login
 Swim
Comments: It was deep water start. They had us swim out to start line and then wait. It gave me another chance to make sure the goggles were in place. The horn went off. I immediately found myself between two swimmers. One from Great Britain and the other from Australia. I accelerated a little bit to try to get away from them. With no wetsuit I didn't have to worry about my usual hyperventilation issues. I finally got out from between them, though one of them seemed to spend a good portion of the race on my feet. In a large competitive field like this I'm a MOP swimmer. I was FMOP in this race. There was a 40 second gap between me and the woman who finished just ahead of me in the swim. I had no one to draft on. Until I started catching the previous wave I felt like I was alone except the occaisional tap on the foot from my Aussie drafter. I breathe on my left so when I was heading back on the first loop I'd see a beautiful rainbow every time I took a breath. That was really nice, and I felt like God was reminding me that He was there with me. I wasn't sure how I'd like a two loop swim and was concerned about having all these people in the water at the same time. However with their sending 3 waves out in 5 minute intervals and then waiting 30 minutes or so before sending out the next 3 waves in 5 minute intervals worked very well. I never got run over by the guys who started after us, and I had no trouble working my way around the women who had started 5-10 minutes before me. With the course layout it was easy to stay on course and I had good landmarks to sight on. Since we were in a later wave the wind had picked up a lot from the earlier waves. It was a little rougher then I'm used to, but not so bad. My swim clinic instructor told me he felt the course was about 100 meters long. What would you do differently?: I think I can improve my swimming if I do more. I get lazy during the season and hate making the trip to the pool when I can ride or run from my front door. Off season goal is to spend more time in the pool  Transition 1
Comments: Someone had tied a red ribbon on one end of the rack, and someone had put a piece of orange surveyor tape on the other end. I had these as my land marks to find the rack. ITU rules doesn't allow this so when I came back these things had been cut off. Once again I was a little disoriented and ran around in circles a bit before I found my bike. I also missed the wading pool when coming out of the water so my feet were very sandy. It took me awhile to get my feet clean and my socks on. What would you do differently?: Count the racks so that I don't have to depend on man made landmarks that may or may not be there when I get back. Also see where hoses or pools might be near swim finish.  Bike
Comments: Having ridden the course twice before the race gave me confidence in handling the turns and the sudden wind gusts. I knew what to expect. I started immediately catching and passing people. Even though the course is mostly flat it's challenging since there is a constant headwind. As I'm climbing the first hill going out of town there's an Australian woman to my right. As I pass her I notice she moves all the way over to the right and hits the curb. I was convinced she was going to go down and I wanted to get clear of her in case she bounced off the curb back towards me. She did manage stay up right. I'm not sure if she caught a crosswind or just wasn't very steady on the climb. Because there had been no Team USA qualifier for the final 10 spots I found myself looking at this race as the qualifier. I knew I needed to finish ahead of 10 USA women who had not already made the team. So much for team spirit when you're gunning for other women in your age group from your own country. On the other hand even if I had already made the team I'd want to place as high as I could even if it meant passing my country women. I knew my best chances to achieve this goal was on the bike. Any time I saw a navy blue suit ahead I chased. I got to the one real hill and passed a number of people. After the turn around I passed more people climbing back up. That was pretty much it for hills on the course. The screaming descent wasn't as bad crosswinds wise, but I still opted to stay off the aerobars. You just never can tell when a sudden gust is going pop up and carry you across the road. It's not what you want while going 35+ MPH down a hill. As usual I tried to keep anyone from passing me. I suppose in a field like this that wouldn't seem very realistic. One woman had passed me after the turn around, but I stomped up the hill past her and didn't see her again. Later on a woman in blue one piece suit went by me. I couldn't tell if she was USA or not. The suit was different then this year's uniform, but a number of people were wearing older uniforms. All I knew was she was in my age group so I chased her down and passed again. We did a few back and forths. She complimented me on my riding as I passed again. She dropped back. I guess she figured she'd let me "win this battle" and "win the war" on the run. I had set up my bike with two bottles with straws. One had water and the other had HEED. I went back and forth between the two fluids. Normally I'd only take one large bottle with me, but with the heat I wanted to make sure I had enough to keep me hydrated. I'm not sure I really drank enough, but I wasn't sweating profusely, and I felt good during the ride. I did actually make it back to end of the ride without being passed. This was a vast improvement over last year's ugly bike ride in Madeira where I was pathetically slow, and getting passed like crazy. This was my payback race. What would you do differently?: Pretend I'm 55 so I could be in early wave with less wind. :-) Actually I couldn't have asked for much better a ride. I may suck at running but I beat the gold and bronze nedalists on the bike. :-) Transition 2
Comments: I got out of the shoes a little too early, but not really a big deal. At that point I'm not looking to be hammering. I'm glad the dismount rules were not real strict because I did overshoot the dismount line by a little bit. If a USAT official had been watching theline it would have been a penalty I'm sure. I was still a little off on getting to my rack. But better then T1. Normally I rack by the handle bars but they wanted everyone to rack by the seat again, so I had to flip the bike around. What would you do differently?: See T1 comments.  Run
