Weekend of Ill-Advised Activities Report (Shiner Ride/Skeese Greets).
This was all Karen's fault.
First she asked if I wanted to do the Shiner ride again. We had a great time at Shiner last year, but we also had a tailwind the entire way, which is not the norm. Regardless, and regardless of the fact that I'm currently training for a HALF Ironman and don't need to be riding almost 100 miles, I agreed that it sounded like a good idea. Also regardless of the fact that I've done two 40 mile rides and one 70 mile ride since resuming my training after IMNZ, so those last 30ish miles were going to hurt. (And I'm the SANE one.. Karen had done a handful of 2 hour trainer rides and one 'long ride' of 40 miles the week before.)
Okay, so, that's an ill-advised activity, but not too outrageous.
Then I got mail from Karen asking if I was doing the Skeese Greets tri, and that she could probably be talked into it. Even though it was the day after Shiner. That century ride we were unwisely signed up for.
Bounced the idea off Jamie, who I knew probably wouldn't say no, given that he was all about me doing 105 miles at Armadillo last year followed by the Rookie tri the next day. And sure enough, he approved. And I actually had a decent race at the Rookie last year, happy with my times other than the flat tire I ironically experienced (after riding 105 miles of flat-freeness the day before).
So Karen and I were signed up for a weekend of stupid craziness! And Matt would be out of town the whole weekend for his Collegiate Peaks 50 miler, so it would help me not be as lonely.
Except then I got mail from Karen saying not to hate her. And assuring me she was still doing Shiner! But.. not Skeese Greets. Doing stupid things with good company is fun! Doing stupid things alone suddenly seemed.. kinda stupid. :) (I may have been heard saying, "Even though it was HER IDEA!" a few times. A few dozen times.)
But I was committed! Or should be. Or something. So I stuck to my plan.
Shiner Ride
Lost the wind lottery this year, with a south/southeast 10-20mph headwind the whole way. The danger of point-to-point rides. For the most part, it wasn't awful. I remember around mile 30 thinking, "My brain keeps wanting to say, 'Well, at least this will be a tailwind eventually!'" but no, you keep riding the same direction, you keep running up against the same wind, hour after hour. But it gave me and Karen a long time to catch up and be annoying and enjoy the mostly overcast weather and eat waffles. And as a pack of guys rode past us, one of them said, "Nice calves!" Karen says he said, "Nice ass," but I contend that, in padded bike shorts and smooshed down on a saddle, nobody really has a visibly nice ass on a bike.
With the headwind, there was a LOT of drafting and pacelining going on out there. Every so often, we'd glance back and find some over-6foot guy drafting off me. Oddly enough, usually me instead of Karen. She's at least 3 inches taller than I am, people! She's practically a giant! Surely you could get a better draft off of her! It's baffling, but hysterical.
There was a lot of chipseal out there (though I'm fairly sure the road, in general, was better than it's been in the past), and one 1.5 mile section of really awful, graded pavement (about which we'd been well warned, but was still really awkward and uncomfortable), but overall it was just a pleasant ride. We didn't push, just enjoyed ourselves, and the time went by pretty quickly. Until the last 10 miles. Those are mostly uphill, and almost always painful, but this year when we turned onto the last stretch to Shiner, where the "Shiner: 10" sign is, it was directly into the gotten-much-stronger headwind, and we flagged a bit for those last miles. Karen was nice enough to let me draft off of her for those miles, as an apology for the fact that she DIDN'T have to race a tri tomorrow, and I was kind enough to let her. :)
So, other than those last 10 miles (it was funny sitting around the brewery at the end.. you could eavesdrop on any conversation and hear the words "last 10 miles" said in a groaning, pained voice), I felt fantastic, and other than some tightness in my left hamstring and some soreness in my wrists from being non-aero for so much time (with the drafting), I felt darn good for having gone so much further than I had for a long time. Notably, Shiner was longer than any training ride I did training for NZ. Ha.
