Last report for a little while, I swear - Danskin Seattle
This weekend I raced with my mother in law at the Danskin Womens Tri in Seattle. I have a sweet spot in my heart for this race, it was my first in 2006, and my mother in law did it the year before which is what got me motivated to say Yes I Can. It's a big race, so I can use it to experiment or race a little differently and know that it's pretty unlikely that I will place in the top 10 AG without another year of pushing on the running.
So, last year, the race was ran by a different company when Trek and Danskin split and Sally Edwards went to Trek. This year, the race is managed by the same company as Trek, and does almost everything the same. It is the only race other than Ironman I've done where you drop off your bike the day before, I guess with up to 4,000 other people it's pretty rough to do that that morning. Seattle is supposedly the biggest Danskin race, Danskin supposedly the biggest women-only triathlon. All kinds of women do this race, seeing them finish and knowing the courage it took them to start the journey is pretty awesome.
My mom-in-law (heretofore called "mom" because I don't really discriminate between moms) and I went down to packet pick-up and bike drop-off together. The expo was more sparse than usual, with the typical bare naked granola, danskin and REI booths, and I think there might have been a couple others, but not as big as 2006-2008 or even 2009. They also do body marking the day before, which is kind of weird, but again I guess the numbers make it hard to do the day of. You look up your # in a book (after you figure out that's what you're supposed to do, it took us a bit), go pick up your packet (where they totally didn't look at my USAT card), go to a separate line for your swim cap (they rotate 4 or 5 colors through up to 45 swim waves) and t-shirt (they were out of all but Small and Medium, and a different company made the Large and Extra Large so the Medium was actually bigger than the Large :rolleyes: - not a problem for me but a lot of larger ladies do this race). They were also out of race bags, so we supposedly will get ours in the mail (one of those drawstring bag dealies). Bike racking is always entertaining, I am in the absolute wrong age group that is the maximum distance from swim start. ;) I say the rest of us subtract 3-4 minutes from our transition times compared to the elites because there's no way to compare where their crap is to where ours is. The older you get, though, the closer you get, which is neat. Also, it was H-O-T in Seattle, abnormally so - several days at 90-95. I was really hoping to enjoy cooler race weather for the run.
Because the race is so large, my mother in law and I start about an hour apart. We basically finish at the same time (linear time, not chip time), but her goal this year was to beat me to the finish. ;) She started at 6:54 or so, I started at 8:02 or so. We stayed the night before with the in-laws and carpooled to the race around 5:30 in the camper van, which meant the bikes didn't have to be affixed to the outside of the car on our return (always an adventure with Colby's Small Framed Super Expensive Bike). I had a tasty bagel with PB for breakfast, split with my husband. I had to go to the bathroom before the race, it was just too long to wait... always an adventure in the tri suit. I got to see mom finish the swim (slightly ahead of schedule) and go off on her bike (running around everyone that was walking, go mom!) before I had to get in the water. There were HUGE numbers of people who had never raced before, so I was giving advice before the start - primarily not to panic and to stay calm. The wave starts are every 4 minutes, and I usually push to the front because I'm a decent swimmer.
I talked it over with my husband and decided to experiment with the wetsuit. The water was 72, so I know I can swim without the wetsuit, but since I race the same course in September with the Trek Women tri, I decided to compare swim performances with/without the wetsuit. For reasons physical (the way you are buoyant? the way you roll? I am not very well practiced at swimming this year?) or psychological (not used to the cold water? thought I'd be slow so I was?), I added three whole minutes from last year. I know the water was more choppy because I could feel the chop compared to swims past, but it wasn't 3 minutes choppy. Maybe 1 or 2 total. Also, people can't swim in straight lines. I always panic about not swimming toward the buoy because it seems like nobody else is swimming the same line as I am, but I can basically sight the buoy, swim toward it, correct once or twice, and hit it dead on. Not so much for the people around me, which always mixes me up. I could tell halfway through the swim that there were too many caps of my color around me for me to be swimming my usual speed, but I kept muscling on. I powered out of the water and to T1 - the timing mats are way out of the water.
