Whew!
Saturday I woke up and had to do a bunch of errands. I needed to get my race food and I also needed to get another screw for my SPD cleats. I'd been having a really hard time clipping in and couldn't figure out why until I went to adjust the pedals and figured I'd clip the shoes in and then adjust. Surprise! I packed my stuff, including ALL my race nutrition supplies, and also packed my cereal which I put into a salad container I got from Wawa. Went to Genuardi's, got my cashew butter, bagels, jelly, and some lunch then headed to Home Depot where the confused staff member took forever to figure out what I needed (and still gave me the wrong thing!). Finally I was able to head off to town to pick up S and go to packet pickup.
Traffic was horrendous, and I have to admit I did not have the best attitude. Finally get to the hotel and pick up S then we manage to get to the race site, although by this time we've completely missed the "mandatory" pre-race meeting. Pick up our swag, including a T-shirt, Tyr bag, water bottle and other stuff, as well as our race stuff - stickers for the helmet and bike, race cap, and timing chip. We wander around the few booths there. We both get new tri-shirts that were 50% off, decide the Hammer stuff is pretty nasty, and Sarah gets a new race belt. Then we're ready to go back to the hotel. We lug all my stuff in (and I took WAY too much stuff in), start to get a little organized and then decide it's time for dinner! Although I didn't take the opportunity to shower, I did take the opportunity to change into less sweaty clothes. I also discover that my body has taken this opportunity to let the communists invade*. Yippee! Fortunately I purchased some supplies for this while at Genuardi's too.
We walk over to the Italian restaurant we dined at last year for the traditional carbo-load pasta dinner. Last year we joined another group of triathletes for a big group dinner, which was a lot of fun. This year we decided we'd rather have something a little less fun, so we snagged a table for two. She ordered a pasta dish with a cream sauce and sundried tomatoes, and I ordered whole wheat pasta with veggies. I opted not to eat the broccoli for fear of Stink Bomb issues, and the snow pea didn't hit the spot so I opted not to have more of those, but I ate the cauliflower, squash, zucchini, and peas. The sauce was an olive oil chicken broth and it was quite good. Since I was feeling a little crampy still I had a glass of red wine in addition to the water.
After dinner we head over to a CVS to pick up some regular milk for my cereal and chocolate milk for a recovery drink. Then we headed back to the hotel to rest. I also took this time to replace the missing screw on my cleats. Opened the package of screws and my new hex key handy tool, only to discover he'd given me a Philip's head screw! Fortunately S had a multi-tool with a screw attachment. After that we watched 2 Seconds, a pretty quirky French Canadian bicycle movie. I enjoyed it, although the French Canadian french really hurt my ears. S decides it's time to sleep, but I want to take a shower and clean my bottles before tomorrow. I wash the bottles first, then shower. I feel nice and clean! However, I'm not quite sleepy at this point. I turn my ipod to Wonderfalls, put my earphones in, and attempt to fall asleep. I think it takes me about 60 minutes but then I fall asleep until it's time to get up. S says she was awoken by rowdy hotel guests at 3 am, but I missed that completely.
Sunday Morning - Race Day!
I wake up and try to decide what I'm going to do first. I get out of bed but it's kind of cold so I get my milk, cereal, and a banana and hop back under the covers. I eat almost all of the cereal when I decide I've eaten enough. Put on my race clothes and try to get everything organized. Manage to get the cars and drive to the race site parking. Then while going from the parking down Black Road to the race site I catch my pedals in my leg and end up with some beautiful scratches.
Get our bodies marked and set up our transition area. I'm supposed to eat my cashew butter and jelly sandwich around this time but I'm still full from my cereal and not feeling like eating it. I've brought an extra bottle of cytomax so I drink that instead. Then it's time to head over to the swim practice. I'm still having a hard time controlling my breathing, so I still end up doing a lot of breast-strokes. Hope to do more freestyle in actual race. The water is a fabulous temperature, although pretty murky. Then we have to get out and go to the swim start entrance. The music is playing, and we're kind of dancing to Abba's Dancing Queen until one of the race directors changes the music to something I don't actually care for. Oh well. We listen to some guy (a triathlete who is also helping out?) sing the National Anthem and then cheer the duathlon racers as they start. Then we cheer for each swim wave. I'm jumping up an down both as a way to keep my muscles warm and a way to psych me up. I keep repeating my mantra for this race, "I'm having fun, dammit!" I do a little stretching here and there as well. Finally it's our turn, and into the water we go!