Once we got to Shiner, we had the world's most delicious sausage wraps (okay, they may have been horrible, but after 6+ hours of riding and eating only sugar, anything is the most delicious whatever) and I had 3/4 of a beer. We were entitled to 4 beers, but I couldn't even finish 1, so I gave my other 3 away to a guy who looked like he'd already had his 4 and maybe a couple other peoples' 4, as well. I tried to drink a bunch of water, stay out of the sun, and sit as much as possible, since I still had that tri in the back of my mind, but we didn't end up getting home until around 6pm. And having gotten up at 5am that morning, spent all day in the sun riding a bike, and knowing I had to get up at 4am the next day, I fed the pets, ate some pasta and then immediately went to bed.
Skeese Greets sub-sprint tri
I'm fairly sure I won my age group for Parking, since I got there just at 5:30 when the parking opened, and was probably the 6th car parked. Woo! Of course, transition wasn't even open yet, and the race didn't start until 8am. Once transition opened, I racked my bike, laid out my stuff (uh, which was pretty much just my running shoes), and went back to the car to try to nap. Failed, but at least I rested a bit. I felt.. decent. Tired. Dehydrated. But not too sore. I had formulated some goals a few days before.. a PR for this course (this would be my first Skeese Greets, but it was the same course as when the Rookie was held at Texas Ski Ranch, so I had some history there), try to get on the podium for my age group (ambitious), try to get as close to, or below, an hour as possible (very ambitious). As I tried to nap, waiting for 8am to arrive, I decided to make my goal "go as fast as my body will let me," and let the rest take care of itself.
Since it's a women-only event, and relatively small, I was in the third wave, which meant once the event started, there was no time to fret or waste, it was time to get in the water moments later. Summer was in my wave, and I figured I'd try to draft off of her, since she's a strong swimmer. Summer was trying to get a good song stuck in her head, and right then Push It came on over the PA. I declared that a Good Racing Song. We lined up at the front of the swim and prepared to.. y'know.. push it real good.
Swim 300m
We do these open water swim practices with Texas Iron, and we always do mass starts, and they always tell us to start out fast. Do a bunch of strong, aggressive stroking at the beginning to get out of the maelstrom, then kinda settle in. For many years I did this in the practice swims, but it wore me out so quickly, I never did it in a race. I've recently discovered that, at least for super-short swims, it's amazingly effective!
I went out hard with relatively little touching, then assessed where I was in the pack, and what I should do next. When I had some space and looked up to sight, I found two girls to my left, nobody to my right. And none of them seemed to be Summer. I was fairly far to the right, so couldn't easily draft off the other two girls, so just concentrated on swimming hard. At the turnaround buoy, I ended up on the inside of one of the girls, turning faster, then those two swung out close to the island and I stayed close to the buoys. I couldn't tell exactly where we exited the water, and off to the right near the island seemed to be where the wall of green caps from the wave before were concentrated, so I stayed over near the buoy line where it was clearer.
As I came into shore, everyone was all compacted together, and the other two girls from my wave ended up right next to me again. One pulled ahead, and I just stuck to her feet and swam right up behind her as we hit the nasty, mucky bottom and stood up. I saw the other girl coming out just as I did, and then someone cheered, "Go, Amy! Go, Summer!" so I knew Summer must be just behind me.
Split my watch as I crossed the mat, but didn't look, THANKFULLY, because I'm fairly sure the swim was long, which meant my time didn't look good at all, and would have just depressed me if I'd seen it. However, results say first one in my AG was out at 7:59, then me and another girl were out at 8:00. So tied for second in my AG on the swim!
T1
As people took off their swim caps, it became harder to figure out who was who as we ran toward transition. I know I passed one of the two girls I'd been chasing on the swim, and then we entered transition and I had no idea where they went (open racking) or how fast they were transitioning.
