MARkicksass

Standing there on the beach, I was happy to be at the beach and to get in the water, but I didn’t really want to race anymore.  I warmed up but I always feel very slow in the ocean compared to the pool, and honestly I do kind of semi-panic when I’m trying to swim freestyle in the ocean (as opposed to just bobbing around or whatever).  I just didn’t feel like I was going to do all that great.  I’ve done 9 sprint triathlons before and 3 aquathlons, but it’s been 4 years since my last tri and I just felt like a complete beginner.  And intimidated.  I think it would have been worse if the transition area had been lit at all and I could see all the other athletes and their fancy gear.  Since it was pitch-freaking dark, I basically only saw anyone down at the beach after the sun came up.  

The swim went ok.  The waves were a lot higher than any I’d encountered in this round of training, but I got out beyond them really easily.  I’m glad I practiced entry and exit.  I did wear my goggles (I had been considering going without). They didn’t leak and that was nice.  I felt like I was getting left behind by my wave pretty badly.  The wave wasn’t huge but it was all women 39 and under.  (I’m 38).  I don’t look behind me at all when I’m swimming, so I really could only see who was in front, though.  

Although I got beyond the breakers easily, there was a good amount of chop and I just felt like I was swimming really slowly and going more up and down than forward.  In the pool I almost always breathe on every 4th stroke, but I was breathing every 2nd and still feeling out of breath.  I know part of that is the feeling of being squeezed by the wetsuit and the panic of being in the ocean and in a race.  And 800 meters laid out in buoys looks far.  From the shore, the middle (farthest) buoy looked like it was on the damn horizon.  I didn’t stop at all, but I did a lot of looking up and took a break to do breaststroke a couple of times.  

I did catch one guy from the wave in front but they were like 9 minutes ahead of us so he was really struggling.  Some guys from the wave behind us caught me (I don’t know who those guys were, the only guys behind us were Clydesdales and Heroes and I don’t know what Heroes means).  The Clydesdales were 2 waves behind us.  Anyway, the guys that did catch up were swimming like flailing, splashing octopi.  I managed to get slapped and kicked near the 2nd buoy, even though I gave them a wide berth.    

Actually I had a woman at the beginning from my wave run into me from behind several times in a row.  I tried not to kick her but for fuck’s sake.  It wasn’t crowded, we had the whole damn ocean, and I didn’t start in front. There really wasn’t a reason for her to run into me when we were all spread out like that.

Heading back to the last buoy, I went wide (by accident).  So did a lot of people in front of me.  I slowed down a little so I could watch the waves behind me and not get wiped out, as they were still big.  I had no practice body surfing for this race since the ocean was calm when I went to train, so I was conservative and didn’t try to ride a huge wave in.  It was not the fastest exit but it was ok.  

After the mats, the transition area is up a HUGE, huge, huge hill.  Did I mention it was huge?  It was San Francisco steep.  I just walked it.  I was not messing with that hill.  As I was walking up, 2 of the spectators looked at me and then said to each other, “Is that it?  Are they all done?”  I had just walked around a curve and could not see back to the ocean anymore.  OMG.  Was I last out of the water?  Did everyone pass me and I didn’t see because I swam wide? Well, fuck.  That sucks.  But, I was not going to worry about it.

Back at the transition, there were a lot of bikes still there, but then again they were also having a duathlon and I wasn’t sure if those guys had come back yet.  (Ultimately, I wasn’t last out of the water and I counted on the results page and 98/350 people swam slower than me - even if a lot of them exited sooner since 4 waves started earlier).  

The bike was way hillier than I’d trained for.  In the first 0.8 miles, I was huffing and puffing.  Or, did I even ever stop huffing and puffing after the swim?  I just remember looking down at my bike computer and thinking, “Oh, shit.”  Well, I had a choice to make, back off or just go all out.  I decided to go all out.  I think I had a decent bike.  Average 16.1 mph, Max 35.6.  16 mph is slow, but it’s good for me.  I don’t think I’ve ever averaged more than 17 mph in any race, ever.  And, I also don’t have aerobars.  I really went hard on the downhills.  I even passed a tandem at one point.  I am not good at climbing but I always used to be reasonably fast on the downhill (just noticing I’d pass people on the downhill and they’d pass me back on the uphill).  So I am glad I didn’t let fear stop me from going fast, as it has some lately in training.  With the course being closed I was less worried about getting killed.  Although, it was a 2 loop bike course so the course was very full.  There were some slow people that were riding unpredictably and/or didn’t know to stay to the right if they were slow.  That was irritating.  

Then, the run.  I was feeling slow but I improved after the turnaround.  I wanted to run an under 10:00 pace and I did that.  The run was fairly hilly but I am trained for that.  It was also hot and I’m trained for that, too!  :)  I finished strong which felt good.  The run course was short if my Garmin is correct - I got 2.95 miles.

Results - there were 11 people in my age group and 350 people in the race.  I placed 6/11 with an overall time of 1:39:43.  I was 238/350.  800m swim time was 16:46, T1 5:26, 12 mile bike 46:39, T2 2:35, Run 28:16 (9:35 pace considering it was 2.95 miles).  I placed 5th out of 11 for everything except T2, which I was 9th out of 11.  That T2 cost me 5th place!  I am slow at transitions.  I’m surprised my T1 wasn’t worse than it was.

I’m really happy with that race.  I wish the swim had gone a little better (mostly that I felt stronger), but it went okay.  I know that I absolutely gave it everything I had on the bike.  And I think I did pretty good on the run, too.  I probably should do some transition training since I am terrible at transitions and out of practice.