Just thought I’d let you know that I’m losing my shit to the point of (not actually) thinking that I just shouldn’t come to the race. I don’t really mean it, but it is definitely circling through my batshit crazy brain. Normally I don’t get cold feet till 12-24 hours before the start, so this is super fun for me.Who knows what the hell actually sent me into a crazy downward spiral, but there I was and there I more or less stayed right up until my flight to California. I reverted to auto-pilot, so I actually did pack and get on the plane, but the crazy was still sitting quietly there in the background.
- I still have a cold and my sinuses seem hell bent on staying clogged up.
- I have shit weather karma and so it is clearly going to rain.
- The water is stupid cold and I am going to freeze.
- I hate disassembling and reassembling my bike and the wheels don’t fit well in the case and TSA is definitely going to break something.
- I am never going to be able to hold my watts and it’s going to take me forever to finish the bike and my time will suck and so there’s no point in showing up.
Arriving in California (where, it's worth noting, neither my kids nor my to do list live) helped a lot to calm my nerves. All the unknowns were starting to sort themselves out - the chance of rain had vanished, my sinuses were semi-clearing, and TSA did not end up breaking my bike - and I think that helped immensely. The Pacific was still fucking cold, as we discovered during our practice swim, but at least the air was warm.The Morning
At some point over the prior 36 hours in California, my batshit crazy mindset had transformed into something resembling calm. I had a race plan and I was focused on executing it. I knew that the plan was going to involve some suffering, particularly on the run, and I was ready for it.So race morning I did not wake up and wonder why the fuck I do this to myself, which is my usual MO on race morning. I just got up, sucked down my applesauce squeezers, threw on my kit and headed out with Sarah. We parked, took the shuttle to T1 (or really halfway there, and then we had to walk the other half), and I started setting up my transition spot.
If it hadn't been totally evident the day prior when I forgot which direction to rack my bike (it's cool, this was only my 29th triathlon), I was very, very rusty on how this whole race-thing was supposed to flow. My trusty 70.3 race plan ensured that I hadn't forgotten anything, but setting up transition was less "I need this and that and the other thing" and more "what's all the stuff in my bag" and "oh yeah I guess I'll need that."
At 6:30 - 20 minutes before the AG start - I had done all the transition things I needed to, wetsuit was on to my waist, and I was mostly worried about not leaving my goggles or ponytail holders (yup, hair was still down and unruly) before heading to the swim queue. Figured I had plenty of time when I walked over to the swim start chute ... and began a 15 minute, panic-stricken, swimming-upstream struggle from the back of the chute all the way up to the 30-35 minute sign. What started as politely walking through the crowd ended with me basically throwing elbows and screaming at people to get out of my way.
Note to self: if I do this race again, get in the freaking swim queue by 6:15! Maybe even earlier. What the hell. Anyway, I did manage to get up to the 30-35 zone and finish putting on my wetsuit and did up my pigtails (cuz nothing says awesome like a 47-yr-old in pigtails) and got my neoprene cap and my goggles and my race cap on and all was ok. And just like that, we were off.
The Swim - 33:53 / 5th (!!!) AG
Coach had instructed me to swim hard - harder than I usually do, and harder than I'd normally dare - and I was hoping to finally break through to a 32:XX split with that approach. Swimming in the harbor (they'd moved the swim from the planned ocean start due to wave height) was certainly going to help with that goal. The harbor was also nice because the shallow entry wasn't ice cold and so the swim start wasn't take-your-breath-away temps the way the ocean had been in our practice swim the day prior.Once I got going and dealt with the weird shock of cold about 10 meters in, the swim was pretty uneventful. I swam hard, sighted, tried not to back off the pace, ticked off the buoys, made the turns, and headed back. I was passing people - kind of a lot of people - which made me happy. There were some bumps and run ins with the swimmers around me, but nothing that was really a big deal.