Not my best T1. Things went well at first.. buckled on my race belt, put on my sunglasses, then shoved my helmet on my head. Except it didn't fit. Too small. What the hell?! I shoved harder, figuring.. y'know, sometimes swimming causes massive head-swelling. Probably. That's probably a thing, right? Yeah, there was no way that thing was going on my head. Realized I must have, at some point in time between ~3pm yesterday at Shiner and now, accidentally spun the little tightener wheel on the back of my helmet. Fumbled my helmet back off and spun the wheel the other way, not particularly caring if it was so loose it was falling off, and tried again. This time the helmet went on the head, but I was incredibly flustered about those hours and hours I lost dealing with it (note: probably 5 seconds). Grabbed my bike and ran out.
Bike 11.1 miles
I crossed the mount line and went to put my bare foot on my pedal, and discovered the wrong pedal was forward. So I stopped and spun the pedals backward 180 degrees, then mounted up successfully. Another couple seconds lost. More flusternation.
Actually made it into my shoes before the hill started this time, and passed a bunch of girls up the hill. A little cautious on that first right-hand turn, since I'm still a little turn-shy after my recent turn-fall, and then into the aerobars and into the flat and fast part.
I did a little body-check, and found my crotch/butt weren't too, too sore, but my quads were definitely incredibly fatigued. I decided to just spin it out a bit during this part, in anticipation of the hilly part up ahead. At least, that was my plan until Summer fleeewww by me, singing a line from Push It. Suddenly I had a rabbit, one I knew was in my age group, and the competitive spirit kicked in. Except.. she was getting further and further away from me, even when I tried to push harder. I figured, hey, Summer has gotten much faster on the bike since the last time I rode with her. That's okay. Just having her ahead of me is making me go faster than I would otherwise go.
So I chased her for a few miles, and eventually I stopped losing ground and gradually started to gain ground. I've actually felt really strong on hills lately, and thought maybe I could pass her during the hill section. And as we got there, I did, in fact, pull in front of her again, singing another quote from Push It. And I thought I heard a quiet comment of frustration from her, showing me that as much as I was chasing her, she was chasing me, too. :)
As we sped through the hilly part, she passed me again, and then the roads got bad. Like, really bad. I've done a lot of races out there, and the roads are never good, but this was the worst I've seen them. It was hard to be in my aerobars, because the road was tossing us around so much. It felt like I had a flat tire, except everyone was slowing down the same amount. I passed Summer again, and I commented on how much the road sucked. She said she felt like she had a flat tire, and I said I was pretty sure BOTH of mine were flat.
Meanwhile, as Summer and I were jockeying for position, someone from our age group passed us like we were riding in place. Then another. I think four total, with the last being Michelle L. Seriously just blew by. There was no using them as rabbits, they didn't stay in sight long enough. So.. there's the podium for my age group right there. Unless they sat down in T2 and played a game of Monopoly, there likely wouldn't be any catching them. Even if they were horrible runners, which seemed unlikely, 2 miles simply isn't enough time to make up that deficit.
So now it was all about beating Summer (sorry, Summer!) and seeing how close to an hour I could get. I was waiting for Summer to pass me again as I took my gu at mile 8, trying to remain upright while going uphill on horrible roads, and I was strategizing. If I could just stay close to Summer on the bike, even if she went into T2 ahead of me, maybe I could catch her on the run. Except.. 96 miles of hills and headwind takes a toll on the legs, and the bad road plus hills plus wind at the end of the bike were taking an even further toll. I was getting really tired.
But I zoomed down the long hill back to the dismount line, and I still hadn't seen Summer.
Feet out of the shoes and a successful dismount just before the line.
I love how serious I look, and the girl behind me (who I didn't realize was there) is all "Smiley la la la!"
Taken by Tom Marek of Multisport Photography.
T2
T2 was much more successful than T1. As I racked my bike, Summer ran in just behind me, so I knew she was right on my heels. Jammed my feet into my shoes and took off for the run.
Run 2 miles
Ugh. The run. At this point, the sun was trying to come out, the day was warming up, and my legs were toast. As I ran through the grassy, offroad section, Richelle was volunteering. She'd seen me out at Shiner the day before, and as I ran by, she yelled, "C'mon, Amy! You're running like someone who rode 100 miles yesterday!" Which was undoubtedly true.
