Skeese Greets Triathlon 2012 race report.
I really enjoyed this event last year, so I decided to do it again rather than The Rookie (evidently I feel I must do some sub-sprint triathlon each Spring). Jamie decided that rather than have me do another 100 mile ride the day before, he'd actually give me a little recovery and taper, to "see what you can do". Ugh. I'd almost rather have the excuse as to why things didn't go as well as I wanted. :)
Before
I suckered my sister into doing it with me, and we headed out dark and early Sunday morning, Mother's Day, trying to plant viable race songs in our heads. Like Islands in the Stream as sung by velociraptors. (What? It's a good song. We sang it several times during the drive.)
We got there and got our transition areas all set up, then started wandering around socializing and taking pictures of things and people and goats. It was unseasonably chilly out there (low 60s), and after wandering around in just a sleeveless singlet for a while, I got kinda cold. I was shivering and possibly complaining, and Laura, with much familial love and tenderness, turned to me and suggested perhaps I should, "eat a fucking cheeseburger." The love, I could feel it!
Transition closed, and I was still out and about with the camera, but I figured I'd just hand it off to Matt when he got there (he was performing the role of Best Husband Ever by picking up my mom and driving her down to watch me and Laura race, then we'd all go out to brunch for Mother's Day). But I couldn't find Matt. And it was getting later and later. And I had the camera in the back pocket of my tri singlet, and people kept coming up and telling me it was there, hoping I didn't carry it into the water with me. Finally I desperately asked a passing Maggie to please take the camera for me and hold it either until she saw me after the race, or until the saw Matt. Whew. I was pretty convinced I was going to get halfway through the swim and realize I still had it in my pocket.
The first wave went off at 8am. Normally the men go first, or they go oldest to youngest, and once the race starts, I still have a good 45 minutes to 1.5 hours or so before it's my turn. But with a smaller race and a women's-only event, as soon as the first wave went off, I had about 10 minutes before I had to be in the water. Yikes! I wished my sister a great, FUN race and headed into the water.
Confidently waded up to the front, where nobody really seemed super-keen to be, and wished my fellow 35-39ers a great race as we counted down to our race start.
Swim 300 meters
As we've been practicing in our Texas Iron open water swim sessions, I immediately went out hard and fast. When I've tried this in the past, usually things clear out pretty quickly and I can settle down after 40 strokes or so. Except as I was killing myself, people weren't falling behind. Everyone else was either killing themselves, too, or just really fast. But things weren't clearing out.
I kept going hard, trying to get myself into a position where I had some space, but I was surrounded by other flailing bodies, swimming up onto people, and people were swimming up onto me, pushing my legs down (one of the more unnerving feelings for me).
It was congested all the way to the turnaround buoy, but after turning around, finally some space opened up and I was able to just swim. I could see one red cap way out in front of the pack, then 4 or 5 either just ahead or beside me. I tried to go as hard, but my legs started to feel fatigued. Which really seemed unfair in a 300m swim.
Kept up the intensity as I got to shore and swam up until I could touch, right behind a girl in my age group. Stood up and lurched over the timing mat, hitting the split button on my watch completely on auto-pilot. As I ran over the mat and toward transition, I heard Matt and my mom cheering for me, and was glad that they'd made it out! I heard Dionn's voice, as well, then there she was in front of me, offering me a wet wipe. I was still trying to adjust to being vertical by the time I even realized what she was doing, and then I was on my way into transition.
T1
Managed to remember to run past my row instead of my usual finding my bike and then realizing I was on the wrong side of the rack to take it down. Tossed my swimcap and goggles, put on my sunglasses, picked up my race belt and tried to buckle it. Perhaps as a testament to my swim effort, it took me an absurd amount of time to put on my race belt. I couldn't make the ends match. And then when they did and I started to buckle it, my number was facing inward, blank side out. So I had to take it off and turn it around and over and sideways to try to sort out how it should be put on. Now it's comical. At the time it was mystifying and frustrating.
But I finally got it fastened correctly, put on my helmet and ran my bike out over the mount line.
Bike 11.1 miles
There were two girls mounting right over the mount line, so I ran past them and pulled over on the far right to mount. Put my foot up on the pedal I'd carefully set up correctly, pressed down and attempted to swing my leg over, and overbalanced so much I almost fell face first onto my bike. There was a volunteer that had just finished helping a girl right in front of me, and he reached out to try to catch me as I fell, but I juuuust caught myself and didn't fall. I said, "I'm okay! Just embarrassed." Then I leaned down to put my pedal back in position and tried again, this time getting it right and getting my feet on my shoes and my butt in the seat and starting to ride.
