I gotta admit--it felt a little bizarre doing a sprint one week out from an Ironman. And I only managed 2nd in my AG--I met the woman who won, and no way I would beat her even on my best day--she was 3 minutes faster. She's probably a faster swimmer and slightly better runner. I stalked her. She is a short-courser, but she's doing her first Ironman (Louisville) this year. Me--I'm a long courser all the way with the occasional good sprint performance. Today wasn't bad. But I am looking forward to seeing the overall bike splits, because I kicked ass and took names!
My time at this race was 1 minute slower than in 2006, and I attribute this to the cluster fuck during the swim (I had to pass people who were walking), which probably cost me 15", I was 30" slower on the bike due to the wind, BUT my NP (normalized power) was 10 watts higher! Meaning I was cranking my ass off to keep going fast! And my run--I'm not sure but maybe I slacked off by 15". I may have actually chosen a poor T2 transition spot, but hey, that's OK, it's all good.
Whatever. I don't really think I've slowed down in 2 years. I think that maybe if I hadn't swam 2 miles at race pace yesterday and then followed it up with a 1 hour strength workout that maybe my swim and run would have been faster. Oh well!
Anyway, I didn't check until late yesterday what time this festival started. 6:30AM!!! Holy fuck! Meaning I'd need to be up by 3:45AM to have time to eat, digest, drive and get decent transition areas. This race is so totally low-key (my 2006 report should be on the blog somewhere), I love it! I grilled steak, scallops and asparagus last night, and had my dinner ready to wolf down by 7:00PM, and then realized I should try and be asleep by 8:00PM if I was thinking about anything near 8 hours of sleep. I actually bagged it around 7:45, and fell asleep quite easily (several, and I'm not saying how many, beers were helpful in that department).
I woke up this morning at 3:15 because guess what I had to take a shit. And that was close enough to official wake up time. It makes me laugh that my body is so used to this shit that it just wakes me up at the right time. Also, I hadn't even organized my gear, so I got out of bed, turned on the coffee pot (it was set for 3:45), and got my shit together, which didn't take very long, and I think I left the house at 4:45AM.
Driving there, I'm kind of in race mode, but kind of not. Almost like this is just another training day. But then all I needed to do was think there's a fucking 5K at the end of this shindig and that let me know I was racing. Would I do something stupid? Would I hurt myself? Will this fuck up my Ironman race? I let my brain do some scrolling during the drive and then forgot all that noise.
There are 2 separate transition areas in this race that are about 2.5 miles apart. So I first went to T2 to drop off my run shoes, a hat, a small bottle of Coke, and a towel. I was so happy that I got a spot where I could lean Ultra Bitch against a fence! There are no bike racks in T2, so it's either fence or ground. In 2006 I used the ground, but this time I wanted something better, and I got lucky.
I drove back to the swim/T1 area and got a tree for Ultra Bitch! Inside my head I was laughing that I got a tree and a fence--I was so lucky! As soon as I claimed my tree, a woman who looked close to my age starts checking out Ultra Bitch (who wouldn't???) and she is saying that it looks like I've done this before and then she asks what AG I'm in and I told her to guess. Well, she didn't but I got a good laugh and walked into the building to get my number and chip and stuff. I told the story to some of the volunteers who also had no clue as to my age and then I flashed them my abs and they were totally impressed. I also mentioned I'm doing an Ironman in a week. At this point I start telling select people because I figure it gives me a bye if I act or say something stupid, which there is a high probability of.
I go back to my tree and continue chatting up people, because I was just really relaxed about this whole thing. I really didn't care how I did today (you are thinking yeah right you lying motherfucker), and I just wanted to have fun. Did I mention the weather was absolutely gorgeous? Only in the 60's for our start, with some wind, but no worries on that front.
I went over to the pool deck to see if I could warm up. I went into the diving pool which was nice and warm, but then I jumped in the main pool and did 200 meters. The water felt nice, but when I got out I was shivering. Again, no worries--it was much colder than this for Triple T, so I knew I'd be fine once I was actually racing.
Standing in line for the time trial start, I guess a number of people picked me for someone who's done a few triathlons--I wonder why that is? I was wearing my cheetah print 2-piece suit that I hadn't washed since I wore it earlier in the week. Dirty girl! I love talking to people at sprints, because typically there are a lot of first timers and/or recreational (i.e.,
not Crackheads) athletes, and everyone is in a good mood, because how bad can a little sprint be?
This year they had chip timing, and so for the swim start, you stepped on the mat and had the option to dive or just jump into the pool. Well I never learned to dive anyway, but we saw some people dive into 3 feet deep water, which I would never do, so I just jumped in and started swimming. I felt good in the water, steady, all that. Nobody passed me and I passed 3 or 4 people, so I guess I seeded myself correctly.
Getting out of the pool, I was in a real hurry to get on Ultra Bitch, who was also dirty. I didn't see any point in cleaning her up until after this race (I'm sure most people would say she was pretty clean, but not by my standards), so I left her a little scuzzy. She's such a dirty whore anyway, and I planned on giving it to her hard today. I also wore dirty socks, in keeping with my overall dirty theme (I've never done that before). I didn't bring my aero helmet, but in retrospect, I probably should have--I just thought that with the wind and the fact that this course has so many turns (it's crazy, actually--it goes through all these suburban neighborhoods), that the aero helmet wouldn't make much of a difference. Ultra Bitch was laying on the ground when I got there, and I was saying "fuck" a lot, but she was fine, as she wasn't laying on the derailleur. Well, I just gunned it getting out of T1 and began my passing odyssey.
I didn't even bother counting all the people I passed. I was only passed by one person--a guy, and I was #144 out of maybe 300 entered in the sprint. Now, you might say I'm a crappy swimmer (true) and that I was behind fast people anyway, but hey I was passing people like a mofo. And having fun! There were 3 or 4 guys who I passed that tried valiantly to suck my wheel and failed. It did hurt a bit to be punching it so much and actually I could have gone faster, but I didn't want to put the hurt to myself too badly. I did have to yell, "ON YOUR LEFT" many times and once even, "ON YOUR LEFT--MOVE OVER PLEASE!" I even took a few cups of water from volunteers, pointing out the person's hand I wanted to dock with and then barely slowing down to make the grab. All good fun!
When I got to T2, there weren't many bikes there at all, and I have no idea how long it took me to get running, but the first thing I thought was, "Yeah, this feels like a sprint." I didn't feel like I had 5K speed in me today--could have been because of how hard I rode, but it could just be the taper or the fact I did that strength workout yesterday--who knows? I really didn't care. I did get passed by about 5 people on the run (all much younger, thank you very much) and didn't care. I also forgot to take a split for Mile 1, but Mile 2 made me think I was sucking very badly and then Mile 3 plus the .1 were way too fast to be real, and I forgot they mess up the marking on the run--again, no worries!
When I was just about finished, I thought that I'd rather be doing an Ironman, and I guess I'll get my wish in a week!
Time for a little nappy poo and then I have to get packing for that
other race!