The final couple hundred meters did get a little crazy. It was like swimming in a washing machine. Apparently that's because there were still people starting the swim as we were finishing (O'side swim start is spread over an hour or so) and hoards of people swimming in opposite directions must churn up the water something good. But I kept pushing and maintained a strong pull and next thing you know the swim was over. Like I said: uneventful.
T1 - 5:30
Oceanside is a HUGE race - 3500 participants? - and so transition is understandably a huge piece of real estate. Which means it's a long ass run from the swim exit all the way down one side of transition before you turn around and run to your bike. This gave me time to be a little annoyed at my 33-high swim split (I swam hard! but I could've swum harder ... and I stopped being annoyed post-race when I found out I was 5th AG in the swim out of 130ish). It also gave me lots of time to figure out how to unlock the buttons on my watch, which auto-lock for open water swims. I swear it took me the entire run from swim exit to my bike, and more than a moment of thinking I just wasn't going to be able to do it, but I finally figured it out.Got to my bike: take a breath, dump the wet gear, shoes, race bib (yup you need it on the bike for this race), helmet, GO!
The Bike - 3:03:38 / 23rd AG
I'd studied the course profile, heard about the "steep 1/2 mile hill" and the bad roads, and thought I knew what I was getting into. As with just about anything, studying and hearing about things is not nearly the same as experiencing them firsthand. So here's what reality looked like:The first few miles really were crap. Winding asphalt trails with a ton of little curves and bumps and ups and downs and it was impossible to get into aero and establish some rhythm. Also there were tons of people and between passing a few and getting passed by many (the downside of swimming fast) I spent most of my energy just navigating the paths and the potholes and the people.
Finally got on open road, settled in, and realized that - contrary to my concern about my bike strength - the watts were coming way too easily. My normalized power was WAY above target. But hey, it's only been a few miles, it'll all work itself out.
The rest of the first 28 miles went by in a weird time-is-moving-both-slowly-and-quickly kind of way. My watts were still high, but gradually coming down. The course was crowded as fuck - as in, twenty people in the 30 to 50 yards ahead of me at all times - so it was really challenging to ride my pace and not draft. It didn't help that there was a moto cruising along +/- 20 yards from me for what felt like miles, but I used that time to coast a little and help get my watts down. The roads were sometimes passable and sometimes crap, and there were bottles everywhere.
So I turned into Camp Pendleton and around there was the half-way mark, and while my normalized power was finally where it was supposed to be, my half-way split was 1:28. Seriously?!?!? Coach said the first half of the course was fast, and that is not a fast half-way split, and my bike split is going to suck and this is not ok. FUCK.
But there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it, so I started looking for the first "hill." I'm from Colorado, and we have hills, and I've even ridden some of them, so I wasn't worried. Until I saw the hill. MOTHER. FUCKER. Yeah, so, Colorado apparently has not cornered the market on hills. There was a sign that explained that this one's called "Hell Hill" and I can see why. It was straight up, approximately forever, and it was going to hurt like shit. Having no choice, I hauled my ass up that hill, spiking stupid high watts in my granny gear, and getting out of the saddle a few times to keep my legs turning over and prevent me from ending up on the asphalt. And then I decided to blow downhill and not give up a second coasting, and so I didn't get any recovery. Which is probably why the cramps started.
After "Hell Hill" there was "Junior Hell Hill" and "Mini Hell Hill" plus some miles of just general uphill in between I forgot which two hell hills. There were descents, but for some reason they don't really provide recovery. And after all that you've got 10 or so miles into a headwind to get back to transition. I spent those miles in complete misery. Going uphill I crushed my watts because I'm not good at holding back on hills, and then downhill I dealt with stabbing stomach (?) cramps, right up under my ribcage. I stopped taking in nutrition thinking that was the cause of the cramps (stupid) and wondered if the cramps would stay this bad or maybe get worse and if they were this bad on the run what would I do??? And my normalized power once again climbed way above where it was supposed to be (double stupid - and I KNOW BETTER) and I knew I was doomed.
