Blue Lake Olympic Tri Race Report

[Susan Otcenas]

I look at GLC's photos with great envy. She got ALL the beautiful weather on Saturday for the Sprint.

Sunday, on the other hand, dawned wet and gloomy. It was raining. Hard. And it only got worse as the day progressed.

Having slightly injured my left foot, I decided to baby it by opting out of the run. I was able to sucker my friend Jill into doing a relay with me. She has politely requested that I heal up soon, so she doesn't have to run for me again. I'll try very hard to comply.

As GLC has alluded to, we've had lots and lots of rain here lately. Far more than typical, and later in the season than is typical. So, the ground at Blue Lake is totally saturated and race officials moved the parking elsewhere. However, the transition area and course were unchanged. And oh boy was it MUDDY! The mud was further exacerbated by the fact that the sprint was held in the same spot the previous day, and the course and transition area were already torn up as a result.

The one bright spot was that the organizers had set up a 10x20 canopy in the relay area, so that relay racers could wait for each other out of the rain. Of course, we all set up our transition areas under that canopy as well!

I was in heat 5 for the swim. I'm always amazed at how far 1500meters looks in a lake. There were 5 orange buoys, and that 5th one was WAY the heck down there. Nothing to do but just do it. The horn went off and off we went. I always position myself to the outside and back to stay out of the melee. I was really pleased that I managed to find a rhythm relatively quickly. Normally, in a pool, I'm a 3-stroke alternate side breather. I was able to do that about 75-80% of the time in this event. Every so many strokes, I would take an extra breath, if I was feeling like I needed it, but for the most part I was happy that I managed to stay calm. I sighted often and managed to maintain a fairly decent straight line. It helped that we swam parallel to the far shore for a fair bit. One nice thing about swimming is that you aren't really aware that it's raining! And boy, was it raining.

I was really tickled to get out of the water and see 33 minutes and change on my watch! Time to the mat was 33:40. Big improvement for me.

Fairly long run from the lake to transition. I jogged it carefully, both to baby my foot AND because the path was totally treacherous. By the time I got to transition, my feet were covered in mud. Excellent.

I used my towel to wipe off as much as I could, slid on some socks (I just can't ride without them) and pulled on my Sidis. I added a Gore Windstopper Vest and some longfingered gloves. It wasn't all that cold, but I suffer rather badly from Reynaud's Syndrome which has gotten progressively worse over the past two years. The gloves helped keep the circulation going in my fingers. Loooong run on muddy grass to the Bike Mount line. The ginormous puddle at the mount line was perfectly placed to help get the mud out of my cleats. (Lemons, meet lemonade!)

It seemed like the rain got even heavier on the bike lane, but maybe that's just because we were hitting those drops at high speed. The course was pancake flat with no turns (other than the two turnarounds) and I managed to average 20.05mph, for a time of 1:13:01 for 40K. Body was warm, but my feet were numb from the ankle down.

Jill was waiting in transition and took off when I tagged her. While she ran, I ducked under the canopy and attempted to make some order out of the muddy nightmare that was my transition bag, wetsuit, bike gear, etc. I had a warm DRY wool top in my bag, and a waterproof Gore jacket, both of which I slipped on. I found some food in the athlete's food line (AA Sports provides such crappy post race food. ) Then, Jeff & I went off to the finish line to wait for Jill. Then, the skies totally opened up. Good thing we had an umbrella. She finished in 1:01, giving us a total time of 2:54:26.

I have to admit that it was very anti-climatic to not be the one crossing the finish line. For me, the race just ended, without that finish line satisfaction. It was kinda weird. OTOH, I really enjoyed sharing the experience with Jill. She's my closest friend, and it was fun to do a relay with her. This is the 2nd time I've convinced her to do the run leg in a relay (the first time was in May, for another injured friend of mine), hence her request that we all heal up, thankyouverymuch.

Jeff took some great photos, which I'll try to post later.

[Alex]

Nicely done, Susan!

[colby]

Awesome job, Susan. Sounds like a day best suited to swimming and running but not so much the biking. Congrats on knocking a huge chunk off your swim! Amazing the difference a season makes. You're totally on pace for your HIM. Keep that foot healing!

[sgtiger]

Way to go, Susan!

[OakLeaf]

Way to go Susan!

[rocknrollgirl]

Well, you have given me hope. I have an Oly scheduled this Sunday and the weather looks awful. I will race a mt bike in hub deep mud over very big rocks, but the thought of a wet road scares me to death.

Great job.

[GLC1968]

The one bright spot was that the organizers had set up a 10x20 canopy in the relay area, so that relay racers could wait for each other out of the rain. Of course, we all set up our transition areas under that canopy as well!

Nice!

I can't even imagine how muddy it must have been for your race - ours was so bad for me and I was only in heat 6 (of 13!!). I still have not tried to clean either my bike or my shoes yet....

Great job on both the swim and the bike time! When we saw the rain on Sunday morning, we both let out a groan for you guys. I've never seen it rain so hard for so long without a break since moving to Oregon 2 years ago. You both get extra 'bad-a$$' points for toughing it out!

[roadie gal]

Good job! I can't imagine riding in the rain like that.

[Bike Chick]

Awesome job, Susan, in some miserable weather. Keep babying that foot and get healed up