I start out pretty strong with freestyle, but quickly find I'm going too fast and breathing too hard. I come up to catch some air and immediately inhale some water. Cough cough cough. The first kayak asks if I need to hold on. Nope, I'll be fine. Cough cough cough. Do a little backstroke while I try to slow my heartbeat and actually get some air in. Flip over and try to freestyle, but I'm still really struggling. I figure it's really not worth freaking me out so early in the race so I commit to mostly backstrokes. I get to the first turn. Woohoo! As I'm going along the top of the rectangle path, I look up at the sky and find a cloud shaped at first like a jousting horse and then it sort of morphs into a carousel horse. It made me happy. Get to the next turn. I'm making it! Pretty sure I'm the only orange cap left in the water, but I come across some red caps (the wave before mine) while moving along. It helps boost me a little, especially as I'm being passed by the swim waves behind mine. I can still hear them calling the waves into the water. Get to the last turn and almost go to the inside of the buoy. Oops! Quickly scoot around the buoy and now I'm in the home stretch! I do get some more freestyle strokes in and then I fizzle. Manage to finally get to the end where the volunteers help propel me out of the water. Then I attempt to run on the sand to get to my bike. It's really difficult to brick, and the transition area is much longer than what I've practiced. I get to the rack and mine is the only bike left. However, I've completed the swim in 21 minutes when I'd allocated 30. Yay me! Yay only 700 yard instead of 750 meter swim!l
I eat some protein cookie, put my shoes and helmet on and "run" out to the mounting area. I'm feeling a little icky from the cookie, but I only at a small part and it quickly eases. I hadn't gone very far on my first lap when I spot some friends of mine who'd come to cheer us on. Yay! That was a nice boost. I complete the first lap, and boy does it seem to take forever! I remember to drink some of my nuun water and cytomax, although not as frequently as I was probably supposed to. I kept spinning as much and as consistently as I could, although I did not have a lot of power in my legs. There are people already on the run by the time I pass them on the first loop. I was a little disoriented for the second loop so wasn't exactly sure when I'd make it to the dismount area. I passed a few people, although by and large I was being smoked by other stronger riders. I'm a little disappointed in the spectators - seems like they were only waiting to cheer for their athletes and not all athletes so it was largely quiet. However there were a few who were cheering everyone and that made me smile. I'm also very disappointed in the race organization. Last year there was a lot of music playing really loudly and it was good peppy music that I and my friend who was racing could sing along to. I was waiting to have that give me a little extra boost but nada. I got to the dismount area and getting off my bike was a little challenging. But as I was "running" into the transition area I saw my friends again. They'd made a sign to cheer me on too!
Got to my spot and all the other bikes are there so everyone's on the run. I decide not to take my fuel belt and just rely on the water stops on the run, but I do grab my gel blasts for a boost of energy. I glop some sunblock on my cheek to avoid sun-induced shingles and then I try to run out of transition but my legs are leaden. I really haven't been practicing bricks as much as I should have. I stop for a while and walk. I'm surprised that the leg with the scratches doesn't hurt, but the other heel is rubbing. I try to run every now and then but I just can't do it for very long. Get to the water stop and pick up a cold towel and some water. That was nice! Tried to wring the water out on my head and cool me down. I'm sweating like crazy. Try to run. Legs rebel. Go back to walking. Try to stay out the way of those who are running. Encourage people as I can. Cheer for all the women wearing tiaras. If I could stand running with anything on my head I totally would have worn one. Pass S as she's running toward the finish line and cheer her on. Continue to walk with a few seconds of jogging here and there. Pass the water stop on the return. Getting closer! Finally get in the chute and by golly I am going to run until the end! Pass some friends and S - sideways high five them. The announcer calls my name! Woot! I pump my hands in the air and smile as much as I possibly can. I really hope that turns out to be a nice picture. Get my medal and a bottle of water, let them take my timing chip off, and go meet my friends.
Finally get in line for some food. I eat some fruit and a muffin top and a cookie and drink 2 more bottles of water. We deconstruct the race a little. My friends think about whether they could do a triathlon as part of a relay, as they don't think they could do the whole thing. S goes over and sees the time printouts and comes back to tell me how I did. I did a little under all my estimates for each segment, although my transition times are longer than I expected. I'm thrilled to pieces.