Ugh. I felt clumsy and slow and awkward. And embarrassed.
Got my feet into my shoes and velcroed before I hit the overpass, then passed a bunch of women going up the overpass. Once I turned off the frontage road, I settled into my aerobars and tried to get my nerves settled. I passed one girl in my age group, but given how many were ahead of me on the swim, I figured at best that brought me into 4th or 5th in my age group.
Shortly after that, another age grouper passed me, then the one I'd just passed. They both settled in just ahead of me, and I decided I'd try to keep them as close as possible on the bike, hoping maybe I could outrun them. Sure, maybe they were stellar runners, but having little sub-goals helps.
Turns out they were great flat/downhill-riders, but I passed both of them when we reached the hilly sections on the far side. Meanwhile one girl in my age group flew by like I was riding backward. No chance to even keep her in sight. So back to 5th, maybe.
The road was still crappy in places, though not as bad as last year, and the hills were still there, but then I saw the turn to get back onto the frontage road ahead, and was surprised the bike was nearly done! Only that beautiful, speedy downhill back to the Ski Ranch to go.
I turned onto that beautiful, speedy downhill and was met with a headwind. Really? Ugh. So I settled into my aerobars and pedaled downhill steadily into the wind, grumbling under my breath. Especially as the age grouper I'd been leapfrogging with passed me with maybe 1/32nd of a mile to go. I just hoped I could outrun her.
As I neared the dismount line (and the line of photographers), I got my feet out of my shoes and prepared to dismount. Zoooomed up to the volunteers, and as I got right to the line, I.. I don't know what I did. I got cocky or something, and instead of doing my normal, safe shoeless dismount, that I'd practiced twice flawlessly the day before, I tried to kinda hop off the bike and run at the same time, and my bike almost went out from under me, and I almost fell. Again. I swerved and managed to keep my feet, and as people kinda gasped and then cheered for me not falling, I yelled something like, "Good save, me!" and ran, embarrassed (again) into transition.
T2
Found my purple towel, racked my bike, took off my helmet, slid on my (sockless! which I never do unless the run is 2 miles or less) shoes and ran out of transition, turning my number to the front. At least THAT mostly went well.
Run 2 miles
Okay! Running. I like this part. Let's see if I can run down anyone in my age group and maybe get into .. what, at this point, 4th or 5th again? Who knows. Math is hard.
Also running is hard, as it turns out. I got through the off-road portion and onto the road for the out and back. I passed a few girls (not in my age group), offering them encouragement when I had the breath to do so. It smelled like someone was smoking pot. That didn't really help. I cheered for the 16 year old headed back in, then for Angie who looked amazing.
Again I was surprised when I saw the turnaround ahead, much earlier than I'd expected. I still hadn't passed anyone from my age group, and I hadn't seen anyone I recognized as being in my age group going in as I headed out, so I just planned to do my run as fast as I could, to try to beat my last year's time.
I ran into the turnaround and saw Heather volunteering at the water stop! I said I needed water and she held out a cup for me. I took the cup and then nearly dropped it, splashing most of the water onto the ground/me/probably Heather, then while juggling the cup and attempting to drink it, I almost ran right off the road into the ditch. As Heather yelled at me not to run off the road, I finally righted myself and got pointed in the correct direction and headed back in (with barely any water actually within me).
Now I knew I just had to run back down this road and around the lake and I'd be done. But that felt like it took forever. I was tired. I tried to keep my turnover high, but my legs were spent. I passed a few more girls from earlier waves. And then finally I was back to the turn, and out onto the sidewalk for one final loop around the back side of the lake. There were 3 girls spread out ahead of me, none of whom were in my age group. One was fast and had been getting steadily further ahead of me the whole time, and I couldn't make up any ground on her. But I kept pushing to try to do so, and as I came around the final curve to the finish line, managed to pass one of the other girls as I heard Matt start cheering for me.
I used Matt's words to push myself as hard as I could, and ran across the (thankfully due to recent rains PACKED) sand and across the finish line.
Whew.
After
Got my (adorable) medal and water bottle and then went to find Matt and my mom. We chatted and I settled in with them to cheer for folks and cheer Laura in. When we saw her out across the lake, I started walking/jogging/trying not to fall in the lake back along the course until I got to her, then ran in with her.
