What I neglected to mention was that our team has this tradition of camping for this race, so I spent the night before and the night after the sprint race sleeping in a tent. Save last year's triathlon, I haven't camped all that much in my life, so that was interesting. I don't imagine anyone sleeps that well when camping, but well enough I suppose. I realized that I'm definitely a side-sleeper because I kept waking up to roll on to my back or stomach so I could sleep. Mind you the tent was set up on a pile of pebbles so side-sleeping was not ideal.
I woke up the next morning sort of in disbelief that I would have to do another, longer triathlon. Then our car (no thanks to me) got lost on our way to the race site so we were a little later in arrival than we had hoped to be. Because I usually like to hook myself up to my iPod in pre-race preparation, I was glad that I had charged my phone. My trusty iPod, which has spent 7 years getting me through races and workouts recently potted out on me. I only have about 10 songs on my phone, so I linked to Pandora and let the dance music play. Having just set up transition the day before, it was pretty easy to do it all over again. I felt okay about helping some teammates and one clueless kid who didn't know how to attach a flat-bag to his seat/seatpost. To those of you who may be thinking "you're so mean, why wouldn't you help out your teammates?!" Let me explain pre-race and give you an idea of what this feels like: Before a triathlon there is a LOT going on in your head. You have to set up your transition area and make sure everything is there/ready as it needs to be. If you aren't focused pre-race you can really screw things up - like at nationals when I didn't unvelcro my shoes. Something THAT small can cause you to stop on the bike or maybe you forget to tape on your nutrition or fill up a water bottle - then you can't finish because you didn't have enough nutrition or water. Meanwhile, during this you have to be taking in your pre-race nutrition and making sure you are hydrated enough and have enough carbs in your body to sustain. I ate a bunch of fig bars in the car and I always walk around trying to down about 32 oz. liquid (some combination of gatorade and water) before hand. Then you have your warm-up to worry about, which you should do backwards (run, bike, swim) but transition closes at a certain time so you have to be sure to have your bike and running shoes back and your warm up done before tht happens. Pre-race is the time when you have to think of EVERYTHING, so that when the race comes you can just go into auto-pilot and keep pushing forward.
I was incredibly successful in my pre-race prep. I switched the order of the bike and run warm up solely due to the fact that I only had 45 min until race start. I was still pretty happy to get them both in. For the sprint I could only do a run and swim warm-up. I drank a ton of fluid and felt pretty good starting out on the swim.
So we lined up and they called my number, so I ran and jumped into the water. I can't really dive - literally 0 swim talent - so I just kinda... jump and hope. haha First buoy was easy to get out to. On my way to the second I saw that my teammate who started 6 people after me was going stroke-for-stroke with me so that was pretty cool. I tried to stay with her for a while because I knew she was a better swimmer, but I quickly lost her. After the second buoy I had some SERIOUS problems finding the big green triangular turn-buoy. It was simply to far away and the field of swimmers was too wide-spread and splashing to be able to spot it. I think it was simply too small and green was an awful color. For the first time in a while, I had to stop and tread water to spot where I was going, which was a bummer. Normally I'd just follow the group, but in sighting I knew that people were EVERYWHERE. No one was a trustworthy leader.
Once I finally got around that green buoy I really started pushing the swim. I didn't have too hard of a time sighting so I was pretty disappointed when I saw my watch said over 35 minutes as I excited the water. It would be about 2:11 pace for 100yd which isn't the worst ever, but I'm still looking to come in soon around 33:30 because I believe that is attainable based on what I can do in a pool. However, in the end I do believe it was actually a PR... or at least on pace with the best swim I've had. It definitely could've and should've been better though.
My T1 was smooth, but as I got a few miles into the bike course, I watched my speed drop lower than I wanted. I began compromising my goal of breaking 20 mph. I told myself "all right, but you have to perform better than nationals but really aim for a PR - faster than 19.1." The wind got rough and I began to find that the power I was getting on the hoods of my bike actually boosted my speed despite the aerodynamic gain I had in my aero position. I knew theoretically it was a bad idea but I wasn't sure if I was just tired from the race before and so couldn't lay down the strength I needed to in my aero position, so I got out of it and started pushing. I worked on my passing technique of spending the first half of the legal 15 seconds we had pushing up to draft of the person I passed before I overtook them. My only goal was to be as efficient as humanly possible but also give the best performance. I overtook one guy (which is defined in the rules as having my front wheel pass his) and he started to speed up. I couldn't BELIEVE he was playing dirty. I wanted to say something like "hey dude, my wheel is ahead of yours, you have to back off" but instead I sped up and cut him off. Then he proceeded to sit in my draft. Again I was tempted to nicely point out that he was breaking the rules. I decided it wasn't worth it. I secretly hoped the big white SUV for the officials would come give him a penalty. Jerk.