S and I leave those two friends and head back to the car so we can go over to the other friends' (of the sign) house. We cut across the grass and I do something which makes the rear tire go flat. At least it happened at the end! I needed to take a quick potty break which I did en plein air since there were no port-a-potties up top. S tells me I'll get used to the no modesty thing if I continue with endurance sports; the marathon was how she got used to it.
We get to Chestnut Hill. The 3 year old greets us and tells us about her watching the race. We get a shower, discover I have a little sunburn, have some really good food, and watch a movie. With copious fluid intake and copious fluid outtake too since I'd broken the seal, as it were.
Now I'm home and have no idea how to take the tire off the wheel to fix it. It's a continuing adventure! Next I need to think about how I'm best going to train for Nation's, since it's a lot longer.
But for today... I had fun, dammit!
My Race Results
Place 667 out of 724 finishers
Rank 658
Swim 21:29
T1 2:24
Rank 631
Bike 1:09:29
Rate 14.7 (avg per mile?)
T2 2:21
Rank 678
Run 42:24
Pace 13:41/mile
Final 2:18:06
Division Stats 76 of 80 in our division
S Race Results
Place 531 out of 724 finishers
Rank 484
Swim 17:04
T1 2:22
Rank 357
Bike 58:34
Rate 17.4 (avg per mile?)
T2 2:18
Rank 669
Run 41:21
Pace 13:21/mile
Final 2:01:38
Division Stats 63 of 80 in our division
*I've tagged my blog with adventures in triathlon, and having PMS/actually menstruating while doing triathlon certainly was an adventure! I tried to couch it in different terms for the sensitive.
Saturday I woke up and had to do a bunch of errands. I needed to get my race food and I also needed to get another screw for my SPD cleats. I'd been having a really hard time clipping in and couldn't figure out why until I went to adjust the pedals and figured I'd clip the shoes in and then adjust. Surprise! I packed my stuff, including ALL my race nutrition supplies, and also packed my cereal which I put into a salad container I got from Wawa. Went to Genuardi's, got my cashew butter, bagels, jelly, and some lunch then headed to Home Depot where the confused staff member took forever to figure out what I needed (and still gave me the wrong thing!). Finally I was able to head off to town to pick up S and go to packet pickup.
Traffic was horrendous, and I have to admit I did not have the best attitude. Finally get to the hotel and pick up S then we manage to get to the race site, although by this time we've completely missed the "mandatory" pre-race meeting. Pick up our swag, including a T-shirt, Tyr bag, water bottle and other stuff, as well as our race stuff - stickers for the helmet and bike, race cap, and timing chip. We wander around the few booths there. We both get new tri-shirts that were 50% off, decide the Hammer stuff is pretty nasty, and Sarah gets a new race belt. Then we're ready to go back to the hotel. We lug all my stuff in (and I took WAY too much stuff in), start to get a little organized and then decide it's time for dinner! Although I didn't take the opportunity to shower, I did take the opportunity to change into less sweaty clothes. I also discover that my body has taken this opportunity to let the communists invade*. Yippee! Fortunately I purchased some supplies for this while at Genuardi's too.
We walk over to the Italian restaurant we dined at last year for the traditional carbo-load pasta dinner. Last year we joined another group of triathletes for a big group dinner, which was a lot of fun. This year we decided we'd rather have something a little less fun, so we snagged a table for two. She ordered a pasta dish with a cream sauce and sundried tomatoes, and I ordered whole wheat pasta with veggies. I opted not to eat the broccoli for fear of Stink Bomb issues, and the snow pea didn't hit the spot so I opted not to have more of those, but I ate the cauliflower, squash, zucchini, and peas. The sauce was an olive oil chicken broth and it was quite good. Since I was feeling a little crampy still I had a glass of red wine in addition to the water.