I cooled down once I stopped running, so I borrowed Matt's oversized jacket
After we caught our breath, we enjoyed a post-race cheeseburger at 9:30am! Best part of the race. As we were eating, Eva wandered by and said congratulations! We were all congratulating each other on our races, but hers was directed at me specifically, so I suspiciously asked what for, and she said the results showed I was 3rd in my age group. Which I didn't believe. I mean, I hadn't even bothered to go look at the results, I was so convinced there was no way I had placed. But I sure went and looked then.
Happy Mother's Day, mom! You get to hug two nasty, smelly daughters!
And it appeared to be true! I was 17th overall, and they didn't break out the results by age group, but counting up the 16 women ahead of me, only 2 appeared to be in my age group. Whee!
Laura and I went and changed into brunch clothes (after a wetwipe and Rocket Shower pseudo-cleansing), then headed back in to wait, and sure enough at the awards ceremony, I was 3rd in my age group! Unexpected and delightful.
Results
Total time: 1:02:18
Swim: 6:40 (2:13/m)
T1: 1:19
Bike: 38:32 (17.3mph)
T2: 0:41
Run: 15:05 (7:33/mile)
3/54 in women 35-39
17/331 overall
(Not too shabby!)
2.5 minutes faster than last year! I'd like to eventually go sub-1hour, but.. this wasn't the year.
Swim was 1:20ish faster than last year. The pacing is still so very wrong in the results.
Bike was uh.. 12 seconds faster than last year! I guess that's at least SOME improvement. But last year I had ridden 100 miles the day before, so I had an excuse. Ohwell, I know it's my weak sport.
Run was nearly a minute faster! From 7:57/mile (though the run may have been long last year) to 7:33/mile.
And both transitions were a few seconds faster. :)
And why was I so confused about where I stood in my age group? Well, looking at the results, I WAS 6thish out of the water. But evidently I passed most of those swimmers in transition and was out on the bike before them. Then the girl who passed me at the end of the bike, again, I out-transitioned her and was out on the run before her, then out-ran her.
So the take-away here is: transitions matter. The girls who were 4th and 5th place in my age group actually beat me in time, if you add up swim, bike and run times. But I transitioned faster enough than them that I beat them overall. Don't discount those transitions!
Also I have no idea why I was so completely clumsy this whole race. I've never had that happen so many times during one race, and it was a little disconcerting and alarming. Hopefully not a trend!
One final anecdote
After I swam and biked and ran and the sun came up and the day got warmer, as Laura and I were going to get out stuff out of transition, I turned to her and said, "Hey! Laura! I ate a fucking cheeseburger!" And she said, "Aaaaand..?" And I said, "You were right! I'm not cold anymore!"
Before
I suckered my sister into doing it with me, and we headed out dark and early Sunday morning, Mother's Day, trying to plant viable race songs in our heads. Like Islands in the Stream as sung by velociraptors. (What? It's a good song. We sang it several times during the drive.)
We got there and got our transition areas all set up, then started wandering around socializing and taking pictures of things and people and goats. It was unseasonably chilly out there (low 60s), and after wandering around in just a sleeveless singlet for a while, I got kinda cold. I was shivering and possibly complaining, and Laura, with much familial love and tenderness, turned to me and suggested perhaps I should, "eat a fucking cheeseburger." The love, I could feel it!
Transition closed, and I was still out and about with the camera, but I figured I'd just hand it off to Matt when he got there (he was performing the role of Best Husband Ever by picking up my mom and driving her down to watch me and Laura race, then we'd all go out to brunch for Mother's Day). But I couldn't find Matt. And it was getting later and later. And I had the camera in the back pocket of my tri singlet, and people kept coming up and telling me it was there, hoping I didn't carry it into the water with me. Finally I desperately asked a passing Maggie to please take the camera for me and hold it either until she saw me after the race, or until the saw Matt. Whew. I was pretty convinced I was going to get halfway through the swim and realize I still had it in my pocket.
The first wave went off at 8am. Normally the men go first, or they go oldest to youngest, and once the race starts, I still have a good 45 minutes to 1.5 hours or so before it's my turn. But with a smaller race and a women's-only event, as soon as the first wave went off, I had about 10 minutes before I had to be in the water. Yikes! I wished my sister a great, FUN race and headed into the water.
Confidently waded up to the front, where nobody really seemed super-keen to be, and wished my fellow 35-39ers a great race as we counted down to our race start.
Swim 300 meters
As we've been practicing in our Texas Iron open water swim sessions, I immediately went out hard and fast. When I've tried this in the past, usually things clear out pretty quickly and I can settle down after 40 strokes or so. Except as I was killing myself, people weren't falling behind. Everyone else was either killing themselves, too, or just really fast. But things weren't clearing out.
