[Race Report] Boulder Sunset

From the minute I returned from vacation I felt weird about this race. It didn't feel like a normal race. I made it to packet pick-up on Friday, where I normally at least feel some excited nervous energy but...nothing. I know I hadn't trained enough. I knew I wasn't ready for some stellar performance and quite frankly, so much had been going on in my life and stellar multisport training wasn't exactly on the forefront of my mind. For the past few weeks, I mostly I just wanted to get on my road bike and ride long, steady, endless distances.

I woke up that morning at 5:30. Thrown off because my race wasn't until 10. I didn't even need to leave the house until 7. I dawdled around, getting my act together, but much more slowly than I ever prep for race day. Normally I'm high energy, nervous, excited...yeah, none of it.

I drove to Boulder and set up transition in about 8 minutes flat. My rubberbands for my aero-bottle snapped so I gave up on that. I did ask the Kompetitive Edge tent if they had the things to secure aero-bottles, but no such luck. I'd brought an extra bottle of water so instead I just threw the bottles in the normal holders and though it meant about 10 oz. less of water, it was still close enough.

Starting my run warm-up my knee felt a little off. "Great," I thought, "just what I need." But after some drills it seemed to loosen up. Who knows. The bike warm-up went all right, but I could feel that my lack of practice on my tri bike was going to wear on me because I could feel the tension between my shoulder blades.

By the time I was done, it was barely 9 am. Race didn't start until 10:10. Cool. So I stood in transition, downing water. I remembered I usually try to drink a ton of Gatorade so... -1 pt Andrea. I started milling around and also remember I'd left my timing chip at home. Awesome. -2 pts Andrea. They were luckily able to give me a new one (so I guess, +1 pt?) and by that time it was around 9:20 and I went to get in my wetsuit.

The water was VERY VERY cold. I did two laps of the mini swim area thinking that it was probably the coldest water I've ever swam in. I was surprised because I thought it was going to be around 74-degrees and I know I've swam in the mid-60s.

Still, no jitters. My stomach felt pretty empty though. When you're used to being ready to race at 7 am, but now you have to wait until 10, fueling is kind of...hard. I thought back to Nationals in 2012, when I raced the open division and just sat around eating pretzels all morning. Pretzels probably would've been a good decision. Or, ya know, GATORADE. Oops.

I met two guys in the water and we started just chatting about the race and gels and such nonsense.

Ok so fast forward through me standing around to the actual swim.
The swim felt pretty great for the first half. I focused on using the back half of my stroke. I felt like I was flying. 1 buoy, 2 buoys, boom boom boom. I couldn't believe how fast I got to the first turn buoy. I thought "well maybe something good will come of today!" As I neared the second buoy my left goggle starting filling up with water. Boooo. But it was a departure from the salt water in my eyes I'd been dealing with while diving on vacation and so even though I had water splashing around my eye, it didn't seem all that irritating.

As I made the second turn, I felt that I went too wide. As always with this course, siting on the way in was nearly impossible. I kept trying to site the big red finish arch, but it always resulted in me going out way too far left. I finally got back on course thinking "ok, maybe my little out-left detour won't be too awful." Finally I started seeing the orange siting buoys and then all of a sudden - woosh - our course intersected with the sprinter course and the fast male sprinters swam straight over me. "Well, at least I guess that means I'm on course pretty well if they're all smacking into me," I thought. However, this was a little jarring and continually happened for a good 200 meters as more and more came barreling through the end of their course.

Now normally, a little kicking and hitting doesn't faze me, but this was just... a lot all at once. I didn't panic or stick my head up but I knew it was severely breaking down any sort of form to be getting hit so often. Plus I knew I'd slowed down with my (a) detour, (b) difficulty siting and (c) I was getting tired!

I came out of the water in the high 35s. I watched my watch hit 36 mins as I ran to transition up the hill of sand. Apparently I finally hit the transition mat around 37 mins. *sigh* It could be way worse but I'd just really like to break 34 mins in the swim. Then again, I need to actually do work when training if I want to do that so... my own fault. I probably should be glad I got as close to normal as I did.

I got on my bike without any problems, headed out of the reservoir and man it felt like people were speeding past me. That is not usually my experience on the bike, but then I saw it was the 30-something and collegiate male sprinters.  Alright well - ok then. I chugged along over the rollers, not feeling great. Definitely really really hungry. Oops. I could feel the pit in my stomach full of water...and nothing else.

At about 35 mins I took my first Gu and was happy to get in some calories and wash it down with some water. I could tell I was drinking less water than I normally would because I had to think, reach down for the bottle, and actively drink (as opposed to the straw smacking me in the nose as if to say "DRINK ME, STUPID"). I also could tell this was slowing me down, because even though I kept pedaling while drinking, I wasn't able to lay down as much power with a bottle in my hand - I was focusing more on stabilizing than power output.

