SwimRun Tennessee 2019 race report.
I started 2019 intending to do 1 swimrun race. So I'm not entirely clear on how I just did my 3rd, and my 4th is in 2 weeks. I guess that's just how these things work.
After SwimRun Georgia was cut short due to weather, we got an email from the race director offering a nice discount on his other swimrun race, Tennessee. Inaugural year, state I've never raced in, could be fun! Except then we went off gallivanting around the world on bikes. As noted, before we left, we signed up for Casco. And right after we got back, we decided to sign up for Tennessee, as well. Because why not? It was at a good time, a couple weeks before our big swimrun race for the year (er.. I guess Casco was bigger, length-wise? so a couple weeks before the only swimrun we were signed up for entering 2019), and it would give us a chance to race together again and practice transitions and just have some fun in a new place.
We decided to do it Surgical Strike style. I'm still feeling guilty about taking 3 weeks off work for our bike trip, so I'm trying to minimize other outages until I get over that guilt. Hopefully I'll eventually get over that guilt. But that meant that we flew into Nashville Saturday morning, then flew out again Sunday night, after the race. But we packed a lot of fun into that short amount of time!
We went straight from the airport to our hotel, dropped our stuff and changed, then straight out to the race site to do a little shakeout run and course preview. It was warm. But it was nice to figure out where exactly the site was, and familiarize ourselves a bit with the area around the start/finish line.
Shakeout run with a view.
Back to the hotel for lunch and a shower, then back to the race site AGAIN for packet pickup and mandatory athlete's meeting. This time in the shirts Trista had made for us. Because we are extreme dorks.
Dorks Extraordinaire.
The meeting gave us a little taste of how small the race would be. Not necessarily a bad thing for an inaugural race, when you wanna sort everything out and make sure it all works. I think Tony said ~60 people were racing, and from snooping the registration list, it looked like there were maybe only 8 long course teams? Wow. And it also looked like 5 of those 8 were women's teams! That's a bit unprecedented. And also meant we couldn't just lazily fall onto the podium by showing up. Drat.
The pre-race meeting was informative, and also uncomfortable for Amys who hate public speaking, as only-60-racers means it's entirely feasible to go around the room and everyone say their name, team name, and what race they were doing. AAAHHHH. Fortunately my partner loves me and stepped up to do the intros for our team. After a nice race-provided dinner at the race site, we headed back to the hotel again to get our gear in order and head to bed early.
It's so much easier to travel to races when there's no bike, but man, there's still a LOT of gear involved!
And then up at 6am! I do enjoy that so many swimruns have relatively late starts and relatively close hotels, so you can roll out of bed at sane times. (What? 6 is absolutely sane. Many of my training days have me waking up at 4.) Late enough that the free hotel breakfast was open and we could go eat random things there!
Then we suited up and headed back to the race site. Again. We got pretty good at that drive in the short time we were there.
And it was warm. Still. But not thundering, nor threatening to! If SRTN was canceled due to thunder, I told Trista we should do Tony a favor and not sign up for anymore of his races. Matt said if it happened, we should change our name to Team Albatross. But we didn't have to, no weather on the horizon! Which was also a little sad. The weather that was supposed to come through was the leading edge of a front that would bring the temperature down 20 degrees. MONDAY's weather looked pretty perfect. Ahwell.
Warm temps (in the 80s) plus warm water (also in the 80s) meant no wetsuits. I mean, we COULD wear them, and some people did, but they were not mandatory, and since neither of us really rely on them heavy, and are both cold-preferring athletes, we decided not to deal with them. We just couldn't envision trying to run in that weather in wetsuits.
Then at 8:30am sharp, we lined up and started our race!
The first 3 minutes was probably my least favorite part of the race. A gravel road that turns into a sorta rutted field, all uphill. As I tried to keep up with Trista in the first few minutes, I gasped out, "I should have warmed up!" I'm not a strong starter. Trista is. We manage somehow. Mostly by her having to wait for me the first 10 minutes until I warm up a bit.
Gravel road, uphill, I swear. I THINK that green team near the back is us, but damned if I can tell for sure, even zoomed in.
The good news is, the rest of the course, minutes 4+, were fun and fabulous. No more gravel and rutted fields!