I kept going hard, trying to get myself into a position where I had some space, but I was surrounded by other flailing bodies, swimming up onto people, and people were swimming up onto me, pushing my legs down (one of the more unnerving feelings for me).
It was congested all the way to the turnaround buoy, but after turning around, finally some space opened up and I was able to just swim. I could see one red cap way out in front of the pack, then 4 or 5 either just ahead or beside me. I tried to go as hard, but my legs started to feel fatigued. Which really seemed unfair in a 300m swim.
Kept up the intensity as I got to shore and swam up until I could touch, right behind a girl in my age group. Stood up and lurched over the timing mat, hitting the split button on my watch completely on auto-pilot. As I ran over the mat and toward transition, I heard Matt and my mom cheering for me, and was glad that they'd made it out! I heard Dionn's voice, as well, then there she was in front of me, offering me a wet wipe. I was still trying to adjust to being vertical by the time I even realized what she was doing, and then I was on my way into transition.
T1
Managed to remember to run past my row instead of my usual finding my bike and then realizing I was on the wrong side of the rack to take it down. Tossed my swimcap and goggles, put on my sunglasses, picked up my race belt and tried to buckle it. Perhaps as a testament to my swim effort, it took me an absurd amount of time to put on my race belt. I couldn't make the ends match. And then when they did and I started to buckle it, my number was facing inward, blank side out. So I had to take it off and turn it around and over and sideways to try to sort out how it should be put on. Now it's comical. At the time it was mystifying and frustrating.
But I finally got it fastened correctly, put on my helmet and ran my bike out over the mount line.
Bike 11.1 miles
There were two girls mounting right over the mount line, so I ran past them and pulled over on the far right to mount. Put my foot up on the pedal I'd carefully set up correctly, pressed down and attempted to swing my leg over, and overbalanced so much I almost fell face first onto my bike. There was a volunteer that had just finished helping a girl right in front of me, and he reached out to try to catch me as I fell, but I juuuust caught myself and didn't fall. I said, "I'm okay! Just embarrassed." Then I leaned down to put my pedal back in position and tried again, this time getting it right and getting my feet on my shoes and my butt in the seat and starting to ride.
Ugh. I felt clumsy and slow and awkward. And embarrassed.
Got my feet into my shoes and velcroed before I hit the overpass, then passed a bunch of women going up the overpass. Once I turned off the frontage road, I settled into my aerobars and tried to get my nerves settled. I passed one girl in my age group, but given how many were ahead of me on the swim, I figured at best that brought me into 4th or 5th in my age group.
Shortly after that, another age grouper passed me, then the one I'd just passed. They both settled in just ahead of me, and I decided I'd try to keep them as close as possible on the bike, hoping maybe I could outrun them. Sure, maybe they were stellar runners, but having little sub-goals helps.
Turns out they were great flat/downhill-riders, but I passed both of them when we reached the hilly sections on the far side. Meanwhile one girl in my age group flew by like I was riding backward. No chance to even keep her in sight. So back to 5th, maybe.
The road was still crappy in places, though not as bad as last year, and the hills were still there, but then I saw the turn to get back onto the frontage road ahead, and was surprised the bike was nearly done! Only that beautiful, speedy downhill back to the Ski Ranch to go.
I turned onto that beautiful, speedy downhill and was met with a headwind. Really? Ugh. So I settled into my aerobars and pedaled downhill steadily into the wind, grumbling under my breath. Especially as the age grouper I'd been leapfrogging with passed me with maybe 1/32nd of a mile to go. I just hoped I could outrun her.
As I neared the dismount line (and the line of photographers), I got my feet out of my shoes and prepared to dismount. Zoooomed up to the volunteers, and as I got right to the line, I.. I don't know what I did. I got cocky or something, and instead of doing my normal, safe shoeless dismount, that I'd practiced twice flawlessly the day before, I tried to kinda hop off the bike and run at the same time, and my bike almost went out from under me, and I almost fell. Again. I swerved and managed to keep my feet, and as people kinda gasped and then cheered for me not falling, I yelled something like, "Good save, me!" and ran, embarrassed (again) into transition.
T2
Found my purple towel, racked my bike, took off my helmet, slid on my (sockless! which I never do unless the run is 2 miles or less) shoes and ran out of transition, turning my number to the front. At least THAT mostly went well.
Run 2 miles
Okay! Running. I like this part. Let's see if I can run down anyone in my age group and maybe get into .. what, at this point, 4th or 5th again? Who knows. Math is hard.