After dinner we head over to a CVS to pick up some regular milk for my cereal and chocolate milk for a recovery drink. Then we headed back to the hotel to rest. I also took this time to replace the missing screw on my cleats. Opened the package of screws and my new hex key handy tool, only to discover he'd given me a Philip's head screw! Fortunately S had a multi-tool with a screw attachment. After that we watched 2 Seconds, a pretty quirky French Canadian bicycle movie. I enjoyed it, although the French Canadian french really hurt my ears. S decides it's time to sleep, but I want to take a shower and clean my bottles before tomorrow. I wash the bottles first, then shower. I feel nice and clean! However, I'm not quite sleepy at this point. I turn my ipod to Wonderfalls, put my earphones in, and attempt to fall asleep. I think it takes me about 60 minutes but then I fall asleep until it's time to get up. S says she was awoken by rowdy hotel guests at 3 am, but I missed that completely.
Sunday Morning - Race Day!
I wake up and try to decide what I'm going to do first. I get out of bed but it's kind of cold so I get my milk, cereal, and a banana and hop back under the covers. I eat almost all of the cereal when I decide I've eaten enough. Put on my race clothes and try to get everything organized. Manage to get the cars and drive to the race site parking. Then while going from the parking down Black Road to the race site I catch my pedals in my leg and end up with some beautiful scratches.
Get our bodies marked and set up our transition area. I'm supposed to eat my cashew butter and jelly sandwich around this time but I'm still full from my cereal and not feeling like eating it. I've brought an extra bottle of cytomax so I drink that instead. Then it's time to head over to the swim practice. I'm still having a hard time controlling my breathing, so I still end up doing a lot of breast-strokes. Hope to do more freestyle in actual race. The water is a fabulous temperature, although pretty murky. Then we have to get out and go to the swim start entrance. The music is playing, and we're kind of dancing to Abba's Dancing Queen until one of the race directors changes the music to something I don't actually care for. Oh well. We listen to some guy (a triathlete who is also helping out?) sing the National Anthem and then cheer the duathlon racers as they start. Then we cheer for each swim wave. I'm jumping up an down both as a way to keep my muscles warm and a way to psych me up. I keep repeating my mantra for this race, "I'm having fun, dammit!" I do a little stretching here and there as well. Finally it's our turn, and into the water we go!
I start out pretty strong with freestyle, but quickly find I'm going too fast and breathing too hard. I come up to catch some air and immediately inhale some water. Cough cough cough. The first kayak asks if I need to hold on. Nope, I'll be fine. Cough cough cough. Do a little backstroke while I try to slow my heartbeat and actually get some air in. Flip over and try to freestyle, but I'm still really struggling. I figure it's really not worth freaking me out so early in the race so I commit to mostly backstrokes. I get to the first turn. Woohoo! As I'm going along the top of the rectangle path, I look up at the sky and find a cloud shaped at first like a jousting horse and then it sort of morphs into a carousel horse. It made me happy. Get to the next turn. I'm making it! Pretty sure I'm the only orange cap left in the water, but I come across some red caps (the wave before mine) while moving along. It helps boost me a little, especially as I'm being passed by the swim waves behind mine. I can still hear them calling the waves into the water. Get to the last turn and almost go to the inside of the buoy. Oops! Quickly scoot around the buoy and now I'm in the home stretch! I do get some more freestyle strokes in and then I fizzle. Manage to finally get to the end where the volunteers help propel me out of the water. Then I attempt to run on the sand to get to my bike. It's really difficult to brick, and the transition area is much longer than what I've practiced. I get to the rack and mine is the only bike left. However, I've completed the swim in 21 minutes when I'd allocated 30. Yay me! Yay only 700 yard instead of 750 meter swim!l
I eat some protein cookie, put my shoes and helmet on and "run" out to the mounting area. I'm feeling a little icky from the cookie, but I only at a small part and it quickly eases. I hadn't gone very far on my first lap when I spot some friends of mine who'd come to cheer us on. Yay! That was a nice boost. I complete the first lap, and boy does it seem to take forever! I remember to drink some of my nuun water and cytomax, although not as frequently as I was probably supposed to. I kept spinning as much and as consistently as I could, although I did not have a lot of power in my legs. There are people already on the run by the time I pass them on the first loop. I was a little disoriented for the second loop so wasn't exactly sure when I'd make it to the dismount area. I passed a few people, although by and large I was being smoked by other stronger riders. I'm a little disappointed in the spectators - seems like they were only waiting to cheer for their athletes and not all athletes so it was largely quiet. However there were a few who were cheering everyone and that made me smile. I'm also very disappointed in the race organization. Last year there was a lot of music playing really loudly and it was good peppy music that I and my friend who was racing could sing along to. I was waiting to have that give me a little extra boost but nada. I got to the dismount area and getting off my bike was a little challenging. But as I was "running" into the transition area I saw my friends again. They'd made a sign to cheer me on too!
