Boulder 5430 Sprint Triathlon

Welp it was a harder weekend than I anticipated.

I spent the whole week feeling pretty burnt out and not too motivated, with the exception of Wednesday during which I randomly had a great bike ride and did a ton of core. But then I had a short, hilly run on Thursday that tore up my legs. Friday I had no desire to move and Saturday I forced myself to get in a quick easy bike, where I found myself legs feeling like lead, my stomach cramping, and my body generally working against me. So I headed to the pool where I felt a bit better, but a slow 1850 proved this sport wasn't doing too much better.

I drove up to Boulder with my boyfriend to find an expo that indicated I was in store for a VERY well-organized race. As part of the Boulder series, it is backed by Ironman so everything was up to par. We checked out transition and saw once again that I had a pretty sweet spot in the pecking order. My rack (#1-59) was immediately in front of the bike out which meant not too much running with my bike. It was pretty far away from the bike in, but still a relatively straight shot.

I got to the reservoir around 5:15 the next morning and only one girl was set up on the rack, in the best spot...of course - right on the end in front of the bike out, but I racked next to her and called it good enough. She looked at me and said "this doesn't look like this is your first tri." I laughed and said "Nope. I think it's 13." She was there with her boyfriend or brother who was helping her out...he seemed a little more seasoned. In the end, I'm pretty sure she beat me because her bike wasn't there when I came in from the swim and it was there when I returned from the bike. 

The swim start was interesting and innovative. They asked us to corral by our best 100y time. I jumped in with the 1:40-1:50 pace group. Maybe a little ambitious as I was once doing 1:47s, but am really more around 1:57s right now, but I figured I'd see if I couldn't hang on their feet. Plus, I didn't mind sticking towards the end of the group. What else would be new?

This DID make the swim WAY crazier than I am used to. It was a huge race and it stuck us all around people of our speed. I've never been around so many people in the swim. It was hard to sight the buoys with all the splashing and heads ahead of me, but I definitely got more drafting in than your average race. I was disappointed to see I came out of the water in 18 min. I was really looking for more like 16, but you do what you can. I felt like I pushed myself really hard and despite the sighting difficulties stayed on-course pretty darn well. The nice thing was that this race was by no means an "A" race for me. So it didn't cramp the rest of my race.

The bike was a 15-miler, cut down from 17.2. Either way, sort of a long bike for a sprint-distance tri. My goal was to finish it in around 48 minutes given I knew most of the course from last time and the nature of the climbing. I had just done 15 miles in a little less than 50 minutes on Wednesday, so I knew I could do it.

Coming into T1, I once again was running over the incredibly painful parking lot. It was nice to not have to run too far on that, though it was still a longer transition run. And apparently because it was wet from the people ahead of me, that made it a little easier on my feet. Unfortunately, all ready to go, I took my bike out and knocked down the one next to me. I grumbled and picked it up. Not too happy about that one. 

Running out to the mount line was a TOTAL disaster. I did ok, swinging far out to the right. People were falling over, having serious issues mounting. I forgot how bad that can get. Part of the problem was just that there were SO MANY PEOPLE doing such a short distance race. I really think they over sold it. I got on with no issues, though left my feet out of my shoes for a while solely because there were so many people around me that I didn't have wiggle room to coast and reach down. Some woman was riding out way left and I somewhat sassily said "Coming up on your left" and then thanked her for moving. I'm never amused by people being neglectful in front of me and try not to be mean but I get aggravated never the less.

I really pushed the climbs this time, knowing it would end sooner than last time because we were turning earlier. The route was absolutely crammed. It was nearly impossible to stay 3 bike lengths behind people because there were so many athletes over the course of 15 miles. I tried to just hang out left if I was passing and right if I wasn't. Still we had people passing people passing and I almost took out some people passing me very close on the left because they didn't announce their presence and I was within a bike length of the tire in front of me. It's a mutual fault, but it was a disaster nevertheless. 

Coming back in on the bike, we once again had a carpet covering a gravelly area. Unfortunately I got stuck behind "Sandi." Oh Sandi, I will never forget you. She had her bib on her back with her name. Yes well, Sandi on her very expensive tri bike wobbled and braked like crazy. I wanted to scream and there was no getting around her because so many people were passing on the left. Then as we cleared the mats she rode out left. Sandi, oh Sandi. ARRGGGGHHHH!!! I finally got passed her with enough time to get out of my shoes and dismount the bike. Again the line was more crashing and wipe outs. I pulled far right and ran away from the chaos into transition as fast as I could. Total bike time 46:18 - average over 19 mph! Back up to what I've done in the past at sea level on flatter courses. That made me feel pretty fierce again.

In transition I heard them announce the first female finisher. "WOOF, welp see ya in about 30 mins" I thought to myself.

My goal for the run was 9-min miles, but pushing hard to the first marker at 9:04 I knew that probably wasn't happening. My legs hurt, my side ached...I wasn't feeling anything near runner's high. I stopped at the water stop and took a drink and promptly poured it all over my head. It was hotter than last time. Coming back, I walked twice, but only allowed myself 10 seconds. I felt pretty bad, but counted to 10 and told myself to start again. In the end, the run time was reflective of the suffering: over 29 min for a 5k. The whole race was 1:38 and my place, out of 20 girls, was 9th. There was a pretty tough turn out though. Even if I had raced my goals (4 min faster) we still would've been looking at 7th place.

All in all, not my best race but not my worse. Now back to training training training.

Official Start to Race Season 2013: Boulder Sunrise Race Report

Yesterday I started my triathlon racing series up in Boulder, CO with the Boulder Sunrise olympic distance tri.

