This morning... King Tut Sprint Triathlon. My second tri of the season, after a disastrous first one at the Tri Cowtown Sprint.
The past week has been manic - race week at Playtri always is - and I've been averaging about 6 hours of sleep a night, and logging nutrition had, unfortunately, taken a back seat to work as well. Then last night we went out with a group of friends for a huge Italian dinner complete with wine and tiramisu, and had my favorite triathlete, Mandy, to stay over. To top off the ideal racing situation, I had to be on site by 5:00 AM this morning to run race day packet pickup before the race. Tired, dehydrated, and oh, by the way, it was cold AGAIN and it took us about 20 minutes to get my wetsuit zipper to work.
My head wasn't exactly in it this morning.
But none the less, I was at the swim start in plenty of time - cold, cranky, and distracted, but at least I was there. And in my wetsuit. Thank god. My wave was the first after the Open wave left, and as Mandy and I hit the water at the start, I thought maybe, just maybe this could be a decent race. No time to dwell on it, though, because the next thing I knew Staci was blowing the megaphone siren and we were off. I immediately swam off in the wrong direction, but got back on track with a decent draft soon enough. I didn't feel strong, but I didn't feel nearly as bad as I did at Tri Cowtown. I warmed up once I was moving, too. I caught a few drafts throughout the swim, none of them great, but it was still good practice. Finally, with about 100m left, I just sighted for the finish - I felt like I had been really slow, and just wanted to get the heck out of there. (Of course, turns out I was averaging 1:59 100's, which for me, in an open water swim, is actually pretty good - you can never tell for sure!).
When I got into T1 I soon realized that my wetsuit wasn't coming off without a fight. I ended up sitting on the ground, yanking on the legs and muttering profanities under my breath (not one of my prouder moments). After a solid three minutes in transition, I finally managed to somehow rip the wetsuit off and get cycling socks on my cold, still-wet feet, and hit the bike course. Even though I bought super awesome new Trivent Women's cycling shoes yesterday, I didn't have them fit to my bike yet, so I was still using my pretty cruddy old road cycling shoes this morning (one of my tri shoes was lost in the move two months ago, and has yet to be recovered... very mysterious), and this came back to haunt me at the end of the bike. The bike itself was fine - I averaged 18.5, not great, but still better than Tri Cowtown. I caught a couple of legal drafts, but only two or three women passed me, and they were a good deal faster than me, so they didn't make the best leads. By the end of the bike, I hadn't seen but two girls from my age group, and since I was convinced they had all beat me in the swim, I wasn't in the best mood.
Then I had my Cinderella moment.
While getting my foot out of my shoe about 1/2 mile from T2, my cycling shoe pops off the pedal. Instead of stopping, I keep trying to pedal with my sock-clad foot, but after 100 meters or so that just isn't working so I hop off and run my bike the last 1/4 mile to transition in one cycling shoe - again, muttering less-than-appropriate phrases beneath my breath and hoping no one can hear me!
By the time my bike was racked in T2, I was downright cranky, and I needed to go to the bathroom. I also couldn't feel my feet. BAD combination. But I high tailed it out of there (I had the fastest T2 for my AG) with my bib bumber and hit the running path. I immediately felt like turning around and heading for the port-o-potty, and walk/running the run - NOT part of my race strategy, but I was so frustrated at that point that I didn't even care. I heard a girl breathing behind me as she gained on me, and I sped up a little at the thought of getting passed AGAIN (or so I thought). Then I thought about World Championships coming up, and what would I do if I had a crappy swim/bike there? You can't exactly walk/run the 5K at a World Championship. So somehow, I sucked it up, and started out the find the rest of my age group. And then, it happened... about 1/2 mile in, I hit my stride. I don't think I've hit my 5K stride since before I had mono in 2009. But all of a sudden it just felt like I was flying, and wasn't even working for it. I started passing people left and right. I caught Mandy at the turnaround, and caught three girls from AG shortly after. I was breathing hard and working at that point, but my determination was completely outweighing any discomfort at that point, and I just kept flying. As I made my way up the last hill, I was tired, but I still felt amazing - I couldn't believe I had overcome my frustration so completely, and I shot the photographer a huge smile right before the finish line.
Turns out, I PR'ed my 5K time this morning with a 6:56 pace. I can barely describe how totally elated I was when I saw the unofficial results and realized that I had run my fastest 5K EVER - including before I was sick two years ago. I also realized that I could have gone even faster, since I messed around a good chunk of the time, thinking that even though I was booking it, there was no way I was going to place. What an incredible feeling. It made me feel like, finally, maybe I deserved my spot on Team USA. It also made me realize that I really am back to full health. I couldn't have run that race otherwise.
Mandy and I stuck around for awards, and she won her age group while I placed 2nd in mine. Lots of Playtri folks were on the podium this morning, and it was exciting to hear all those familiar names being called for awards. I can't wait for the Kiwanis Sprint in two weeks.
Happy training everybody : )
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