Pre-Race:
I drove home to see my family on Tuesday, a few days before the race. I did, at least, have pit crew assistance in attaching my bike to the car before I left, so there were no tragic pre-race bike incidents. My pit crew flew to Chicago on Saturday morning. After a quick lunch with Mom, we packed up the car and headed north, since the race required that all bikes be checked into transition by 5pm. We apparently picked a popular time to arrive, because there was a looong line outside the Racine Civic Center to even get in to the pickup/expo area. Then stopping at a seemingly endless series of tables to pick up waivers, sign waivers, drop off waivers, pick up numbers, check timing chips, pick up tshirts, etc. etc. But then, after all the lines, there was the race merchandise. And I was very happy.
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| Official race t. Apparently my size was different material than all the other sizes? |
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| That's me! I'm in the dot! |
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| Crazy awesome cycling jersey |
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| Back is even more crazy awesome |
After the expo, we drove a mile to transition to drop off my bike. The transition area was huge, but well organized. And already full of bikes that were much, much nicer than mine. But even more intimidating than the other bikes was the chop that was clearly visible out on the water. I am a big fan of picking up my race packet before race day if I can, but I was NOT on board with the early bike check. I was terrified that something terrible would happen to my bike overnight (her name is Rosie and a previous race she may or may not have slept in the hotel room next to my bed) and had some serious separation anxiety as we drove away, back toward our hotel in Kenosha. The one thing that could take my mind off poor Rosie's fate? Carbs! I was thrilled when I found a
Noodles & Co in a shopping plaza just a few minutes from our hotel. I was a little nervous about ordering this penne with a creamy tomato sauce, but my stomach is much better in triathlons than in road races, so I decided to go for it. Along with a salad. And a cookie. Obvi. They also had one of those crazy fancy soda machines with a billion different options. I just went with seltzer water, but it was still cool.
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| Noodles & Company pasta dinner |
As soon as I got in the car after dinner, my stomach started to get cranky. After a few stops to pick up water and assorted snacks, it was back to the hotel to watch Back to the Future Part II and repack the transition bucket for race morning. Except that my stomach hurt so bad I couldn't stand up for more than a few minutes at a time. Darn you, delicious, slightly spicier than expected pasta! As you can probably imagine, I was very, very calm about this and not at all freaking out about my race being totally done for. Just ask my pit crew.
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| Last minute gear check |
But eventually, the gear was packed and my stomach calmed down enough for me to get some sleep. Until I woke up about 20 minutes before my 4:45 am alarm in full on panic mode. I was completely terrified of panicking and bailing on the swim. Or if I managed to survive that, flatting on the bike, being totally unable to change it (I have my doubts about watching youtube videos translating into real world skills), and hitting the course time limit while I struggled with it and/or waited for help. But eventually the alarm went off, I dragged myself out of bed, and started blasting
this on my phone over and over again until I felt angry instead of scared. My body had taken a beating for months to get ready for this race, and there was no way my brain was going to ruin it at the last minute!
My stomach was still being cranky on the 40 min drive back to the transition area, but by the time we unpacked the car it had settled down a bit. Until I saw the lake, at which point I wanted to hurl -- even from a good distance, I could see non-trivial waves breaking on the beach. Having done my only open water swims in very calm water, I had no idea what to do with waves. After getting marked, I set up my stuff in transition and met a few other girls in my age group, none of whom had ever done 70.3 before, either. When transition closed at 6:30am, I was still in line for the one port-a-potty in transition that was open (apparently someone cut the plastic lock, since the lines at the port-a-potty bank outside transition were pretty long), but it only took a few minutes to get through our much shorter line, and then we were walking the mile down the beach the swim start. I'm pretty sure the only things I said on the way there were variations on "That water looks insane." "This is so not cool." "I can't swim in that!" over and over again.