My legs were not happy. But I focused on turnover and just did what I could. I actually ran up on someone in my age group a quarter mile in, and as I came up behind her (it's a fairly narrow corridor and a little hard to pass people), she turned and said, "Go ahead!" in a friendly, somewhat resigned voice. So there's one more spot I made up, which was unexpected, and gave me a boost for about 3 seconds. Then my quads said, "Hey. HEY. WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" No cramping, just intense fatigue. I tried to lean into it, so I could use some of the muscles that weren't so tired, and that seemed to help a bit.
As I approached the turnaround, I saw that I'd pulled ahead of Summer, and there was Michelle, ahead of me, but not as far as I would have figured. And then as I actually turned around, I realized it was further than it looked. She was there, visible ahead of me, but I had less than a mile to make up that distance, and it just wasn't going to be enough. But it helped to have her as a rabbit, and I figured I'd close the gap as much as I could with the distance I had left. And I did a decent job! But yeah, just too little, too late.
As I got on the path around the lake that leads to the finish line, I heard a girl running quickly up behind me. She ran up beside me and kinda panted, "You'll pass me again before the finish line." I glanced down at her calf, saw "41", and said, "You're not in my age group, I don't care!" (Uh, in a nice way.) And then she stepped off the path and started walking, and I kept running. (And then she passed me AGAIN before the finish line, where I had to check out her calf again to make sure it was the same lady.)
I had gotten so close to Michelle, but alas, not close enough, but I pushed all the way to the finish line, through the horrible sand, and crossed the line knowing I'd given it everything I had that day.
Results
I felt like I'd had a pretty good race, but looking at my watch, my time was 1:04:46, barely better than my 1:05:53 last year at the Rookie, where I'd gotten a flat. And 3 minutes slower than this year's Rookie, which was on a much harder course. So I was a little bummed at first, but then (a) everyone seemed confused by their results and bummed that they'd gone slower than they felt like they did, (b) fairly sure the swim was long, and the race director confirmed the run was long, as well, and (c) uh, I rode 96 miles into a headwind the day before. Yeah, I didn't really factor that in when comparing myself to the other folks in my age group, who may have actually tapered in some sane fashion rather than the Ill-Advised Shiner Taper.
Total time: 1:04:46
Swim: 8:00 (2:40/M pace)
T1: 01:23
Bike: 38:44 (17.2mph)
T2: 00:45
Run: 15:53 (7:57/M)
As I said, tied for second in my AG on the swim, 9th or so on the bike, 3rd on the run. And another awesome T2! 5th in my age group, ultimately finishing a mere 10 seconds behind Michelle. Glad to measure my swim by comparison rather than by pace, because.. yeah, I didn't swim at a 2:40/M pace. And I felt like I ran faster than 7:57s on the run, but given how tired my legs were, I figured it was possible. The Skeese Greets facebook page said the run was long at 2.2 miles, but that puts me at a 7:13 pace, which also seems unlikely (on the other side). So let's just say the reality is somewhere between those two paces, and holy crap, sub-8s.
Interestingly, both the girls who came out of the water with me, I beat overall. And my run time was faster than the girls who were 3rd and 4th in my age group. Darn you, bike! Uh, except I can't darn it, because I never even gave myself a chance to show what I could actually do. Note to self: You're not allowed to care how you do unless you set yourself up for success by NOT doing a century ride the day before your race. Kinda dumb, self.
To make a long story short..
Harhar. Sorry. This ended up longer than anticipated. As usual.
Overall it was a great weekend. Average pace at Shiner was just over 15mph, which, given the undertrainedness, the wind and the hills, is pretty fantastic for me for a ride where we weren't trying to go fast. Probably the fastest Shiner-without-tailwind I've ever had. And then to follow that up with 5th in my age group, 22nd overall out of 453 women.. I really just can't complain about that.
Jamie has been killing me lately with speed workouts, and it's just amazing to see it paying off. The kind of amazing that makes the still-12-minute-miler who lives in my head want to cry. The good kind of crying.