I came through an hour at 17.54 miles. Eesh. NOT what I expected. In June, I'd come through at 18.55 so I was a full mile per hour behind my time. My hamstrings felt awful, my abs felt awful, the hills seemed so much larger than I remembered. At least it was almost time for another Gu! It was around then that I realized "Oh. My abs feel awful because it's the cramps. My hamstrings feel awful because they haven't sat on my TT bike since the end of July. Oh yeah." I still was bummed because I'm training most of my rides faster than or around 17.5 for much longer, hillier rides so... no excuses.

Coming back in through transition I honestly had no idea of my average. I think I'd given up on my race at that point. I believe I came through with an average of 16.7 mph. A pathetic performance, really. Dismounting I felt the all too familiar abdominal cramps that told me "Seriously, Andrea? You know better than this." That's what I get for being an idiot about nutrition and hydration. I winced through T2 and stood there and drank more water out of my bottle. I never run in socks, but knowing it was going to be a long run with these cramps, I was thankful I'd listened to my Grandma who on the phone the night before said "you should pack some socks - just in case!" They were stashed in the side pocket of my transition bag, so I grabbed them and put them on.

I walked out of transition, squeezing my stomach, trying to get the cramps to release. I stopped my Garmin, but let my race clock on my left wrist keep ticking as I pulled into the first water stop, maybe .2 miles into the run. I bent over and asked for salt. The volunteers looked at me bewildered, so I just grabbed some water and lemon-lime gatorade (gross, but I needed it) and stood there trying to get my muscles to release. I'd been here before, so many times. Workouts, races, you name it - with my damn abs cramping. I was feeling pretty calm, honestly. Debating if I should even continue. I thought to myself "if you can get them to release, you may as well finish, because DNFs blow...but so does walking 6.2 miles... that's really long." A race official who was less bewildered for my request for salt, had dashed over somewhere and brought me back six packets. I thanked him and immediately poured one into my mouth. SO DRY. I washed it down with LOTS of water.

"Are you going to be able to make it?" He asked.
"Yeah, if I can get this to release I can probably bang this run out in about an hour," I said.
"Well, you have two hours until the time cut off, so you're good."
"Honestly, I've done so many of these at this point, I'm kind of wondering if it's even worth it. We'll see," I replied.

After 5 cups of water, 2 salt packets, about 2 oz of Gatorade (because I was choking it down as I could), and about 15 mins at the rest stop, I felt the pain start to ease up. One of the volunteers really wanted me to finish. It was sweet, actually. It reminded me that so many people do these things just to finish. This sport is really hard. Not everyone can max out at it.

I set out to try one lap and see how it went.

Funny that within seconds I ran up on one of the guys I had been talking to earlier that morning. "I thought you said you were a runner?" I said, jokingly (and knowingly because...this stuff ain't easy). Brett told me a similar story of cramping and I sympathized. He only had one lap left to his run though (LUCKY!) and we agreed to run it together.

We spent about 25 mins distracting each other from the utter hell that triathlon can unleash upon your body. He ran ahead with about .5 miles to go as I felt myself starting to break down again. It was amusing as always that when I was running, I was usually holding between an 8:50 and a 9:10 min/mile but then my chest hurt, my heart rate went up...and I just needed a break. Kids, don't try this at home.

Coming through my first lap, the volunteer who I'd spent so much time doubled-over next to handed me 3 cups of water (lol) and said "Look at you! You were going to quit and now you're almost done!" Then I made the loop and he handed me 3 more cups. I must've looked like crap (understandably so).

I honestly didn't feel all that bad. I mean, yes, it was super hot and every time I ran my heart rate went through the roof, but my muscles weren't anywhere near their limits. I was much much stronger than anything I'd done that day but I just hadn't fueled myself to prove it.

Walking/running the last 5k I met a woman doing the duathlon, and we agreed that rain would be nice. I met another girl my age, named Lauren, doing her first sprint. I assured her that as you do more you get better - and that while I was having a bad day, experience usually makes it easier. I met an older man who congratulated me - and I felt like such a poser. I should be congratulating him - there was nothing to congratulate me about yesterday. There were a few other exchanges along the way and even though I couldn't get my body to do what I knew I was capable of, I actually had....FUN?!

I didn't let a bad attitude get the best of me. I didn't pay attention to time or even feel like a failure. I was kind of glad I kept going. I finished in 3:40 (probably more like 3:25 of actual moving time without my long "abs stop cramping" stop), which is 3 mins faster than my first Olympic distance during which I almost blacked out. See, I've come so far! -sarcasm-

I think yesterday served as a reminder that, hey, guess what Andrea, triathlon is actually really difficult. It's pretty impressive that you can race it and post times that are fairly decent in all three sports on a regular basis because... that's not easy. You can't just not train, and not have the right nutrition and...do something like that. It gave me a sense of respect for the sport that I'd had and lost.