We headed into the woods, through part of the course we'd run the day before, and ran over bridges and wooden steps and rock ledges. No real trail through this part, just following the blazes in the trees.
Really quickly, maybe 5 minutes in, the course splits into short course and long course. Everyone else went short. And we headed out into the wilds of the long course course on our own. Adventure!
And it was a fun adventure. The runs were a lot of fun. Very varied. We had some single track dirt trails. Some rocky Texas-like trails. Some jeep trail. Some random foraging through the middle of the woods not actually on a trail. It definitely kept you on your toes. No real hills, though, despite my complaints about the first 3 minutes.
As seen during our course preview run the day before.
The swims were harder than expected. We got the warmth of the pre-front, but we also got the wind at the leading edge. From the photos we'd seen before the race, it looked like the swims were fairly protected and smooth. And most times they probably are! But with the front moving in, we had a lot of wind coming through, and it made for some very choppy swims. We didn't have any problems other than Trista having to keep us on track while being shoved and buffeted by the chop, but I felt very bad for some of the first-timers out there. Especially ones who weren't strong swimmers to begin with. Especially the ones doing the race solo, which a whole lot of people seemed to be doing. Even though we couldn't talk during the swim (other than that one swim leg where Trista's goggles kept leaking and we got to chat the 3 times she had to stop and try to fix them) (third time was, in fact, the charm), just having someone else out there with you is so reassuring, especially in sketchy conditions.
First swim, before the really chop began.
The first really notable thing I can remember is the Wall. Tony had mentioned in delight that there was a rock wall out there on the course for us. I had envisioned maybe something like Casco where there's a steep rock climb with a rope to pull yourself up, or a tiny Moore's Wall (which I've so far only seen in pictures), which we'd have to climb up a bit. When we got to it, I didn't realize we were there until Trista pointed it out afterward.
What it ended up being was a swim exit in deep water onto some fairly tall rocks. With no way to push off the bottom, we basically had to push up with our arms like you would getting out of the deep end of a pool. Which isn't super easy when your arms are very tired, you're wearing paddles on your hands, and you've got a swim buoy between or near your legs! There was a volunteer stationed there to offer advice and help. Trista hoisted herself up and out with no problem. I got myself up to my hips and beached my torso on the rock, then held out my hand for the volunteer. Hey, if he's gonna be there, I'm gonna utilize him. He pulled the rest of me out, and we were on our way!
Nothing else really notable that I can remember up through The Big Run.
Right in the middle of the event (actually, looking at the course rundown, it's before the halfway point, I suppose), in the middle of a bunch of 0.75 mile runs and 1 mile runs, is a 7 mile run. We had this at Lake James, too, and knew that it was tough to have a run that long in the middle of a swimrun. But it had to be done, so we stripped off our swimcaps and goggles and settled in. (Some people take their swimcaps off for most runs, but I'm terrible at putting on a swimcap, so even on this warm day, I only took it off for the long run, and once I knew I didn't have any more swims left.)
And things were fine! For the first half. The short course/solo event does the first half of this run, as well, so we passed a few of them, and it was nice to actually see people again. This part was particularly Texasy, so Trista got a preview of what the trails at the inaugural SwimRun Austin might look like next year. Halfway through, where the short course peel off to do another swim, there's an aid station, and since there's typically very few aid stations in a swimrun, we stopped at every one.
We both ate a Gu as we ran up, then grabbed some water to wash it down. We both felt like we probably needed some electrolytes, too, so we drank some Tailwind, as well. Then we thanked the volunteer and headed back out for the second half of our run.
This part was a "loop around the lake", and as we began this section, a team came running toward us from the other direction. Another female team had been leaving the aid station just as we ran up, and we were briefly confused, afraid we had gone the wrong way, as had this other team, and we should turn around. But no, this was just an entirely different team finishing up the loop around the lake right as we started it. Because they were THREE MILES AHEAD OF US. Crazyfast team of ladies!
The loop around the lake was lovely. It was in Long Hunter State Park. It was a paved road, so very easy to run. There were families out walking and enjoying the (warm) lovely weather. And it's where I noticed that my partner was suddenly eerily silent.
I said, "So.. you've gotten awfully quiet. Is everything okay?"
It was not.