First she asked if I wanted to do the Shiner ride again. We had a great time at Shiner last year, but we also had a tailwind the entire way, which is not the norm. Regardless, and regardless of the fact that I'm currently training for a HALF Ironman and don't need to be riding almost 100 miles, I agreed that it sounded like a good idea. Also regardless of the fact that I've done two 40 mile rides and one 70 mile ride since resuming my training after IMNZ, so those last 30ish miles were going to hurt. (And I'm the SANE one.. Karen had done a handful of 2 hour trainer rides and one 'long ride' of 40 miles the week before.)
Okay, so, that's an ill-advised activity, but not too outrageous.
Then I got mail from Karen asking if I was doing the Skeese Greets tri, and that she could probably be talked into it. Even though it was the day after Shiner. That century ride we were unwisely signed up for.
Bounced the idea off Jamie, who I knew probably wouldn't say no, given that he was all about me doing 105 miles at Armadillo last year followed by the Rookie tri the next day. And sure enough, he approved. And I actually had a decent race at the Rookie last year, happy with my times other than the flat tire I ironically experienced (after riding 105 miles of flat-freeness the day before).
So Karen and I were signed up for a weekend of stupid craziness! And Matt would be out of town the whole weekend for his Collegiate Peaks 50 miler, so it would help me not be as lonely.
Except then I got mail from Karen saying not to hate her. And assuring me she was still doing Shiner! But.. not Skeese Greets. Doing stupid things with good company is fun! Doing stupid things alone suddenly seemed.. kinda stupid. :) (I may have been heard saying, "Even though it was HER IDEA!" a few times. A few dozen times.)
But I was committed! Or should be. Or something. So I stuck to my plan.
Shiner Ride
Lost the wind lottery this year, with a south/southeast 10-20mph headwind the whole way. The danger of point-to-point rides. For the most part, it wasn't awful. I remember around mile 30 thinking, "My brain keeps wanting to say, 'Well, at least this will be a tailwind eventually!'" but no, you keep riding the same direction, you keep running up against the same wind, hour after hour. But it gave me and Karen a long time to catch up and be annoying and enjoy the mostly overcast weather and eat waffles. And as a pack of guys rode past us, one of them said, "Nice calves!" Karen says he said, "Nice ass," but I contend that, in padded bike shorts and smooshed down on a saddle, nobody really has a visibly nice ass on a bike.
With the headwind, there was a LOT of drafting and pacelining going on out there. Every so often, we'd glance back and find some over-6foot guy drafting off me. Oddly enough, usually me instead of Karen. She's at least 3 inches taller than I am, people! She's practically a giant! Surely you could get a better draft off of her! It's baffling, but hysterical.
There was a lot of chipseal out there (though I'm fairly sure the road, in general, was better than it's been in the past), and one 1.5 mile section of really awful, graded pavement (about which we'd been well warned, but was still really awkward and uncomfortable), but overall it was just a pleasant ride. We didn't push, just enjoyed ourselves, and the time went by pretty quickly. Until the last 10 miles. Those are mostly uphill, and almost always painful, but this year when we turned onto the last stretch to Shiner, where the "Shiner: 10" sign is, it was directly into the gotten-much-stronger headwind, and we flagged a bit for those last miles. Karen was nice enough to let me draft off of her for those miles, as an apology for the fact that she DIDN'T have to race a tri tomorrow, and I was kind enough to let her. :)
So, other than those last 10 miles (it was funny sitting around the brewery at the end.. you could eavesdrop on any conversation and hear the words "last 10 miles" said in a groaning, pained voice), I felt fantastic, and other than some tightness in my left hamstring and some soreness in my wrists from being non-aero for so much time (with the drafting), I felt darn good for having gone so much further than I had for a long time. Notably, Shiner was longer than any training ride I did training for NZ. Ha.