In the interest of being candid I am totally burnt out on tri at the moment. I've stopped feeling excited and driven and so I think it's time for a break. I'm going to spend the fall and winter just doing whatever workouts I want to do (which probably means riding my bike all the time) and then when March comes around I'll evaluate whether there is a multisport season in store for me or if 2015 is going to be the year I take a break.

...the funny thing is I am fairly sure I will be doing a sprint in September so, maybe that will change my mind.

[Race Report] South Table Mountain Criterium

See what happens when you take a whole month off racing (nothing really, except apparently my training gets a little ...spotty).

I actually did do a 4-mile race on July 4. My chip time says 9:40s on that one, but my Garmin said 9:25s. Everyone else's Garmin said the course was long AND I had to tie my shoe so... we're going with Garmin because I like it better.

ANYWAY that is NOT what this report is about. This report is about my very stressful, but ultimately successful morning at the South Table Mountain/Boulder Orthopedics Criterium.

I signed up for this race because I was originally going to do the one last week in Littleton, until I saw how tame this course looked in terms of technical turns. It is on a closed course "track" that the Colorado State Police uses for training and other things.. I suppose. 

However, two nights ago I had this awful dream that there were only two women in my category and so they made a big "mixed" category where they threw a whole bunch of people in together and she was always chasing me and she looked super fierce and aero and... anxiety. Then I woke up the next morning, told my friend about the dream, looked at the registrants and saw there were only two women registered (including me)! Well, I about lost it. I've been having a really tough few weeks and this was just another thing to throw me over the tipping point. By the end of online registration that evening, we were a field of 4 women. If nothing else, this was going to be interesting. 

I woke up naturally this morning at 5:07, 8 minutes before my alarm. I decided that instead of trying to close my eyes for a few min, I would allow myself to wake up just a touch more slowly. It was so early :( but I got my butt up and for ONCE was ahead of schedule (good thing too). On my drive up, I was being stupid - or maybe just half asleep - and turned too early to get on the freeway. I ended up arriving at the track only 30 min before my race. NOT ideal. 

I hustled over to pick up my race bib, but because it was so early the volunteers were still sort of figuring out their process AND the porto-potties hadn't arrived yet so there was only one and a sizable line. Well, I decided that having the urge the WHOLE RACE would be worse than not getting as much of a warm-up so I waited in line. 

(I know, this is a 40-min race and I haven't even gotten to the race part yet. I promise, exposition almost done.)

Pulling my bike out of my car, I'd just put new pedals and cleats on my shoes and they were making a bit of a rattling noise. So after tightening those down (thankfully, my brain was sort of functioning at 5:20 to realize I'd probably want to bring some tools), I headed off on a warm up lap. 

The course was, as I suspected, not very technical. I think the toughest part was dealing with some loose gravel, which had been largely cleaned up. That and figuring out how best to set up the chicane on the back side of the course to navigate gravel, take the shortest path, and not - ya know - crash.

I came through one lap at 6:55. I considered starting out on one more, but another woman turned around and 3 were riding up to the line so I thought "welp, that is just going to have to do!" I ran back to my car to take in a little more water, and then came up to the line. At least half of the field was already there, so I was glad I made that decision. One more rider came up and the official said "ok, well that is everyone." *phew* We were 8 cat 4 women and one junior woman (let me tell you, she was one fierce junior woman too, but that is for later in the report). While making announcement, the race director kind of looked at me like "are you a junior woman too?" I mean, I get I'm not all kitted out in team gear and look at least 5 years younger than most of the women on the starting line (because, well, I am) but... 18, really?

I was also having some bizarre issue with my new cleats. My right foot...which I push off on would NOT clip in. Awesome. I was worried I was going to make it through one lap and have to pull off for a mechanical. Damn new clips. 

At the line, I know you're supposed to start on it to start in a good position. I mean, I guess I should've... but with such a small group, I didn't know what to expect and certainly am not capable of pulling these ladies for very long. In fact, I'd probably piss them off trying to figure out how to take the corners for the first few laps. So, as we went off, I secured a place... pretty much dead last in the group. *sigh* That wasn't what I wanted and I knew this would leave me vying for places for the entire race. Hey, at least my cleat had gone in the pedal so... small victory. I was next to the junior woman, who made a push to change up the pack, another girl went behind her and I went with her, but on the first corner she got so aggressive one woman was like "hey, I'm on your right" as she veered into her and then she basically just shoved me out of the second corner. I thought to myself "ok, whatever hot shot. I'm not crashing my brand new bike just because you have a power complex about these corners." So she made it up to second or third wheel, which is actually a really good position...but almost took some of us out along the way. I wasn't interested. The rest of us dropped back after her shenanigans.