I started seeing signs for the bottle exchange and knew I was almost half way through the bike. Soon we took a turn into trees and I remembered Kendyl saying that the fast part of the course was in a scenic wooded area. Slowly my speed started climbing - 21.5, 22.7, 23.4. I got excited. I knew I had the wind at my back and that I could make up for my losses. I began pushing as hard as I could, taking every opportunity to pass. I felt incredibly strong as my speed started to push 25 mph. I was passing tri bikes with aero wheels. This one girl on a pink Trek speed concept and I passed/passed back a few times. I was again tempted to make a snide comment about how my bike cost 1/4 of the price of hers. :) Of course, I didn't. As we approached the downhill to the dismount line she came up on my left and I looked over and said "good ride" as I reached down to unvelcro my shoe. She said nothing. Well, her wheel wasn't in front of mine yet, so I took off and let her eat my dust :P
I looked down at my watch and saw that I did indeed get my goal of 20 mph. My watch said 1:11 though I knew I had started it late. I also realized in transition, that my overall time watch saying 1:51 meant that I was going to destroy my PR, even if I ran a 60 min 10k (which would be conservatively slow for me). I felt a little like crying just because I had so much adrenaline pumping through my veins and I was watching things come together. I was convinced this olympic distance was not going to be too good because I had raced the day before, but things were turning out. I told myself "C'mon Andrea, no time for crying. Focus." I bit my lower lip and though "Right. Time to run."
The run was rough. I did not feel nearly as strong as I had the day before. Again, up the hill, down the hill, back up the hill, and over the dirt/rock/sand path. I was pretty bummed to see the run started the same way it had yesterday. The hill, however, seemed a bit easier to get through, as did the path. As I passed mile 1, an older man decided to keep pace with me and talk to me. I was working and EXHAUSTED and not about to spend an ounce of extra energy on him. I politely made noises in response to his comments, but was glad to lose him before mile 3.
It was incredibly hot on the run, but I knew I had hydrated enough due to the fact that I felt like I had to pee SO BADLY on the bike. I knew people theoretically did this, but I could not IMAGINE logistically how. Between miles 2 and 3 I considered stopping to pee in the bushes because it was pretty bad, but I kept looking down at my watch and realizing by just HOW MUCH I could beat my personal record. I had yet to crack 2:55, yet alone 2:50 and stopping to pee could've compromised the finish time of 2:50. The heat became agonizing and even though I knew it didn't do much I sipped water a few times at the aid stations - then poured the rest of it on my chest and head. After mile 3, I was disappointed to find that the turn around was much further away then I hoped it would be. Approaching mile 5, I felt confident I could push it in. Upon receiving water with about 6 ice cubes in it, I felt GREAT. I sipped a little, grabbed a handful of ice cubes and stuck them in my sports bra, put one in my mouth and BOOKED IT. Though the run had felt incredibly difficult up until that point, I felt strong on my way to mile 6. I kept looking down at my watch and knew I could crack 2:50 if I just kept going. As I finished the mile and started approaching behind the hotel, I began to wonder if 2:48 was possible. I knew there would be no sprinting to the finish because I was simply too tired, but there was probably a little 7:50 pace to the finish :) As I approached the finish line, my watch said 2:48:48 and I was pretty sure I was not going to get there in under 12 seconds. Still I pushed myself and as I crossed and stopped my watch at 2:49:05 I was still pretty happy. It was a 6:51 PR and my run, despite the agony was still 9:11 pace - which is neither fabulous nor terrible.
When I got my finishing slip, I saw my bike was 1:14:01, which if the course was 24.8 miles would equate to 20.1 mph. We think it was short by about .4, so more like 19.7, but I'm still pretty happy with it. I placed 5th in my age group of 15 girls, just behind 3 of my teammates in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I couldn't think of anyone better to beat me :)
Not only did many of us place, but most of our team walked away with impressive PRs. I was incredibly excited and proud to hear everyone talk about having experiences like mine during their race. Newer athletes were completely exceeding their expectations and older athletes were scraping minutes away to reach their ultimate goal time. Awards aside it was a very impressive and rewarding experience and while I spent the entire ride home thinking "Man, I hurt. Why in the world do I do this? I need a break." I'm sure I'll be registering for my next race again soon.
In the meantime... Go 'Cats!
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