We're not sure whether it was just random. Whether it was eating a gel and washing it down with Tailwind. Whether it was her husband passing his mancold on to her. Or something else. But Trista did not feel well. She felt like she might throw up. A little dizzy. Breathing way harder than she should have been for the moderate pace we were running.
The shortness of breath had actually begun the day before. I joked that it was the elevation, and had google show us how high up we were. And it got a little better on Saturday, but obviously it had not gone away completely.
Nope. Probably not the elevation.
But like a real trooper, Trista soldiered on, and we kept running that interminable run around the lake.
I suggested if she felt like she was going to throw up, but couldn't, it might help to just.. throw up. Force the issue. We got to a lovely long bridge overlooking the lake, and I stopped to enjoy the view while Trista stopped and tried to encourage her body to just do it already. But no luck, and we tried to start running again, only to find that when you don't feel great, running on a gently swaying bridge is definitely not a way to feel better. So we walked the rest of the bridge.
And it never really got Better, unfortunately for Trista. We still had several runs and several longer swims, and throughout the rest of the race, she continued to feel sick and achy. Everything just hurt and kept threatening to cramp. We walked when she needed to, and did whatever we had to do to keep moving forward. Mostly at a great pace, even! Just not with quite the joy she might have had if she felt normal.
She did say several times, though, "Even though I feel terrible, I'm still having a wonderful time!" My partner is adorable and great.
We did finally finish that lake loop and got back to that same aid station again. Even though it had only been 3 miles, and even though Trista was feeling iffy, we decided to take another Gu, just because we knew we were probably calorie deficient, and weren't sure when the next chance for water would be.
Then a few short swims and runs where we got in some good transition practice. That was actually our primary goal for this race. We call ourselves Team Shitshow primarily because we see other teams executing these smooth transitions and runs and swims, and we generally look like we're starring in a slapstick comedy routine instead. So we made a concerted effort this race to practice! We put our goggles on as we got to the water instead of while standing in it. We tethered while running (sometimes). We got our paddles on our hands before we actually started swimming. Stuff like that.
I say that, and we definitely DID do better, but at one swim entrance, we came up to the water right with a solo female racer. There was a water barrel there (no aid station, just water barrel with cups), and we all got water, then Trista and I waded in to swim. It was a little rocky under the water, so we were being cautious, but even so, Trista fell forward into the water, and as she did that and I tried not to get dragged forward by the tether, I instead slipped on my rock and fell backward into the water. Team Shitshow! I'm sure the other racer, who could potentially initially have been like, "Ooh, long course crazy people! They must be fast and awesome!" quickly realized her mistake. As we started to finally swim away, I yelled back, "Uh, don't do what we did!"
We also did a fairly good job of paying attention to what was Next, and preparing ourselves accordingly. So, for instance, if we only had to run a quarter mile, we didn't bother to untether after the swim, or take paddles off our hands. Having the legs written on our paddles was definitely hugely helpful there.
Just had to remember roughly where we were in there!
The last couple long swims were.. long. Trista had flagged a bit on some of the shorter swims (that's not an insult to Trista, it just means that I could actually stay on her feet; Trista is faster enough than me that I am usually swimming as fast as I can just to stay behind her, and usually that's not even in her draft, so I'm having to swim extra hard), but the last two long swims, even feeling bad, I was having to really fight to stay with her. It was tough. And on top of that, we couldn't really tell where we were going. It was two swims with a very, VERY short run between them, but because the swims were so close together, you could actually see the buoys for both swims at the same time, and it made it very confusing and unclear where we were supposed to go. This was possibly covered in the athlete's meeting, but so much theoretical info is thrown at you, it's impossible to retain it all.
I believe this is the two swims. You can see a buoy in the center there for the first swim, and then waaaay up near the shore a little lefter, you can see another buoy, which is actually part of the NEXT swim. It's hard enough to decipher here, and nearly impossible when you're at water level, wearing goggles, and trying to see while swimming! Photo by Wendy Mader.
Anyway, we got through the last long swims, and had some fun adventuring through some completely un-trailed islands. They were pure bushwhacking, and the only way to know where you were supposed to go was to following the ribbons hanging in the trees. If you could find them. The course was well marked, but sometimes the blazes would be off to one side of you, and you had to spin in a circle and scan the green trees for a bright pink ribbon. We were very glad we were wearing tall socks, because all the plants and trees wanted to hit or grab us in the legs.