My expectations were lowered. My biking hasn't been as fast as in the past. My running has been slow and peppered with injuries. My swimming has been not too far off from what I was doing at my best last year, but still not quite as good. My goal was to finish in under 3 hours. I was hoping for a sub-35 min swim, a 1:25 bike and a run under an hour. Which, if you add up - leaves little room for transitions or mistakes if I want to do that whole sub-3 hour thing, because those all equal 3 hours of racing time. :)

I got to the reservoir at 5:30 - 30 minutes before transition officially opened - to poach the best possible place to set up....I was one of the first three athletes there and the second person to walk into transition. Luckily, they were pretty lax about when it actually opened so I wandered in around 5:40 and no one seemed to mind.

The racks were sort of set up by bib # but luckily I was #233 and assigned to the last rack (nearest the bike out - YAY!) but unfortunately the side furthest away. I was literally the last racer assigned to this section, so I set up way out on the end so I just has a straight run to the "bike out" arch.

As other athletes started pouring in, I was pretty much all set up, and able to start my warm up around 6:10. I got in solid warm ups for all three events, which was pretty nice and barely had enough time after my swim warm up to run from the beach back to transition to hide my flip-flops and car keys under my towel for after the race. As I did so the announcer said "All olympic distance athletes need to be on the beach" and I promptly hustled over.

During my swim warm up, I quickly realized the water was ICY COLD. Not surprising really since the high for the day was only 67 degrees. As soon as the depth increased to about 5-feet I swear it was 60 degrees. BRRRR I think this was probably the coldest swim I ever did. It hurt my head a little, but after we started out, I got used to it.

For what I believe to be the first time EVER I actually hung with the women on the swim! I was even passing some of the men (who started maybe 4-5 minutes before we did). But as I made the left turn to come around the buoys and swim back into shore, I cut it too wide and was not diligent enough about my sighting and ended up swimming WAY far left of the guide buoys. I was disappointed and sure this would ruin my swim. I did end up losing the pack that I had been hanging with because of this mistake, though I was around an athlete or two from time to time.

As I came in I watched other athletes stand up as soon as they could but I remembered to keep swimming until my hands were scooping up sand. I did and immediately looked at my watch - 34:29. 2:06/100y or 2:17/100m. I was pretty darn happy with this. Especially given my nice WIDE path I'd made for myself.

Unfortunately the run up the beach, across the concrete into transition was a little tough and took me an extra 1:37 - making for a chip swim time of 36:06. All things considered - this is STILL better than many of the swims I've had in the past.

Transition itself kind of sucked because it was on very gravelly pavement that really cut up my feet. I knew it would be like this ahead of time, but it was pretty awful - especially on my icy cold and numb feet. I ran the bike to the mount line cursing under my breath the whole way because it was so painful. I hopped on though and was pretty successful in getting my feet in my shoes - granted I had been practicing since being fit to my tri bike a little over a month ago.

The bike started off with a mild set of rolling hills - which amounted to a lot of low grade hill climbing for the first 7 miles. For the first 30 min I averaged 15.9 and felt pretty discouraged, but as the course continued the climbing stopped and around mile 10 I came upon a pretty sweet 5-mile descent. It definitely helped even out all that climbing and because I was in one of my highest gears, I used this time to make sure I drank water, took all my nutrition, and refilled my aero bottle. The descents were never too aggressive - I think at MOST I hit 30 mph. By an hour, I'd made it 17.8 miles - so a significant increase in speed since the first half hour. At this point, I had roughly 7 miles to go, so I just wanted to focus on getting this done. The remainder of the course was pretty fair rolling hills and apparently brought me down to an average of 17.6 mph - finishing in a little over 1hr 22 min (bike course was slighting short). With a long enough bike course, this still would have been a 1hr 24 min finish and just barely under my goal.

I ran into transition, again like I was on hot coals because of how harsh the ground was to my bare feet. I struggled getting into my sneakers because my feet were so cold, which was incredibly frustrating. I think a combination of the painful run and this sneaker struggle accounted for my 1:37 T2, which was depressing given I'm looking to be around 45 secs here. Nevertheless, I took off on the run.

The run was an interesting 2-loop 5k course that I ended up really liking. We ran a little over .5 miles on pavement until we hit a dirt trail and ran out on that until the turn around point. This whole leg ended up being AWESOME. I ran my first mile in 8:58 which was both fast and a little too aggressive. Since I was hoping for 9:40s at the very least, this was surprising, but also concerning because I was afraid I would burn out. But I walked for water a couple times and pushed myself to keep running - feeling pretty good. I didn't take my garmin so I wasn't really sure of pacing other than knowing I did the first 5k in under 30 min and was on pace to do the second one in what seemed like about 28. As I came in, I saw I basically needed to haul or I would exceed the 3 hr mark, so I "hauled" to the best of my ability (which obviously isn't too fast :P) and made it in at 2:59:02 by my watch and 2:59:07 chip time, which earned me 3rd place in F20-24. Pretty psyched to see I just ran a 9:18 pace 10k which was significantly better than how I had been performing or expected myself to perform.

While this is not, by any means, my best race, given the full-time job, loss of personal coaching and move to hills/altitude - I'm pretty proud of myself. As a season opener I only have room to improve and I think this allows me to set a goal this season of completing either Boulder 5150 or Sunset Olympic tri in around 2:51 which is not ALL that much slower than I was doing in Chicago last year. Hoping for hard training and good results to come.

#rinse. repeat.