfect race day conditions really, with the exception that the roads would be a bit slippery. Setting up transitions went smoothly, porta potty line small (always a good thing) and wet suit went on with out too much trouble. My father was anxious to get out into the water and swim a bit of a warm up. I decided I would go in too. Swam just a few strokes and was ready to start. As I watched the 3 groups before me go I was nervous, anxious and really thinking about the 1/2 iron man. OMG what am I thinking? Really a 1.2 mile swim? This is only .5 miles.
Off I went in the middle of my group. First mistake. Second mistake, trying to swim over the slower people. Third mistake I started to panic. Why? I have no clue. Amongst getting slapped, kicked and pulled my chest started to get tight. If felt like the wet suit was getting smaller and smaller. I wasn't getting anywhere with all the people so I stopped and doggy paddled for a few seconds then started again. Still panicking and the suit still getting tighter. I stopped looked for the boat and had to make a decision. Quit now as I was just on the verge of not being able to breathe at all or somehow over come the situation. If I quit now how on earth will I handle next week's race? I need to figure this out. I need to learn how to handle this situation. I need to get myself under control. Just like that I started again and found my groove. The chest eased up and I was on my way. I did struggle with the current and sighting. At one point I was stuck between two men whom I couldn't get away from. I got hit and kicked again. I tried getting through them around both sides of them and over one of them at one point. But nothing worked. I stopped and let them get slightly ahead hoping to use them for nice drafting. But quickly learned I was swimming faster than they were. Finally there was enough room to go between them and off I went again. The swim was long and hard and the panic attack took allot out of me. My sisters said my time was in the 18:XX. Just over a 9:00 400m pace. I was actually surprised it was that fast.
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The bike was actually everything I thought it would be. I did well averaging a 17.3 mph pace on hilly conditions. I'll take it. I was looking for my father the whole time on the loop back but somehow never saw him. I was also looking at all the very very nice bikes this year. You know the ones that have the zipp wheels and the racing frames. The true tri bikes verses road bikes. I didn't pass many people as biking is not my strong suit. But I held my own. 15.5 miles in 53 mins
Next up the run. I can tell my legs are stronger. I didn't have the triathletes hobble out of transition. But of course it was only 15.5 miles on the bike not 57. No ipod again as I was fumbling with it in transition and was wasting time. I hate running without music! The miles ticked off one by one. They were hard, the hills are long steady inclines with a big one near the 1/2 mark. I was impressed at how consistent I was. All four miles within a 8:48-8:55 pace. That is an improvement for sure and I am paying for it. Icing the shin as I type this. The course was a bit long so my garmin showed it as about 4.12 miles. So my race results will show a pace of over 9 min miles. But that's ok.
So was it yesterday I said my goal was to hit 1:50? Well I hit 1:50:07. I know my body well. I also know that the past 6 months have not been the proper training for a sprint tri. I am by far a better long distance athlete than a sprinter. I hope this will help me come Saturday. Instead of 2 hours of racing it will be 7 hours of racing. That is a very long time.
I pulled off a PR today though. I don't have the official results but I believe I beat my time by 1 min and 11 seconds. YAHOO.
The rest of my day will be spent resting and enjoying my birthday with the family. REST will be the most important factor for next week. I need enough of it so that I get antsy. So that I can't stand resting any more. A few light workouts and that's it for the week. No errands, no projects, no stress.
I never did see my father during the whole race. I was just far enough ahead that our paths never crossed. Again he struggled on the swim but really I think he did better mentally then I did. He is always awesome on the bike. I swear I pull him along during training, then come race day he nails it. The run, his famous shuffle. Holding his 10 min mile pace. Nice Job Dad. We both question what next week will bring and how will we get through it. One stroke, stride and step at a time.
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