This is pretty representative of some of the bushwhacking. No trail to speak of, and you can see a bit of a pink ribbon that was our only guide as to where to go. Photo by Wendy Mader.
And then finally we got to and through the last swim!
Entering the woods for our last run.
My arms were so sore, and so ready to be done. We got out of the water and pulled off our swim caps and goggles, then ran our final 0.4 miles to the finish line. We got in view of the finish line and all the other teams were sitting on the ground cheering for us as we came in. Trista was cramping up and feeling terrible, but she managed to hold it together and keep a smile on her face and get across the finish line upright!
Since she wasn't feeling well, I forgive Trista for not throwing finish line jazz hands.
And then she immediately went over to the grass to enjoy a non-negotiable sit.
We're still not sure exactly what happened to cause her to feel unwell, but I'm super proud of her for gutting out half the race not feeling well. We talked about how hard it is to do a partner race for that reason. It's wonderful to have a friend the whole time, but the odds of ONE person having a great race are so low, so the odds of BOTH people having a great race are even lower. And it's a terrible feeling when you feel like you're letting your partner down. That's how I felt at Georgia. But Trista didn't care then, and I didn't care in Tennessee, and we both had fun regardless.
And at the awards ceremony, we discovered we had come in DFL! Amusingly, the awards went three deep in each category, but there was only one male team, one mixed team, and FOUR female teams. That means exactly one team didn't get an award. Guess who! So I awarded us the Award for the Only Team to Not Get an Award. Yay, us!
Off the podium, on the ground!
And we weren't really DFL. As I mentioned, we passed several teams out there who were either solo short course or team short course. They were doing less distance than we did, we started at the same time, and we ended up passing them. So we just had a lot of really strong long course teams out there, and we were the .. least strong of the strong! I feel really good about our effort out there. Even when Trista was feeling her worst, we kept a good pace and never faffed around or gave up. And our transitions might not have been perfect, but they were definitely better than they've been in the past!
We have fun.
The inaugural year of SwimRun Tennessee was a success, a lot of fun, and I'd definitely do this race again.
After SwimRun Georgia was cut short due to weather, we got an email from the race director offering a nice discount on his other swimrun race, Tennessee. Inaugural year, state I've never raced in, could be fun! Except then we went off gallivanting around the world on bikes. As noted, before we left, we signed up for Casco. And right after we got back, we decided to sign up for Tennessee, as well. Because why not? It was at a good time, a couple weeks before our big swimrun race for the year (er.. I guess Casco was bigger, length-wise? so a couple weeks before the only swimrun we were signed up for entering 2019), and it would give us a chance to race together again and practice transitions and just have some fun in a new place.
We decided to do it Surgical Strike style. I'm still feeling guilty about taking 3 weeks off work for our bike trip, so I'm trying to minimize other outages until I get over that guilt. Hopefully I'll eventually get over that guilt. But that meant that we flew into Nashville Saturday morning, then flew out again Sunday night, after the race. But we packed a lot of fun into that short amount of time!
We went straight from the airport to our hotel, dropped our stuff and changed, then straight out to the race site to do a little shakeout run and course preview. It was warm. But it was nice to figure out where exactly the site was, and familiarize ourselves a bit with the area around the start/finish line.
Shakeout run with a view.
Back to the hotel for lunch and a shower, then back to the race site AGAIN for packet pickup and mandatory athlete's meeting. This time in the shirts Trista had made for us. Because we are extreme dorks.
Dorks Extraordinaire.
The meeting gave us a little taste of how small the race would be. Not necessarily a bad thing for an inaugural race, when you wanna sort everything out and make sure it all works. I think Tony said ~60 people were racing, and from snooping the registration list, it looked like there were maybe only 8 long course teams? Wow. And it also looked like 5 of those 8 were women's teams! That's a bit unprecedented. And also meant we couldn't just lazily fall onto the podium by showing up. Drat.