Once we got to Shiner, we had the world's most delicious sausage wraps (okay, they may have been horrible, but after 6+ hours of riding and eating only sugar, anything is the most delicious whatever) and I had 3/4 of a beer. We were entitled to 4 beers, but I couldn't even finish 1, so I gave my other 3 away to a guy who looked like he'd already had his 4 and maybe a couple other peoples' 4, as well. I tried to drink a bunch of water, stay out of the sun, and sit as much as possible, since I still had that tri in the back of my mind, but we didn't end up getting home until around 6pm. And having gotten up at 5am that morning, spent all day in the sun riding a bike, and knowing I had to get up at 4am the next day, I fed the pets, ate some pasta and then immediately went to bed.
Skeese Greets sub-sprint tri
I'm fairly sure I won my age group for Parking, since I got there just at 5:30 when the parking opened, and was probably the 6th car parked. Woo! Of course, transition wasn't even open yet, and the race didn't start until 8am. Once transition opened, I racked my bike, laid out my stuff (uh, which was pretty much just my running shoes), and went back to the car to try to nap. Failed, but at least I rested a bit. I felt.. decent. Tired. Dehydrated. But not too sore. I had formulated some goals a few days before.. a PR for this course (this would be my first Skeese Greets, but it was the same course as when the Rookie was held at Texas Ski Ranch, so I had some history there), try to get on the podium for my age group (ambitious), try to get as close to, or below, an hour as possible (very ambitious). As I tried to nap, waiting for 8am to arrive, I decided to make my goal "go as fast as my body will let me," and let the rest take care of itself.
Since it's a women-only event, and relatively small, I was in the third wave, which meant once the event started, there was no time to fret or waste, it was time to get in the water moments later. Summer was in my wave, and I figured I'd try to draft off of her, since she's a strong swimmer. Summer was trying to get a good song stuck in her head, and right then Push It came on over the PA. I declared that a Good Racing Song. We lined up at the front of the swim and prepared to.. y'know.. push it real good.
Swim 300m
We do these open water swim practices with Texas Iron, and we always do mass starts, and they always tell us to start out fast. Do a bunch of strong, aggressive stroking at the beginning to get out of the maelstrom, then kinda settle in. For many years I did this in the practice swims, but it wore me out so quickly, I never did it in a race. I've recently discovered that, at least for super-short swims, it's amazingly effective!
I went out hard with relatively little touching, then assessed where I was in the pack, and what I should do next. When I had some space and looked up to sight, I found two girls to my left, nobody to my right. And none of them seemed to be Summer. I was fairly far to the right, so couldn't easily draft off the other two girls, so just concentrated on swimming hard. At the turnaround buoy, I ended up on the inside of one of the girls, turning faster, then those two swung out close to the island and I stayed close to the buoys. I couldn't tell exactly where we exited the water, and off to the right near the island seemed to be where the wall of green caps from the wave before were concentrated, so I stayed over near the buoy line where it was clearer.
As I came into shore, everyone was all compacted together, and the other two girls from my wave ended up right next to me again. One pulled ahead, and I just stuck to her feet and swam right up behind her as we hit the nasty, mucky bottom and stood up. I saw the other girl coming out just as I did, and then someone cheered, "Go, Amy! Go, Summer!" so I knew Summer must be just behind me.
Split my watch as I crossed the mat, but didn't look, THANKFULLY, because I'm fairly sure the swim was long, which meant my time didn't look good at all, and would have just depressed me if I'd seen it. However, results say first one in my AG was out at 7:59, then me and another girl were out at 8:00. So tied for second in my AG on the swim!
T1
As people took off their swim caps, it became harder to figure out who was who as we ran toward transition. I know I passed one of the two girls I'd been chasing on the swim, and then we entered transition and I had no idea where they went (open racking) or how fast they were transitioning.