Also running is hard, as it turns out. I got through the off-road portion and onto the road for the out and back. I passed a few girls (not in my age group), offering them encouragement when I had the breath to do so. It smelled like someone was smoking pot. That didn't really help. I cheered for the 16 year old headed back in, then for Angie who looked amazing.
Again I was surprised when I saw the turnaround ahead, much earlier than I'd expected. I still hadn't passed anyone from my age group, and I hadn't seen anyone I recognized as being in my age group going in as I headed out, so I just planned to do my run as fast as I could, to try to beat my last year's time.
I ran into the turnaround and saw Heather volunteering at the water stop! I said I needed water and she held out a cup for me. I took the cup and then nearly dropped it, splashing most of the water onto the ground/me/probably Heather, then while juggling the cup and attempting to drink it, I almost ran right off the road into the ditch. As Heather yelled at me not to run off the road, I finally righted myself and got pointed in the correct direction and headed back in (with barely any water actually within me).
Now I knew I just had to run back down this road and around the lake and I'd be done. But that felt like it took forever. I was tired. I tried to keep my turnover high, but my legs were spent. I passed a few more girls from earlier waves. And then finally I was back to the turn, and out onto the sidewalk for one final loop around the back side of the lake. There were 3 girls spread out ahead of me, none of whom were in my age group. One was fast and had been getting steadily further ahead of me the whole time, and I couldn't make up any ground on her. But I kept pushing to try to do so, and as I came around the final curve to the finish line, managed to pass one of the other girls as I heard Matt start cheering for me.
I used Matt's words to push myself as hard as I could, and ran across the (thankfully due to recent rains PACKED) sand and across the finish line.
Whew.
After
Got my (adorable) medal and water bottle and then went to find Matt and my mom. We chatted and I settled in with them to cheer for folks and cheer Laura in. When we saw her out across the lake, I started walking/jogging/trying not to fall in the lake back along the course until I got to her, then ran in with her.
I cooled down once I stopped running, so I borrowed Matt's oversized jacket
After we caught our breath, we enjoyed a post-race cheeseburger at 9:30am! Best part of the race. As we were eating, Eva wandered by and said congratulations! We were all congratulating each other on our races, but hers was directed at me specifically, so I suspiciously asked what for, and she said the results showed I was 3rd in my age group. Which I didn't believe. I mean, I hadn't even bothered to go look at the results, I was so convinced there was no way I had placed. But I sure went and looked then.
Happy Mother's Day, mom! You get to hug two nasty, smelly daughters!
And it appeared to be true! I was 17th overall, and they didn't break out the results by age group, but counting up the 16 women ahead of me, only 2 appeared to be in my age group. Whee!
Laura and I went and changed into brunch clothes (after a wetwipe and Rocket Shower pseudo-cleansing), then headed back in to wait, and sure enough at the awards ceremony, I was 3rd in my age group! Unexpected and delightful.
Results
Total time: 1:02:18
Swim: 6:40 (2:13/m)
T1: 1:19
Bike: 38:32 (17.3mph)
T2: 0:41
Run: 15:05 (7:33/mile)
3/54 in women 35-39
17/331 overall
(Not too shabby!)
2.5 minutes faster than last year! I'd like to eventually go sub-1hour, but.. this wasn't the year.
Swim was 1:20ish faster than last year. The pacing is still so very wrong in the results.
Bike was uh.. 12 seconds faster than last year! I guess that's at least SOME improvement. But last year I had ridden 100 miles the day before, so I had an excuse. Ohwell, I know it's my weak sport.
Run was nearly a minute faster! From 7:57/mile (though the run may have been long last year) to 7:33/mile.
And both transitions were a few seconds faster. :)
And why was I so confused about where I stood in my age group? Well, looking at the results, I WAS 6thish out of the water. But evidently I passed most of those swimmers in transition and was out on the bike before them. Then the girl who passed me at the end of the bike, again, I out-transitioned her and was out on the run before her, then out-ran her.
So the take-away here is: transitions matter. The girls who were 4th and 5th place in my age group actually beat me in time, if you add up swim, bike and run times. But I transitioned faster enough than them that I beat them overall. Don't discount those transitions!
Also I have no idea why I was so completely clumsy this whole race. I've never had that happen so many times during one race, and it was a little disconcerting and alarming. Hopefully not a trend!
One final anecdote
After I swam and biked and ran and the sun came up and the day got warmer, as Laura and I were going to get out stuff out of transition, I turned to her and said, "Hey! Laura! I ate a fucking cheeseburger!" And she said, "Aaaaand..?" And I said, "You were right! I'm not cold anymore!"