The pre-race meeting was informative, and also uncomfortable for Amys who hate public speaking, as only-60-racers means it's entirely feasible to go around the room and everyone say their name, team name, and what race they were doing. AAAHHHH. Fortunately my partner loves me and stepped up to do the intros for our team. After a nice race-provided dinner at the race site, we headed back to the hotel again to get our gear in order and head to bed early.
It's so much easier to travel to races when there's no bike, but man, there's still a LOT of gear involved!
And then up at 6am! I do enjoy that so many swimruns have relatively late starts and relatively close hotels, so you can roll out of bed at sane times. (What? 6 is absolutely sane. Many of my training days have me waking up at 4.) Late enough that the free hotel breakfast was open and we could go eat random things there!
Then we suited up and headed back to the race site. Again. We got pretty good at that drive in the short time we were there.
And it was warm. Still. But not thundering, nor threatening to! If SRTN was canceled due to thunder, I told Trista we should do Tony a favor and not sign up for anymore of his races. Matt said if it happened, we should change our name to Team Albatross. But we didn't have to, no weather on the horizon! Which was also a little sad. The weather that was supposed to come through was the leading edge of a front that would bring the temperature down 20 degrees. MONDAY's weather looked pretty perfect. Ahwell.
Warm temps (in the 80s) plus warm water (also in the 80s) meant no wetsuits. I mean, we COULD wear them, and some people did, but they were not mandatory, and since neither of us really rely on them heavy, and are both cold-preferring athletes, we decided not to deal with them. We just couldn't envision trying to run in that weather in wetsuits.
Then at 8:30am sharp, we lined up and started our race!
The first 3 minutes was probably my least favorite part of the race. A gravel road that turns into a sorta rutted field, all uphill. As I tried to keep up with Trista in the first few minutes, I gasped out, "I should have warmed up!" I'm not a strong starter. Trista is. We manage somehow. Mostly by her having to wait for me the first 10 minutes until I warm up a bit.
Gravel road, uphill, I swear. I THINK that green team near the back is us, but damned if I can tell for sure, even zoomed in.
The good news is, the rest of the course, minutes 4+, were fun and fabulous. No more gravel and rutted fields!
We headed into the woods, through part of the course we'd run the day before, and ran over bridges and wooden steps and rock ledges. No real trail through this part, just following the blazes in the trees.
Really quickly, maybe 5 minutes in, the course splits into short course and long course. Everyone else went short. And we headed out into the wilds of the long course course on our own. Adventure!
And it was a fun adventure. The runs were a lot of fun. Very varied. We had some single track dirt trails. Some rocky Texas-like trails. Some jeep trail. Some random foraging through the middle of the woods not actually on a trail. It definitely kept you on your toes. No real hills, though, despite my complaints about the first 3 minutes.
As seen during our course preview run the day before.
The swims were harder than expected. We got the warmth of the pre-front, but we also got the wind at the leading edge. From the photos we'd seen before the race, it looked like the swims were fairly protected and smooth. And most times they probably are! But with the front moving in, we had a lot of wind coming through, and it made for some very choppy swims. We didn't have any problems other than Trista having to keep us on track while being shoved and buffeted by the chop, but I felt very bad for some of the first-timers out there. Especially ones who weren't strong swimmers to begin with. Especially the ones doing the race solo, which a whole lot of people seemed to be doing. Even though we couldn't talk during the swim (other than that one swim leg where Trista's goggles kept leaking and we got to chat the 3 times she had to stop and try to fix them) (third time was, in fact, the charm), just having someone else out there with you is so reassuring, especially in sketchy conditions.
First swim, before the really chop began.
The first really notable thing I can remember is the Wall. Tony had mentioned in delight that there was a rock wall out there on the course for us. I had envisioned maybe something like Casco where there's a steep rock climb with a rope to pull yourself up, or a tiny Moore's Wall (which I've so far only seen in pictures), which we'd have to climb up a bit. When we got to it, I didn't realize we were there until Trista pointed it out afterward.
What it ended up being was a swim exit in deep water onto some fairly tall rocks. With no way to push off the bottom, we basically had to push up with our arms like you would getting out of the deep end of a pool. Which isn't super easy when your arms are very tired, you're wearing paddles on your hands, and you've got a swim buoy between or near your legs! There was a volunteer stationed there to offer advice and help. Trista hoisted herself up and out with no problem. I got myself up to my hips and beached my torso on the rock, then held out my hand for the volunteer. Hey, if he's gonna be there, I'm gonna utilize him. He pulled the rest of me out, and we were on our way!