Shortly after that, around the third lap, I started to get dropped off the back. My insufficient warm-up definitely didn't help the fact that (a) I wasn't quite ready to ride at this effort and (b) I hadn't analyzed how to knock out the corners. They never got too far ahead of me and I knew they tended to take the slightly uphill straight-away pretty easily. So I worked. I worked really. freaking. hard. They were not so much better that I couldn't hold on. Gasping for air, I gassed it to grab the wheel. God, this is why I hate being in the back. Playing yo-yo is no fun. But, sure enough, we hit the straight away and they eased up as they did up the hill and I grabbed the woman's wheel in front of me. It was so demoralizing coming through and seeing the spectators. I knew what they were thinking "oh, here we go, they're gonna weed the weak ones out - there, she's falling off." I wasn't weak. I just wasn't ready. I needed to get my head in the game. 

Back in the pack, I had flashbacks to sucking wind at my last crit. (My last crit I was dropped three times, largely due to the crashes that strung us out.) "I'm not doing that again," I told myself. So I didn't. I held the heck on and soon enough we were at 5 laps to go. For you non-bike racers, this is when the race turns from a "timed" race into a distance race. I half expected the women to start gunning it. They didn't though. As we came up the slight hill, I thought I felt a surge, but they backed off. That, or I held on alright. We just kept cruising. Around 4 laps to go I started vying for position. I was done riding in the freaking back. I came up on the right to see if I could get some girls to chicken out of riding that tight against the road with someone next to them. I almost did until one woman said "I'm holding her wheel," meaning "I'm not freaking moving." I responded with "Ok" but didn't ease up. Luckily the two women behind me did back off and I managed to grab 7th wheel. SUCCESS. 

We came around with 2 laps to go. Still not much in the way of aggression. I also realized this one girl had been pulling almost the entire time. Seriously? I mean, (a) that makes her so fierce, (b) none of you hot-shot wannabe cat 3s wanted to help a sister out?...where was the junior girl who was so into slamming us all into crappy situations? Oh, right...second wheel. Wheelsucker.

Finally as we came into the final lap, I could feel the tension. We wanted to go. There were some small moves. We did end up breaking into two-lines and shuffling around. Even I had more power, so as we entered the chicane and I was finally taking my corners like a baller, I followed this woman who was easing up the left. She backed off but I thought... "Well, I mean, I'm not going to get anything great out of the sprint..." so as we hit the last corner, I went and a few girls went with me! "Haha, look at me, making an attack like a baller" until we reached the 200m sign and I realized I was third wheel. Uh oh... here we go. Pretty much as I realized that and started "sprinting" I watched as a few girls gassed it and just TOOK OFF. Geeeeezz. I wish I could sprint like that but, the life of triathlon training is 75% steady state so let me tell you about my sprint muscles... oh yeah, I don't have any :D

I finished around 5 or 6 in the end. NOT LAST AND I DIDN'T GET DROPPED (read: what I most care about)! Not bad at all for my second crit ever. During the cool down lap I was next to the girl who pulled the whole way. I introduced myself and told her that I thought she was really strong and that I was super impressed. I could tell she was a little sad she didn't win. I would be too if I pulled the whole group for 40 min! She was really disappointed no one bothered to come share in the suffering. I felt a little guilty I never did, but truly I would've pulled one lap and then probably compromised the whole rest of my race. I mean, really, I was sitting at the back the whole time. She told me she wasn't much of a sprinter either, so I shared in her pain. Still, she's first in my book because any girl who can pull a pack of women for 40 minutes at about 23 mph must be pretty tough and tired.

I pulled off and put my bike in my car. A woman from the cycling team who was holding the event stopped me and said "I was really glad to see you get back on the group out there." I felt proud. People noticed me getting dropped and then coming back from behind and having a pretty solid mid-pack performance. ;) #don'tcallitacomeback 

This was a big break through race for me because I learned so much about cornering - even if they were tame, and got over some of my fears. During the last few laps I was taking the corners nice and tight and not being a lame-o scaredy cat or sliding off the group. It definitely makes me feel like this really is something I can do. I'm hanging in there with women who ride for teams, train with teams, practice this stuff all the time...and all I do is ride 2-4 times a week on my own or in small groups. This makes me think that being on a team would be endlessly helpful for my growth as a racer...and maybe I'll even learn how to sprint! :)

See ya back here, same time, same place, in two weeks after the Boulder Sunset Triathlon!