The plan was to get up and swim this morning....instead I slept for 10 hours and still feel like a ton of bricks. So I have found myself with some extra time this morning, since I'm not working out, I will sit here eating my peanut butter and banana sandwich and recount yesterday's agony.
I knew yesterday would be hard when a friend of mine pointed out there is a 5-mile continuous climb on the bike course. Plus, I probably didn't taper as well or as much as I should have. This will NOT be an issue for the 70.3 in 3 weeks.
The morning started out rough. I was running late and missed my opportunity to have a swim warm up. Then I realized I'd forgotten to leave my sunglasses in transition (they were on my face...) but was luckily able to get a volunteer to drop them into my helmet for me.
Yesterday we were once again seeded by swim time. This time instead of fastest 100y it was how long we thought the 1500 would take us. I lined up with the 33-36 min crew. The challenge to this, once again, is the number of people in this time bracket who spend a good portion of the swim freaking out. Though I'm not very fast, I still swim strong the whole time, so this gets tough. One woman (I'm unsure if she was actually doing something different or just doing free) hit me in the face just a few 100m out. That BLEW because it knocked my goggles off my face and got water in them. So I stopped to let the water out. Unfortunately, pushing the goggles back on my face too hard brought on a headache a few 100m later which I just dealt with through the rest of the swim. Man, getting those goggles off was great.
I also encountered people breaststroking, backstroking, life guard swimming...it's just a mess out there. I wish we were faster but I guess this is what I get for being slow. Once guy was doing a good pace free so I was sitting in his draft when he flipped over into back and slowed down tremendously. So I waited for him to pass because I was on his left and he started swimming into me with no idea where he was going...and went around him on the right. In the end, I stopped my watch at 35:40 (which was the time we crossed the mats to run from the beach into the water, to the time I hit the mats to take me to transition.
Unfortunately the results aren't up yet, so I don't have the real times for you.
T1 felt very long. The day before they told us we had to wear our bib numbers on our backs so that was just ONE MORE thing to worry about. Plus, I brought my road bike for the climbing so that just sort of added to the chaos - no easy place to leave my helmet, my sunglasses were just sitting in it. But I took my time. I knew rushing and panicking would probably only make t1 longer.
The bike started as every course has in Boulder. Up a very very slight grade to get to 36, which I would guess varies between a 1-2% grade in the beginning. So not too bad, but slower than you'd like to be moving. Than a turn on to Lee Hill rd. which I'm going to say sits nicely between 4-7% the whole time. Then you turn slightly right as the road turns into Old Stage and BAM 15% grade. Have fun.
For those of you who aren't familiar with gradients - this is steep. VERY VERY steep. In the Tour de France the announcers will start freaking out about 10% grades. I was going about 5 mph the whole time (very very slow for a road bike) and lots of people just got off their bikes all together and walked it. I was all kinds of determined not to walk up that hill... so I didn't. I was a little concerned by people around me swerving their way up, mildly worried about the prospect of crashing. But I didn't do that either.
It actually ended up being a ton of fun. For once I let my competitive self go. I didn't care about passing people (though I did pass them) and I mustered up energy to cheer on people around me here/there when I knew they were struggling. There were lots of spectators lining the hill to watch us struggle, screaming, cheering. There were people in costumes with loud music playing at the top at the bottle exchange.
On the back end there were some rollers and then one big descent with a speed limit! It was only for a short section but there was a speed of 35 imposed and they had both a huge digital read-out set up and a cop sitting at the bottom of the hill with a speed gun to catch us. I kept myself at 32-33 so as to not get dq'ed - but I ABSOLUTELY see how someone could hit 40 without a problem.
The nice part was that after all this, we descended a TON so we had about 10 miles of some nice quick course. I geared out twice and threw my knees into my top tube and my head down as close to the handlebars as I could get it. As we turned onto 63rd, I knew the road very well and knew I had some rollers in store. My hamstrings were really starting to feel it though and I definitely wasn't at my best for this part.
Coming into t2, it looked like the course took me about 1:26 which given the fact that it was longer than your average olympic course and much much harder, I wasn't too upset with. I had a long run back to my rack from bike-in over the same really awful, painful asphalt and so I just walked it. My feet were numb and I wasn't having it.
I started out on the run feeling pretty okay. I felt heroic during my run warm-up. Heck, if all I had to do was a 10k yesterday I think I would've smoked it. The first mile I came through at a smooth 9:30 - which isn't as fast as I would want but it wasn't all that bad. Mile 2 came and after that came the twisting and turning, seemingly unending trail of mild rolling hills. I wasn't happy. I walked up the first hill because I just had not too much left. My feet started to blister in my shoes and my breathing felt shallow. I knew it couldn't be because of altitude because I've been here too long, but man it felt like I was suddenly at 10,000 feet.
I rounded the half way point feeling like crap. There were two girls around me in my age group though so catching them was a priority that moved me forward. One, just after I passed her, asked the volunteer if they had margaritas. I decided I liked her - thought briefly about just running it in with her, but I think she was probably holding 11 min/mil and it was just too slow. Honestly, when I mustered up the energy to run I was probably keeping a decent pace, but I was overcome with the blisters and exhaustion more often than I wanted to be.
I passed the other girl and hit the 5-mile mark, but that last mile was lacking a severe amount of motivation. Lisa Norden passed me and I thought "Whoa. COOL!" so I ran a little because it's LISA NORDEN! But then I had nothing left and walked again... the other girl in my AG came running by and I tried to hang but just couldn't do it anymore - especially not with the extreme pain from the blisters. At mile 3 I knew I was no longer racing, I was just "finishing" and that really did nothing for my motivation to go fast...or go at all.
I think I ended up finishing at around 3:12 which is a terrible time for me. About 13 minutes longer than my last olympic this season. My bf met me at the finish line and I exploited his medic knowledge in saying "I need you to help me take off my shoes. It isn't going to be pretty." His response "well, at least you aren't bleeding" - which was true. I've just got lots of tiny blisters all over these feet of mine.
All in all, it was trying. While it was slow and not a very good race for me, it made me feel pretty excited for the 70.3. No huge hill anymore, a longer swim I can handle. And my goal is 11:30s on the run, which I imagine I will suffer through similarly to how I did this one (which I'm assuming was about 10:30s). With just a little more training and nutrition, we'll see how it goes!
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