Nothing else really notable that I can remember up through The Big Run.
Right in the middle of the event (actually, looking at the course rundown, it's before the halfway point, I suppose), in the middle of a bunch of 0.75 mile runs and 1 mile runs, is a 7 mile run. We had this at Lake James, too, and knew that it was tough to have a run that long in the middle of a swimrun. But it had to be done, so we stripped off our swimcaps and goggles and settled in. (Some people take their swimcaps off for most runs, but I'm terrible at putting on a swimcap, so even on this warm day, I only took it off for the long run, and once I knew I didn't have any more swims left.)
And things were fine! For the first half. The short course/solo event does the first half of this run, as well, so we passed a few of them, and it was nice to actually see people again. This part was particularly Texasy, so Trista got a preview of what the trails at the inaugural SwimRun Austin might look like next year. Halfway through, where the short course peel off to do another swim, there's an aid station, and since there's typically very few aid stations in a swimrun, we stopped at every one.
We both ate a Gu as we ran up, then grabbed some water to wash it down. We both felt like we probably needed some electrolytes, too, so we drank some Tailwind, as well. Then we thanked the volunteer and headed back out for the second half of our run.
This part was a "loop around the lake", and as we began this section, a team came running toward us from the other direction. Another female team had been leaving the aid station just as we ran up, and we were briefly confused, afraid we had gone the wrong way, as had this other team, and we should turn around. But no, this was just an entirely different team finishing up the loop around the lake right as we started it. Because they were THREE MILES AHEAD OF US. Crazyfast team of ladies!
The loop around the lake was lovely. It was in Long Hunter State Park. It was a paved road, so very easy to run. There were families out walking and enjoying the (warm) lovely weather. And it's where I noticed that my partner was suddenly eerily silent.
I said, "So.. you've gotten awfully quiet. Is everything okay?"
It was not.
We're not sure whether it was just random. Whether it was eating a gel and washing it down with Tailwind. Whether it was her husband passing his mancold on to her. Or something else. But Trista did not feel well. She felt like she might throw up. A little dizzy. Breathing way harder than she should have been for the moderate pace we were running.
The shortness of breath had actually begun the day before. I joked that it was the elevation, and had google show us how high up we were. And it got a little better on Saturday, but obviously it had not gone away completely.
Nope. Probably not the elevation.
But like a real trooper, Trista soldiered on, and we kept running that interminable run around the lake.
I suggested if she felt like she was going to throw up, but couldn't, it might help to just.. throw up. Force the issue. We got to a lovely long bridge overlooking the lake, and I stopped to enjoy the view while Trista stopped and tried to encourage her body to just do it already. But no luck, and we tried to start running again, only to find that when you don't feel great, running on a gently swaying bridge is definitely not a way to feel better. So we walked the rest of the bridge.
And it never really got Better, unfortunately for Trista. We still had several runs and several longer swims, and throughout the rest of the race, she continued to feel sick and achy. Everything just hurt and kept threatening to cramp. We walked when she needed to, and did whatever we had to do to keep moving forward. Mostly at a great pace, even! Just not with quite the joy she might have had if she felt normal.
She did say several times, though, "Even though I feel terrible, I'm still having a wonderful time!" My partner is adorable and great.
We did finally finish that lake loop and got back to that same aid station again. Even though it had only been 3 miles, and even though Trista was feeling iffy, we decided to take another Gu, just because we knew we were probably calorie deficient, and weren't sure when the next chance for water would be.
Then a few short swims and runs where we got in some good transition practice. That was actually our primary goal for this race. We call ourselves Team Shitshow primarily because we see other teams executing these smooth transitions and runs and swims, and we generally look like we're starring in a slapstick comedy routine instead. So we made a concerted effort this race to practice! We put our goggles on as we got to the water instead of while standing in it. We tethered while running (sometimes). We got our paddles on our hands before we actually started swimming. Stuff like that.