Got to my spot and all the other bikes are there so everyone's on the run. I decide not to take my fuel belt and just rely on the water stops on the run, but I do grab my gel blasts for a boost of energy. I glop some sunblock on my cheek to avoid sun-induced shingles and then I try to run out of transition but my legs are leaden. I really haven't been practicing bricks as much as I should have. I stop for a while and walk. I'm surprised that the leg with the scratches doesn't hurt, but the other heel is rubbing. I try to run every now and then but I just can't do it for very long. Get to the water stop and pick up a cold towel and some water. That was nice! Tried to wring the water out on my head and cool me down. I'm sweating like crazy. Try to run. Legs rebel. Go back to walking. Try to stay out the way of those who are running. Encourage people as I can. Cheer for all the women wearing tiaras. If I could stand running with anything on my head I totally would have worn one. Pass S as she's running toward the finish line and cheer her on. Continue to walk with a few seconds of jogging here and there. Pass the water stop on the return. Getting closer! Finally get in the chute and by golly I am going to run until the end! Pass some friends and S - sideways high five them. The announcer calls my name! Woot! I pump my hands in the air and smile as much as I possibly can. I really hope that turns out to be a nice picture. Get my medal and a bottle of water, let them take my timing chip off, and go meet my friends.
Finally get in line for some food. I eat some fruit and a muffin top and a cookie and drink 2 more bottles of water. We deconstruct the race a little. My friends think about whether they could do a triathlon as part of a relay, as they don't think they could do the whole thing. S goes over and sees the time printouts and comes back to tell me how I did. I did a little under all my estimates for each segment, although my transition times are longer than I expected. I'm thrilled to pieces.
S and I leave those two friends and head back to the car so we can go over to the other friends' (of the sign) house. We cut across the grass and I do something which makes the rear tire go flat. At least it happened at the end! I needed to take a quick potty break which I did en plein air since there were no port-a-potties up top. S tells me I'll get used to the no modesty thing if I continue with endurance sports; the marathon was how she got used to it.
We get to Chestnut Hill. The 3 year old greets us and tells us about her watching the race. We get a shower, discover I have a little sunburn, have some really good food, and watch a movie. With copious fluid intake and copious fluid outtake too since I'd broken the seal, as it were.
Now I'm home and have no idea how to take the tire off the wheel to fix it. It's a continuing adventure! Next I need to think about how I'm best going to train for Nation's, since it's a lot longer.
But for today... I had fun, dammit!
My Race Results
Place 667 out of 724 finishers
Rank 658
Swim 21:29
T1 2:24
Rank 631
Bike 1:09:29
Rate 14.7 (avg per mile?)
T2 2:21
Rank 678
Run 42:24
Pace 13:41/mile
Final 2:18:06
Division Stats 76 of 80 in our division
S Race Results
Place 531 out of 724 finishers
Rank 484
Swim 17:04
T1 2:22
Rank 357
Bike 58:34
Rate 17.4 (avg per mile?)
T2 2:18
Rank 669
Run 41:21
Pace 13:21/mile
Final 2:01:38
Division Stats 63 of 80 in our division
*I've tagged my blog with adventures in triathlon, and having PMS/actually menstruating while doing triathlon certainly was an adventure! I tried to couch it in different terms for the sensitive.
Posts
6 comments:
Way to go Diana.....do you need your english paramedic to treat those scratches!!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! You did it!! and on a side note, survived the ordeal and plan on doing another one. Hope to talk to you soon.
CONGRATULATIONS! I'm so proud of you. and pleased to hear you had fun, too. ;)
Yay! You're a triathlete! Most excellent job, and it sounds like you kept up good mental spirits the whole time. Keeping the mind in the game can be the hardest part. Way to go! -L
Go Philly Tri Girl! Go Philly Tri Girl!
Great Job Diana
Tamara
Sweet! Good job. I can help ya with that tire if need be. Good luck to ya in your next one. I'm considering myself to go tri, but next year.
Post a Comment