The beat goes on, to another race day...

[colby]

Hey ladies, back to racing this weekend. Last week I had a long week at work, so I debated signing up until the last minute. Thursday night I decided to go ahead and sign up. This race is an Olympic-distance race in the same general area as the Ironman race. Each of the swim, bike, and run courses do share parts of the IM course, but also deviate significantly.

I knew I was in for a long race when at 5:30 when I pulled my sorry self out of bed and really just wanted to go back to sleep (5:30 already being fairly late for a 7AM race start ). Normally when I race, it's on a Sunday, so I get that extra day of sleep and mental rest between work and race. I don't quite remember that feeling last year, but I do remember wishing it was on Sunday!

Another thing I remember thinking to myself last year was, I should probably train a little bit for this race. More hills on the bike, more weekend distance running up to 8-10 miles, more swimming. I had the same thought this year, too, especially in the last 1-2 miles of the run.

Friday night was the race meeting and packet pick-up, which always involves really long lines. Instead of looking up your number, they look it up, to make sure that you've signed the USAT waiver. While in line, my husband went and sat in the park and the guy in front of me (very ... muscular) chatted it up about the FiveFingers. The mandatory meeting started late and was pretty boring, but I always worry I'll miss some seriously key bit of information beyond wave starts. I assembled all of my stuff and put it in the car Friday night knowing I was already tired. My goal for the race was to perform better than last year (when I thought I did quite well, but pushed hard) and find out how well the feet could handle the barefoot VFF Sprints for 10k.

One really good thing about this race is that the transition area is organised by race #, so it's more fair and less crowded. The bike and run are very well labeled in transition with signs pointing the way. A+ for transition. I set out my stuff, put on my wetsuit, got my good luck kisses, and headed down to the water.

The water was chilly, but perfect for a sleeveless suit. The wave starts were 7:00 everyone 39 and under, 7:10 everyone 40+, and 7:20 teams. The wind had picked up a bit (nowhere near Ironman 2009) and the buoys were moving. I thought the swim looked longer than before, but given how many races I have raced between 2009 and yesterday, it was really hard to tell. This swim (and race in general) always feels... competitive. Everyone who does distance seems to do this race, including people who don't do Ironman (and train just for this race as their A race) and a lot of people who do Ironman (which is a different crowd to begin with). At the same time, there's a handful of people who are still beginner-ish, so your brain can't quite wrap itself around everyone. I set out at cruising speed, knowing it was a longer swim than I had been doing and I needed to conserve a bit. There were two guys swimming my speed who were equally bad at maintaining a straight line. I kept second guessing whether it was them or me - it was them. The swim is "backward" but so is next week's sprint, so I consider this good practice - buoys are on the right instead of the left in a triangle. I didn't set my watch for the swim so I didn't have to reset it on the bike to measure heart rate, so I wasn't sure what my time was.

Into T1, wetsuit came off decently, nothing really noteworthy. On the bike, I started my watch, and wanted to finish the rest of the race under 2:25 (guessing my swim+transition was around 35 minutes). I was shooting to maintain a heart rate about 5 BPM lower than sprint distance until the last 5k of the run. The beginning of the bike is relatively flat, but there was definitely some wind involved. You go up one decent hill then a downhill, but it seemed like we weren't picking up enough speed on the downhill. The good news was that the backside of that downhill (about a mile climb) we had a tailwind that made the climb feel much nicer. After that at about mile 9, you turn and go up. And up. And up. and up. Up, more up. keep going up. I think there are some flats, then maybe a downhill, and you go up some more. The view is AWESOME through this part of the course, when you need a time out from huffing and puffing. Then you go DOWN. I don't quite know the course well enough, I think I could have gained some more time on the bike if I made myself a little more familiar with it. I ate twice on the bike, once toward the beginning, once toward the end.

I totally didn't check my watch as I got off the bike, and forgot to hit the lap button. There is a short jog to the actual timing mats, maybe 30-60 seconds on your fresh off the bike drunken racing legs. T2 was also uneventful, though my feet were kind of asleep from the ride and it made it harder to jam the toes into the pockets. I felt pretty decent through the first part of the run, better than last year when it felt much harder. I put water in/on myself and ate another gel at about mile 2. I think I should add some electrolytes to my repertoire during the hot racing season, I'll have to work on that. I felt good really until mile 4, where I realised my heart rate was beyond what I felt like my effort was, and I knew I should have done some longer runs in preparation. Two girls in my age group passed me at around 1/2 mile to go and complimented my bike as they went by. Thanks, but ARGH! Finally, to the finish! Hooray!! My feet are definitely feeling it around the seams of the shoes.

Post-race food was pretty minimal - some granola bars, bagels, oranges, and bananas. Eh, oh well. The race t-shirts are always nice and well-designed, the swag bags are what you'd expect for the area, and I'll still do this race again. As I went and checked out results, there was a lot of noise about the swim being longer than last year - with most people being up to 10 minutes slower ("this year's 3:05 is last year's 2:55"). This helped when I checked my time and found I was 2 minutes slower than last year. I really wanted to do better, but all things considered, I think I did do better. It didn't feel as difficult for being less prepared, the weather was different this year, and I knew I went into the race a little tired. I finished 10th - the 2 girls who passed me of course finishing 8th and 9th. :P While my nemesis/future training buddy was signed up, she didn't race this year - it turns out last year we finished within 2 minutes of each other, so it would have been fun to see how we compared this year. Darn!

Results:
1.5k/.93mi swim: 0:34:05
40k/24.8mi bike: 1:22:01 (18.1mph)
10k/6.2mi run: 0:59:23 (9:34min/mi)
Total 2:59:32, 10/26 AG.

Last year:
swim (short): 0:24:43
bike: 1:24:46 (17.5mph)
run: 1:02:57 (10:09 min/mi)
Total: 2:57:23. Would have been 18/37 AG (was 2nd Athena)

Pictures of moi....

http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p...0257_23_10_2_2
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p...1995_23_10_1_2 (wow, that's not a flattering angle)
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p...2915_23_10_1_3 (are we there yet?)
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p...i_1086_23_10_3 (outta my way)
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p...i_1087_23_10_3 (another unflattering pose)
http://kmorris.exposuremanager.com/p...i_1088_23_10_3 (now this running picture I like much more)

Next week I'm off to Seattle for the Danskin sprint! My goal is to haul arse. I am hoping it will seem short after this weekend.

[Pika]

great race report! I think it is awesome that you race in your vibrams
and you have great times! way to go for improving over last year!!
good luck on your sprint next week- i am sure it will seem short after this race

[Veronica]

Man... where does your energy come from? I swear you have been racing every weekend since your IM!

Veronica

[OakLeaf]

What V. said. I want what you're having for breakfast.

Either that or you can come over and clean my house.

[Bike Chick]

Awesome, Colby. Great times and cool pics. The background scenery looks beautiful.

Good luck on your sprint next weekend.

[colby]

Thanks everyone!! I'll have to try something different for my race reports, I feel like they are getting a little redundant. This will be my first back to back race weekends, but yes, it is technically my 5th triathlon since June. A little addicted, I suppose.

I do love the scenery here (and in the PNW in general). They should take some pictures from along the course and post them, it's really quite awesome up in the hills. Here's one my husband took of the beach. The water was so clear you could see the markers underwater where the buoys were supposed to be, and you could see the bottom the entire swim.