By the time I was battling the headwinds for those final miles back to T2, I was alternately working hard to get the damn bike over with and delusionally hoping to break 3:00, and holding back because I knew I'd fried my legs on the hills and I was trying to keep the cramps in check. I was holding onto the thought that somehow run legs and bike legs were different and I would be ok.
T2 - 4:22
The unexpectedly nice thing about T2 was that you ride your bike down the (very narrow, therefore very slow) swim exit to the back of T2 before dismounting. I thought I'd be running that distance, so coasting on my bike and having the chance to collect myself before starting the run was great.Ditched my bike, swapped out shoes, grabbed my visor, on my way. Oh, and hit the port-o-potty. Then really on my way.
The Run - 2:08:56 / 50th AG
The run is typically my weakest leg, and therefore is the obvious place to make gains. The goal of a sub-2:00 run was the big focus of my training for this race. But even as I was finishing the bike (and knowing that I'd over-biked that course), I was thinking maybe this wasn't the course to be shooting for a sub-2 run. That maybe that goal was better saved for a day when the bike course wasn't fucking ridiculous.But I started the run - and I was feeling good! Legs felt fine, not trashed at all. Something had magically gotten the cramps to disappear, and there was some cloud cover, and all was right with the world. I was running fast - too fast - and I was trying to slow down. I kept looking at my watch, kept trying to slow my pace, managed to get to where I felt like I was cruising at a slow jog - and I was still going to fast. I finally gave up and just ran the pace I was running (triple stupid - and I KNOW BETTER). I was thinking that if I kept feeling that good I was going to have an amazing day. HA.
I blew up at mile 2. Mile 2 of a 13.1 mile run leg. That's a lot of miles to be staring at when the shit has hit the fan. Could've been because I had left 200 calories in my bike bottle. Could've been because I biked 50 minutes at 93% in the middle of the bike course (idiot). Could've been because I'd run the first two miles too fast and my lactate levels had skyrocketed (double idiot). I didn't have the presence of mind to think all that through at that point, I just kept going. All I could think was, "Never give up on the idea that your next mile will be better."
Miles 3, 4, and 5 were horrible. Miles 6 and 7 were actually ok. Not great, but ok. At the 7 mile mark I realized that my legs felt like shit but my cardio was fine, so if my legs were going to hurt they might as well hurt running faster. I turned it up a little, and re-blew up. Miles 8, 9, and 10 were back to horrible. I was holding out for a final adrenaline push to get me through the final 5k. The adrenaline finally hit with a half mile to go. Good fucking times.
Overall - 5:56:17 / 26th AG
I also constructed a massive narrative in my head explaining all the contextual stuff that I thought contributed to my day. Pre-race stress, my fragile athlete identity and how that ties into my fixation on my bike watts and bike split, how I don't like knowing that a bunch of people are watching my results, yadda yadda yadda. I put just a small fraction of this contextual narrative into my post-race recap email to Coach ... and she totally called me to the carpet on all of it.
After a brief double take, I realized that I'd gotten incredibly skilled in creating these elaborate narratives to let myself off the hook for the mistakes I made on race day. I had gotten serious about my goals, but still had a rec league, just-do-what-you-can-and-enjoy-the-day-and-give-yourself-some-grace mindset. If I want to have Varsity goals, I needed to stop letting myself off the hook and adopt a Varsity, toughen-the-fuck-up-and-deal-with-your-shit-and-get-it-done mindset.
I always say that you learn something at every race. THIS was my biggest learning: It's time to stop making excuses and just get my shit done. I'm so grateful to have a Coach who doesn't pull any punches, and who called me out on my bullshit. I responded to her email with a list of things that I can/will/need to do better at my next race. Thankfully that race is only a few weeks away, and I have the opportunity to make some immediate changes. My next race still may not be perfect, but I can see the path toward improvement, and that's exciting.