Swim:
Once we got to the start, I still had plenty of time before my wave, which was in the middle of the starts and went off at 7:32 am. I waded into the waves, hoping that warming up a bit would calm me down and convince me the waves really weren't that bad. It did not. After getting knocked over by a wave or two, I felt even worse. Especially when I thought I had lost my goggles because they were around my neck instead of on top of my head! After a few minutes in the water, the elite men's wave started, followed by the elite women. The course went straight out from the beach, then a long stretch parallel to the beach, then straight in. It was crazy to see the awesome elite swimmers attack the waves on the way out, and even crazier to see them fly after they made the first turn. It was a little more comforting to watch the first few waves of mere mortals, who mostly seemed to be wading through the waves until they were out past where the waves were breaking, then paddling their way to the first turn.
Eventually they called my wave to line up. They were playing pretty decent music, so I decided to get my dance on in the holding area to try to get rid of the nerves. It worked a little. The horn sounded, and we waded into the water. I positioned myself to the back and the outside so I wouldn't get run over. I walked out as far as I could, then started dog paddling and breast stroking to get myself over the waves. I kept telling myself I just needed to make it to the turn, then everything would get better. But the farther out I got, the harder it seemed to be to get over the waves. I finally made it to the turn buoy, where I saw several swimmers clinging to buoys or kayaks to rest. I heard one woman tell the lifeguard that she was done and wanted to go back in, and my heart broke a little -- I can't imagine putting in all the training and time and money only to have your race end in ten minutes.
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| Swim start! I am, of course, somewhere to the back on the outside. |
As soon as I made the turn, I flipped onto my back, where I kicked lightly and caught my breath. Unfortunately, the swim didn't get as much as easier as I'd hoped. The waves were breaking, and we were swimming parallel to them instead of into them, but they still rolled you up and down pretty significantly and made it very difficult to sight. The announcer on the beach had helpfully told us that there were seven yellow buoys marking the first half of the straight stretch of the course, and then seven orange buoys marking the second half. Having something to count to break up the course helped a lot. After breaststroking the first third or so, I calmed down enough to switch to crawl with single side breathing. I think this was also the point where the first wave of guys caught me, but by that point the field had broken up enough that I never got swum over too badly. From there on, I made my way buoy to buoy telling myself that I would take a breaststroke break at the next buoy, or switch my breathing side (although I discovered that it was really only possible to breath AWAY from the waves, not toward them) or try bilateral breathing.
Finally, we hit the final turn buoy and headed in. I was afraid swimming in would be tough with the undercurrent pulling us back, but it wasn't too bad. Swam as far as I could, then walked the rest of the way (which was a little dizzying at that point).
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| THRILLED to have survived the swim |
I said hello to the pit crew as I came up the sand, and then headed back into transition. I was very excited to see that there were kiddie pools for washing off our feet, and even better -- peelers! I was waved down to two teenage girls, and immediately asked "umm, what do I do?" The told me to sit, which I did, and they grabbed my wet suit and with a few tugs yanked it off (while a guy held on to me to keep me from scooting across the asphalt with my wetsuit). Then I walked over to my bike, changed into my bike gear, and made a last minute decision to hit the port-a-potty before heading out for four hours on the bike course.
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| Yes, I am chewing a Stinger Waffle as I exit a port-a-potty. Capturing this was my pit crew's proudest achievement. |
Bike:
I walked my bike out of transition (trying my best to stay out of the way of the guys who were clearly much more concerned about their transition time than I was) and mounted up. Of course, the mount up location was at the bottom of a steep hill! But the first few miles were great -- I was flying at comfortably over my goal speed of 15mph, and actually almost teared up when it fully hit me that I had actually finished the swim, despite the choppy water. I cruised along until just past the first aid station (about 1/3 of the way in), where I stopped for water and shot bloks. And as always, a whole bunch of people immediately asked if I was ok, because apparently no one else has trouble eating and drinking on the bike.
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| Bike out -- and up the hill! |
And that's when things started to get tough. On the second half of the course, I felt like I was fighting a headwind and/or riding slightly uphill pretty much the entire time. I took a few more water/nutrition stops (counting down the miles until every one) where I was again asked by volunteers/other riders/the sheriff in is squad car if I was ok. My average speed dropped from 16.1 mph for the first 30 miles to 13.3 mph for the last 26. By the end, I was so miserable that I stopped for water with just three miles left to go. I was incredibly relieved that it appeared I was going to make it through the ride without flatting, but I was also increasingly depressed, starting to think that a DNF was a serious possibility. I told myself I could walk the entire 13.1 miles of the run and still make the cutoff, but my legs didn't feel like they could even walk that far.
