Very proud of myself.
Here's the breakdown:
Race morning- slept poorly, kept waking up and was unable to get back to sleep. Finally dozed off at 5am and my alarm (set for 5:35am) didn't go off because it is an iPhone alarm and I had it set for every day EXCEPT Sunday. Thank god my friend was staying over and woke up at 6. Packed up and rode my bike up to the park. Race prep went well, I set my things out and bought a race belt, everything felt good to go.
Swim- I was in the first heat, which means I was with the fast people. Heat 1 consists of numbers 1-75. I was bib 70. My lane figured out who was "fastest" before we started and then we were off. The pool was 75 yards across with a wall on only one side, so it mimicked the conditions of an open water swim better than a 25/50y pool would have. I felt laggy and slow and couldn't figure out why. The girl that was swimming behind me kept touching my feet. I realized (after the race was over) that she drafted off of me for 5 out of 6 lengths and that was why I felt so slow, regardless of the effort. That last length, once I broke away from her, was nice and smooth. Swim finished sub 8:30, I believe. Not too bad.
T1- slow. First, a woman hopped out of the pool right in front me and took her sweet time getting out of the way. Second, I decided to wear socks, which stuck to my feet. Third, my bike was close to the wall, but that didn't really get in my way too much, since I didn't have many people around to grapple with.
Bike- I feel like I rocked the bike. My average pace for two laps was 19.5mph and I seemed to achieve 30+ miles per hour several times throughout. I stayed down in the drops for most of the ride and really felt sharp on the course. I suppose I had better, I was riding in my own back yard! The last time up the hill by the Boat House left a little to be desired, but I was starting to feel tired at that moment. It felt really great to zoom past people in my heat, and was really cool to start passing people fresh out of the swim in the second loop.
T2- I feel like this transition was good. I might have been a smidge faster if I hadn't paused to reconsider whether I had everything. Compared to the effort required to transition swim to bike, the transition bike to run felt too easy and I didn't want to forget something.
Run- Wow. Thank goodness for all of the brick training. I got off of the bike and began my haul up hill to the tune of around 9 minutes/mile feeling like lead and considering whether or not to feed myself the GU that I had neglected on the second loop of the bike. I decided "now or never" and ate it. The first long descent was actually the more painful of the beginning run experiences. Increasing my cadence was really difficult because my legs didn't want to move and I was making them use the hill to get the extra time. Ouch. As I ran the first half of the 5K all I wanted was water. My mouth felt sticky and thirsty and my body was begging me.
Turnaround- I went ahead and grabbed two cups of water, one I "drank" immediately, pouring much of it down my front as I ran. I trashed that cup and started to sip into the second cup, getting more liquid out of that one. I carried the cup with me back to the top of the Great Hill because I didn't want to litter in the park. As soon as I hydrated, my legs woke up. I turned on the engine and gave the last mile and a half everything I had. I really felt great when the runners (racers and otherwise) that were coming at me began cheering me on. "Great job, 70!" I zoomed down the Great Hill. Glancing briefly at my watch revealed sub-7 minute pacing. Faster! Faster! The finish felt great. I saw my coach ready to cheer me through the gate and it made me pick up the pace for the last teeny leg, I wanted to finish strong, finish pretty and show him how much the work we have done has paid off. I wanted him to be proud, though I knew he already was. I heard him yelling my name every step of the way. It was a tremendous boost.
Arms high, head up! Great photo finish, somewhere around 1hr 15mins.
What could possibly make such a great race day better? I finished second in my age group. That's what. BAM!
The only issue I had with the race was that the run start was poorly marshalled. I had to call out to get information about where I needed to be going, no one seemed to be paying attention to the runners. At least not in the first heat. When I came back down the hill, I had to call out again for guidance and the marshall (who was on his telephone, wtf?) didn't offer help, but the photog did. Other than that, a good race. I will do it again next year.
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