I say that, and we definitely DID do better, but at one swim entrance, we came up to the water right with a solo female racer. There was a water barrel there (no aid station, just water barrel with cups), and we all got water, then Trista and I waded in to swim. It was a little rocky under the water, so we were being cautious, but even so, Trista fell forward into the water, and as she did that and I tried not to get dragged forward by the tether, I instead slipped on my rock and fell backward into the water. Team Shitshow! I'm sure the other racer, who could potentially initially have been like, "Ooh, long course crazy people! They must be fast and awesome!" quickly realized her mistake. As we started to finally swim away, I yelled back, "Uh, don't do what we did!"
We also did a fairly good job of paying attention to what was Next, and preparing ourselves accordingly. So, for instance, if we only had to run a quarter mile, we didn't bother to untether after the swim, or take paddles off our hands. Having the legs written on our paddles was definitely hugely helpful there.
Just had to remember roughly where we were in there!
The last couple long swims were.. long. Trista had flagged a bit on some of the shorter swims (that's not an insult to Trista, it just means that I could actually stay on her feet; Trista is faster enough than me that I am usually swimming as fast as I can just to stay behind her, and usually that's not even in her draft, so I'm having to swim extra hard), but the last two long swims, even feeling bad, I was having to really fight to stay with her. It was tough. And on top of that, we couldn't really tell where we were going. It was two swims with a very, VERY short run between them, but because the swims were so close together, you could actually see the buoys for both swims at the same time, and it made it very confusing and unclear where we were supposed to go. This was possibly covered in the athlete's meeting, but so much theoretical info is thrown at you, it's impossible to retain it all.
I believe this is the two swims. You can see a buoy in the center there for the first swim, and then waaaay up near the shore a little lefter, you can see another buoy, which is actually part of the NEXT swim. It's hard enough to decipher here, and nearly impossible when you're at water level, wearing goggles, and trying to see while swimming! Photo by Wendy Mader.
Anyway, we got through the last long swims, and had some fun adventuring through some completely un-trailed islands. They were pure bushwhacking, and the only way to know where you were supposed to go was to following the ribbons hanging in the trees. If you could find them. The course was well marked, but sometimes the blazes would be off to one side of you, and you had to spin in a circle and scan the green trees for a bright pink ribbon. We were very glad we were wearing tall socks, because all the plants and trees wanted to hit or grab us in the legs.
This is pretty representative of some of the bushwhacking. No trail to speak of, and you can see a bit of a pink ribbon that was our only guide as to where to go. Photo by Wendy Mader.
And then finally we got to and through the last swim!
Entering the woods for our last run.
My arms were so sore, and so ready to be done. We got out of the water and pulled off our swim caps and goggles, then ran our final 0.4 miles to the finish line. We got in view of the finish line and all the other teams were sitting on the ground cheering for us as we came in. Trista was cramping up and feeling terrible, but she managed to hold it together and keep a smile on her face and get across the finish line upright!
Since she wasn't feeling well, I forgive Trista for not throwing finish line jazz hands.
And then she immediately went over to the grass to enjoy a non-negotiable sit.
We're still not sure exactly what happened to cause her to feel unwell, but I'm super proud of her for gutting out half the race not feeling well. We talked about how hard it is to do a partner race for that reason. It's wonderful to have a friend the whole time, but the odds of ONE person having a great race are so low, so the odds of BOTH people having a great race are even lower. And it's a terrible feeling when you feel like you're letting your partner down. That's how I felt at Georgia. But Trista didn't care then, and I didn't care in Tennessee, and we both had fun regardless.
And at the awards ceremony, we discovered we had come in DFL! Amusingly, the awards went three deep in each category, but there was only one male team, one mixed team, and FOUR female teams. That means exactly one team didn't get an award. Guess who! So I awarded us the Award for the Only Team to Not Get an Award. Yay, us!
Off the podium, on the ground!
And we weren't really DFL. As I mentioned, we passed several teams out there who were either solo short course or team short course. They were doing less distance than we did, we started at the same time, and we ended up passing them. So we just had a lot of really strong long course teams out there, and we were the .. least strong of the strong! I feel really good about our effort out there. Even when Trista was feeling her worst, we kept a good pace and never faffed around or gave up. And our transitions might not have been perfect, but they were definitely better than they've been in the past!
We have fun.
The inaugural year of SwimRun Tennessee was a success, a lot of fun, and I'd definitely do this race again.