Long, long, long, long jog to T1. Passing people most of the way. I was pretty happy with how I arranged my stuff in transition, it worked well. I made the long, long, long, long jog to bike start and hammered past a zillion people. One or two people caught up with me, so I kept hammering, the usual technique, I'm a pretty strong cyclist. Unfortunately the express lanes were down to one lane each way for part of the ride, and people were not moving RIGHT so I actually had to stop pedaling for a good 30 seconds at least twice to not run anyone over. I did not have to stop to ride up the short steep hill, which was great, though I did have to go really slow DOWN the hill instead of shooting out of it as I'd prefer, it was just not safe to pass. Again, add a 2 minute bonus to the elite racers who don't have to ON YOUR LEFT repeatedly ;) I felt like the bike was a bit windy, but could have been worse, and has been worse in the past. It just felt like a constant "sand in your tires" type thing. Mostly uneventful - I fueled once at about 15 mins in, and once right before the finish. I tried to get more water in me but kind of spaced because I zone out so well (pictures show Race Face in full force). A couple of girls tried to keep up or leapfrog me, but toward the end I definitely had more oomph and they were long gone. Their legs were also 6" longer so I figured they'd catch me running anyway.
On to T2.... and the long, long, long, long jog. I grabbed my bottle off my bike and put some more water in me, even though it slowed me down a bit. Put on the five fingers, which went on pretty easily. Spaced and strapped them too tight, so I stopped and loosened the straps - maybe I should switch to classics. The run start was also far away. ;)
The run is pretty flat, with one big hill, and some minor ups and downs. It felt hot. I put water in and on me, and kept my HR in the zone. For the first 1 or 2 miles, I feel like I need to stay around 178, then after that I can power on at 180+ for the last mile to the .1 when I can hit 185+ for the sprint finish. Still working on the metrics there. Anyway, I passed a ton of people, but that's how this race is. I passed a couple of people who looked like real runners (probably not triathletes, or negatively affected by the unusually hot weather), and only got passed by people who were clearly topping their age groups from age groups in/around my own, which means start times around my own.
At the finish, I heard my triathlon life story. My father in law had chatted it up with the announcer who decided to share. "Here comes Colby, daughter in law of Mom, who just wants you to know she finished a long time ago. Colby saw Mom race in 2005 and went on to race her first Dasnkin in 2006, then went on to finish 3 Ironmans." All I hear is the crowd say "jeez" or "wow" and applaud, Colby's face officially turns red. Someone was trying to ask about my shoes but I was totally distracted by hearing my life story. :p Dear volunteer, thank you for being so patient with my Zoot timing chip strap, and yes, I love my Vibrams.
Mom was there waiting for me, we hugged and took a picture together. I have a hard time putting into words what it means to share the experience. She has 2 boys and I am the first "daughter", this is something we share on a level that is pretty awesome. And hard to describe. :) We went off to find the water and food - bagels with cream cheese and peanut butter (not together), bananas, oranges, goldfish crackers, lemonade, red licorice, probably some other stuff. I got one of each bagel and some other stuff to eat and share a tiny bit with my sherpa/husband. We sat in the shade and chatted for a few minutes, then heard they were registering for next year, so of course we did. Next door were the results, where we found out we finished basically an hour apart - 2:28 and 1:29.
So, after looking up the results, we'll see how the reverse of the wetsuit experiment goes in September. Of course, I'll probably swim more between now and then, too, which will make all things not exactly created equal. I had the 19th fastest bike time overall - faster than the 2nd place finisher - which makes me really wonder what I would have done with a little less traffic in front of me. I finally made it to 20.0 mph on this race/course. :) My run time was okay, I really need to go back to working on the run. Swim time was pretty ugh for me, had I not lost time there I would have really picked up a few minutes overall.
.5 mi Swim 0:18:49
12 mi Bike 0:35:53 (20.0mph)
3.1 mi Run 0:28:55 (9:19 min/mi)
Overall: 1:29:38. AG 22/339, OA 142/3313.
Last year:
swim: 0:15:20
bike 0:37:09 (19.3mph)
run: 0:29:54 (9:38 min/mi)
Overall: 1:29:20, 24/374 AG, 151/3500 OA.
My sprint distance goals for next year are to edge toward a 25 minute run, a sub 15-minute swim, and to keep on the bike pace - at least not lose time.
Pictures... http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_e...859&LNSEARCH=1
