Scenic doesn't mean flat!

[colby]

Yesterday, I raced the Coeur d'Alene Triathlon, which is Olympic Distance. I have never actually done this distance before, except in training. They call it "the Scenic Challenge." Yeah, the bike ride sure was scenic! The moral of the story is: a scenic bike ride doesn't mean a flat one. I haven't really been riding hills since Ironman, and if I do this race again, it will involve more hill training.

I was able to use my new sleeveless wetsuit (I ended up with the Zoot Fuzion SL). It fit really well and I had a really good feeling swim in it, so it's definitely a keeper. If the suit didn't fit, I was just going to go without - I wasn't really concerned about the distance with or without the wetsuit.

They do a tri and a du at about the same time. The swim was the same area as the Ironman swim, except backwards (clockwise; and a little shorter). The weather was cloudy and threatening wind (but not really rain), but thankfully it held off for the swim (if it was windy and whitecapping, they threatened to make us ALL do a duathlon). There were 3 waves of swimmers - about 600 people did the tri total. They did 39 and under, 40+, and teams. It was a lot of people in the water all at once. I had a decent swim, it felt good, I felt strong, though probably could have gone out harder.

http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/s...hed=1249800682

The transition area was up sand, a couple of cement stairs, and into a grassy area of the park, which was nice (though if you stubbed your toe on those stairs, that would really suck). Getting off the wetsuit was a cinch, maybe a couple of extra seconds in transition. Surprisingly easy.

The bike went out parallel to the Ironman bike course first section, took a turn and went up. Up up up. Not super steep hills, just... relentless hills. Endless uphill. Not many forgiving downhills, except the end of the hills when we rejoined the land of the living, which went downhill very quickly (bike computer says 43mph). There were some very pretty views, though, of the entire lake area (while you weren't grunting), beautiful trees, and fairly well maintained roads. The whole time, I was thinking "so much for my 3 hour or less finish"

Not flattering (outbound):
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/s...hed=1249796675

Glad to be back (inbound):
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/s...hed=1249802562

Returning to transition, I was somewhat concerned about the damage of all those hills on my legs compared to recent races. I did get some fancypants quick laces but did not get a chance to run in them so I didn't dare unlace my shoes. I also put on socks. My feet were definitely cold and still wet.

The run was basically flat. Finally, something flat!! My legs felt okay, might have been able to push harder, but not bad. I knew after that bike it was pretty unlikely I would get into sub-10 minute miles. I just wanted to finish. 6 miles seemed to go by pretty fast, surprisingly - after mile 5 my run felt more like a trot, though, I think that's where I lost all my ground. The run was really uneventful, though I saw a lot of people fading.

Finish (no run pictures):
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/s...hed=1249805251

Overall: 382 (of 606, male and female - no female-only results were posted - there were 223 women, the rest men).
total 2:57:23 / div place 2
swim 0:24:43 314 / 606 - 1:36 min / 100 m
T1 2:33 (no ranks posted)
bike 1:24:46 417 / 606 - 16.3mph
T2 2:24 390 / 606
run 1:02:57 583 / 606 - 10.1 min / mile (apparently slow runners don't enjoy Olympic distance triathlons )

I had decided to race athena in my "summer of racing athena" and ended up 2nd of something like 6-7 women - passed on the run, big surprise. Had I gone age group, I'd have been 18th out of 37. Not bad either way, and I did end up under 3 hours, which was my goal - especially considering the hills. My bike time felt slow, but I really would have to train for it in order to be able to bust out anything faster.