Not my best T1. Things went well at first.. buckled on my race belt, put on my sunglasses, then shoved my helmet on my head. Except it didn't fit. Too small. What the hell?! I shoved harder, figuring.. y'know, sometimes swimming causes massive head-swelling. Probably. That's probably a thing, right? Yeah, there was no way that thing was going on my head. Realized I must have, at some point in time between ~3pm yesterday at Shiner and now, accidentally spun the little tightener wheel on the back of my helmet. Fumbled my helmet back off and spun the wheel the other way, not particularly caring if it was so loose it was falling off, and tried again. This time the helmet went on the head, but I was incredibly flustered about those hours and hours I lost dealing with it (note: probably 5 seconds). Grabbed my bike and ran out.
Bike 11.1 miles
I crossed the mount line and went to put my bare foot on my pedal, and discovered the wrong pedal was forward. So I stopped and spun the pedals backward 180 degrees, then mounted up successfully. Another couple seconds lost. More flusternation.
Actually made it into my shoes before the hill started this time, and passed a bunch of girls up the hill. A little cautious on that first right-hand turn, since I'm still a little turn-shy after my recent turn-fall, and then into the aerobars and into the flat and fast part.
I did a little body-check, and found my crotch/butt weren't too, too sore, but my quads were definitely incredibly fatigued. I decided to just spin it out a bit during this part, in anticipation of the hilly part up ahead. At least, that was my plan until Summer fleeewww by me, singing a line from Push It. Suddenly I had a rabbit, one I knew was in my age group, and the competitive spirit kicked in. Except.. she was getting further and further away from me, even when I tried to push harder. I figured, hey, Summer has gotten much faster on the bike since the last time I rode with her. That's okay. Just having her ahead of me is making me go faster than I would otherwise go.
So I chased her for a few miles, and eventually I stopped losing ground and gradually started to gain ground. I've actually felt really strong on hills lately, and thought maybe I could pass her during the hill section. And as we got there, I did, in fact, pull in front of her again, singing another quote from Push It. And I thought I heard a quiet comment of frustration from her, showing me that as much as I was chasing her, she was chasing me, too. :)
As we sped through the hilly part, she passed me again, and then the roads got bad. Like, really bad. I've done a lot of races out there, and the roads are never good, but this was the worst I've seen them. It was hard to be in my aerobars, because the road was tossing us around so much. It felt like I had a flat tire, except everyone was slowing down the same amount. I passed Summer again, and I commented on how much the road sucked. She said she felt like she had a flat tire, and I said I was pretty sure BOTH of mine were flat.
Meanwhile, as Summer and I were jockeying for position, someone from our age group passed us like we were riding in place. Then another. I think four total, with the last being Michelle L. Seriously just blew by. There was no using them as rabbits, they didn't stay in sight long enough. So.. there's the podium for my age group right there. Unless they sat down in T2 and played a game of Monopoly, there likely wouldn't be any catching them. Even if they were horrible runners, which seemed unlikely, 2 miles simply isn't enough time to make up that deficit.
So now it was all about beating Summer (sorry, Summer!) and seeing how close to an hour I could get. I was waiting for Summer to pass me again as I took my gu at mile 8, trying to remain upright while going uphill on horrible roads, and I was strategizing. If I could just stay close to Summer on the bike, even if she went into T2 ahead of me, maybe I could catch her on the run. Except.. 96 miles of hills and headwind takes a toll on the legs, and the bad road plus hills plus wind at the end of the bike were taking an even further toll. I was getting really tired.
But I zoomed down the long hill back to the dismount line, and I still hadn't seen Summer.
Feet out of the shoes and a successful dismount just before the line.
I love how serious I look, and the girl behind me (who I didn't realize was there) is all "Smiley la la la!"
Taken by Tom Marek of Multisport Photography.
T2
T2 was much more successful than T1. As I racked my bike, Summer ran in just behind me, so I knew she was right on my heels. Jammed my feet into my shoes and took off for the run.
Run 2 miles
Ugh. The run. At this point, the sun was trying to come out, the day was warming up, and my legs were toast. As I ran through the grassy, offroad section, Richelle was volunteering. She'd seen me out at Shiner the day before, and as I ran by, she yelled, "C'mon, Amy! You're running like someone who rode 100 miles yesterday!" Which was undoubtedly true.