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| Coming in to the finish |
Fortunately, my pit crew, mom, and sister were waiting for me at the Bike In, which picked me up a bit. [The pit crew would like me to note that during the time I was on the bike course, he drove 40 min back to the hotel, ate a giant breakfast, took a nap, and drove back to the race site without missing a thing] I very, very happily dismounted my bike, and was surprised to find that my legs were working ok as I walked my bike back to the rack.
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| I think I just realized I was about to dismount |
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| Took me a while to remember to take the helmet off |
I was very happy to have the bucket at this point. Also to have elastic laces in my shoes, because my fine motor skills were pretty much gone at this point. My support team chatted with me from across the fence (and snapped a bunch of photos) while I changed gear, and then it was back out on the course (skipping the sunscreen station, as my sister and mom reminded me later).
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| Had almost no fine motor skills at this point, so I was very happy about the elastic laces |
Run:
I decided to take it easy at the beginning of the run, giving myself as much time (and as many walk breaks) as I needed to recover from the bike, which had taken a lot more out of me than expected. Almost immediately, I got a really bad side stitch, which forced me to walk almost all of mile 2 (which was also quite hilly). It still came back as soon as I started running again, but I got fed up with waiting to walk it off and decided to just run as much as I could. It eventually went away somewhere around mile 3.
The course was two loops of ~6.5 miles each. It was nice to know that I would see my cheer squad a few times on the course (they ended up catching me four times -- at the start and end of each loop) but having to come within 50 yards of the finish line, with the music blasting and the announcer calling out the names of finishers, only to turn around and head back out for the second half was brutal.
My splits were surprisingly even, for how much I was alternating between running and walking without any real plan: 3.4 miles in 41:51, 3.3 miles in 40:29, 3.3 miles in 42:56, 3.3 miles in 41:40.
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| Starting the run! |
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| And loving it? |
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| Fun fact: people cheer for you more if you smile |
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| Loving it! |
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| Looks crowded, and I'm running, so presumably lap 1 |
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| I was walking, so I decided I should at least throw in some funny poses for the camera |
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| Funny pose close-up |
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| Not sure where this was, but I look happy, so maybe the end ... |
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| Approaching the finish! So happy to be on the right of those signs. |
I passed my cheer squad one last time, and headed for the finish. I came the closest I ever have to bursting into tears as I received a medal. I knew the time was a bit slower than I hoped for, but after all my doubts earlier in the day, I was almost in shock about having actually completed the race. They also handed me a sweet finisher hat, which was a pleasant surprise. After sweaty hugs for my pit crew and cheer squad, I parked myself on the grass for a few minutes.
Results:
Swim: 55:05
T1: 9:00
Bike: 3:48:48
T2: 4:05
Run: 2:46:56
Total: 7:43:54
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| The tri team |
Post-Race:
After the race, Mom and sister headed home while the pit crew and I loaded up the car. After being hit by the stunning realization that it was, in fact, 3:30 pm and I had started the race at 7:30 am, finding food quickly became a priority. But I still made use of the car time for some post-race SWAG photography.
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| SWAG |
TWe hit some traffic on the way back, and took a little detour that conveniently took us past our hotel and associated plethora of fast food establishments. I opted for KFC. Joe went ahead to get in line, thinking I was right behind him. Not so much. I got out of the car and tried to walk across the parking lot only to immediately feel invisible knives stabbing into my quads. But he still managed to stall long enough for me to get there and put my order in before the big group of teenagers who walked in behind him.
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| The biscuit was about the most amazing thing ever |
Then it was home to Wilmette, where my parents had a great cookout waiting. It turned into an indoor cookout after thunderstorms came through while we were driving home and continued to dump rain on us as I dragged myself from the car to the house, but it was still often. After dinner (burger, potato salad, baked beans, and fruit) I barely stayed awake long enough for an ice cream bar and a shower before passing out hard, and for a very long time.
A huge thank you to my pit crew, family, and everyone else who put up with me through months of crazy training and one insane race day!