My legs were not happy. But I focused on turnover and just did what I could. I actually ran up on someone in my age group a quarter mile in, and as I came up behind her (it's a fairly narrow corridor and a little hard to pass people), she turned and said, "Go ahead!" in a friendly, somewhat resigned voice. So there's one more spot I made up, which was unexpected, and gave me a boost for about 3 seconds. Then my quads said, "Hey. HEY. WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" No cramping, just intense fatigue. I tried to lean into it, so I could use some of the muscles that weren't so tired, and that seemed to help a bit.
As I approached the turnaround, I saw that I'd pulled ahead of Summer, and there was Michelle, ahead of me, but not as far as I would have figured. And then as I actually turned around, I realized it was further than it looked. She was there, visible ahead of me, but I had less than a mile to make up that distance, and it just wasn't going to be enough. But it helped to have her as a rabbit, and I figured I'd close the gap as much as I could with the distance I had left. And I did a decent job! But yeah, just too little, too late.
As I got on the path around the lake that leads to the finish line, I heard a girl running quickly up behind me. She ran up beside me and kinda panted, "You'll pass me again before the finish line." I glanced down at her calf, saw "41", and said, "You're not in my age group, I don't care!" (Uh, in a nice way.) And then she stepped off the path and started walking, and I kept running. (And then she passed me AGAIN before the finish line, where I had to check out her calf again to make sure it was the same lady.)
I had gotten so close to Michelle, but alas, not close enough, but I pushed all the way to the finish line, through the horrible sand, and crossed the line knowing I'd given it everything I had that day.
Results
I felt like I'd had a pretty good race, but looking at my watch, my time was 1:04:46, barely better than my 1:05:53 last year at the Rookie, where I'd gotten a flat. And 3 minutes slower than this year's Rookie, which was on a much harder course. So I was a little bummed at first, but then (a) everyone seemed confused by their results and bummed that they'd gone slower than they felt like they did, (b) fairly sure the swim was long, and the race director confirmed the run was long, as well, and (c) uh, I rode 96 miles into a headwind the day before. Yeah, I didn't really factor that in when comparing myself to the other folks in my age group, who may have actually tapered in some sane fashion rather than the Ill-Advised Shiner Taper.
Total time: 1:04:46
Swim: 8:00 (2:40/M pace)
T1: 01:23
Bike: 38:44 (17.2mph)
T2: 00:45
Run: 15:53 (7:57/M)
As I said, tied for second in my AG on the swim, 9th or so on the bike, 3rd on the run. And another awesome T2! 5th in my age group, ultimately finishing a mere 10 seconds behind Michelle. Glad to measure my swim by comparison rather than by pace, because.. yeah, I didn't swim at a 2:40/M pace. And I felt like I ran faster than 7:57s on the run, but given how tired my legs were, I figured it was possible. The Skeese Greets facebook page said the run was long at 2.2 miles, but that puts me at a 7:13 pace, which also seems unlikely (on the other side). So let's just say the reality is somewhere between those two paces, and holy crap, sub-8s.
Interestingly, both the girls who came out of the water with me, I beat overall. And my run time was faster than the girls who were 3rd and 4th in my age group. Darn you, bike! Uh, except I can't darn it, because I never even gave myself a chance to show what I could actually do. Note to self: You're not allowed to care how you do unless you set yourself up for success by NOT doing a century ride the day before your race. Kinda dumb, self.
To make a long story short..
Harhar. Sorry. This ended up longer than anticipated. As usual.
Overall it was a great weekend. Average pace at Shiner was just over 15mph, which, given the undertrainedness, the wind and the hills, is pretty fantastic for me for a ride where we weren't trying to go fast. Probably the fastest Shiner-without-tailwind I've ever had. And then to follow that up with 5th in my age group, 22nd overall out of 453 women.. I really just can't complain about that.
Jamie has been killing me lately with speed workouts, and it's just amazing to see it paying off. The kind of amazing that makes the still-12-minute-miler who lives in my head want to cry. The good kind of crying.