Comments: This was the hard part. Having started at 8:40 it was now around 10:30 AM and I had 6 miles of running in the heat coming up. The first part of the run was shaded, and I felt pretty good. There were two water stations in the shaded area and I took water only at each one. I didn't see any mile or kilometer markings early on so I had no sense of what pace i was doing. All I know was a lot of the places I gained on the bike were being lost on the run. AS we left the park area there was no shade and seemed like a long time before I'd see another water station. I was starting feel crappy and I hadn't even completed the 1st loop of the run. I decided that I was going to need to drink Gatorade along with water at the next station. I was doing better then this poor woman from New Zealand who passed out along the side. It's spring down there so I'm sure this heat was quite a shock to her system. I almost never drink anything except water on the run. I knew with the heat I needed more then just water so I did ttake Gatorade at the next water stop. It's not my favorite stuff in the world, but beggers can't be choosers when it comes to replacing electrolytes. It did make me feel better as I started the second loop. I continued to get passed by people, though I'd sometimes manage to pass someone. One USA woman in her early 40s would walk, and I pass her, and then she'd start running again and pass me. It was nice as I ran by to hear the "Go USA". I could always tell when I was being passed by someone from another country because then I'd hear "Go Canada" or what ever country they happened to be from. Near the end the woman I had been trading places with caught up with me again. We ran together for awhile, but near the finish line she picked up when someone said "Don't let her beat you!" I'd already beaten her since she had a 10 minute headstart and I was going to cross the line about 30 seconds after her. The one positive thing about this run was that my feet weren't bothering very much. Perhaps the arch tape did help give me a little extra support. I did achieve the one goal that I wanted to take from this race in that I finished 14th among USA women in my age group. 5 of them were the ones who were already on the team, so if I understand the USAT explanantion correctly I'm officially a member of Team USA. This was my nationals. What would you do differently?: My running is a real limiter at the higher levels of competition. Even more so then my swimming. I was 20th after the bike, but ended out 30th at the end. It's frustrating to watch all those women in my age group pass me on the run, but 9:15 miles don't cut it on the national and internation stages. I need to work on my form and get looser so that I can get over the nagging little pains that slow me down. Post race
Warm down: Walked around for a bit, and ate some food. What limited your ability to perform faster: The wind and heat definately impacted my race. It was a completely different race for those of us in the later waves. At least everyone else in my age group had the same conditions. Event comments: Overall it was well run, and the registration process was organized. I was very disappointed in the race shirt tee shirt. It had to be one of the crappiest shirts I've ever received from a race. 50/50 plain white shirt that had a rip on the sleeve seam which I did not notice until after the race. (I never wear the shirt until I've completed the race.) I was suprised that there was even a mention of finishers' medals. I'm not sure ITU even allows them to be given out. There weren't any last year in Madeira, so I was overly surprised when we didn't receive one here. It would have been nice, but I bought more then enough souvenirs to make up for it. Profile Album Last updated: 2005-08-31 12:00 AM
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
View profile
Add to friends
Go to training log
Go to race log
Send a message
View album
CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK
United States
ITU/Premier Events Management
85F / 29C
Sunny
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = F 50-54
Age Group Rank = 30/62
This will be a rather detailed pre-race routime part, but I need the reminder of what worked, and would needed adjustment.
I arrived Saturday 10/1 in order to get used to the time change and the heat. The first day was tough because I wanted to stay up as long as possible. I lasted until 9:30 PM. Stayed a sleep until 2:30, and then sleep after that was in fits and starts until I finally got up at 6:30 AM. (12:30 PM NY time) Ran, had breakfast, put my bike together, and did a quicky ride. Then went on a snorkling trip.
The rest of the week was spent doing the threee sports of different days, and trying to work out the kinks. The leaky goggle problem from 2 weeks ago continued to be an issue, so scoured the shops along Waikiki Beach looking for another pair. (Broke my rule of travelling with a spare pair!) I guess real beach people don't use goggles because I could not find any. Ended out a shopping mall that had one sporting goods store with exactly one model of goggles. NIKE Cruiser Jr, goggles. Small goggles that would probabbly work for my small face. Also ended out in the Oakley store and bought myself another pair of sunglasses. :) Like I needed another pair of sunglasses! WARNING: Lasik causes patient to become addicted to cool sunglasses! The kiddy goggles worked well, but lense were too light. Plan B was to find the triathlon shop!
By Tuesday many of the Team USA people started coming in. Finally I was seeing some familiar faces. I did course rides on Tuesday and Thursday with some of the USA people. It was starting feeling like an international race with the packs of Aussies, Kikwis, Brits and Canadians going out for group rides and runs. I was expecting a few more hills which would play to my strength, but it was basically a flat course with onlt a few hills of any note. Head winds were the big challenge.
Wednesday was my run and swim day. Intentionally ran in later morning to get used to runnning in the heat. With a wave time of 8:40 i figured I'd be running around 10:00 AM. I really should have carried a water bottle with my on the run. I was definately feeling it.
In the afternoon my roommate and I went for a swim onthe course. The swim course was two loops. WE only did one loop. That was enough! Ocean swimming is certainly different then pool or even lake swimming. I got a little freaked out about coral formations. The one sticking up was easy to avoid. It was the ones right below the surface that caught us by surprise. Hopefully when they set the buouys out they'll work the course around it.
Thursday was the Parade of Nations and Opening Ceramony. That is very cool. I must admit though the second time around it didn't seem as special as last year. Maybe it was because last year it was in a foreign country where the USA delegation received a wonderful reception despite the war in Iraq. I remember last year being on the verge of tears as I saw and heard the reactions of the crowd. This year the crowd seemed a little more ho hum about the whole thing. Perhaps it was because Waikiki Beach seems like one big party scene, and this was just another party.
Friday I went on a drive around the island with friends. We had a convertable which was fun, but I made sure I kept myself covered up, and drank a lot water and Gatorade. The last thing I wanted the day before the race was sunburn and dehydration.
I got another pair of goggles finally and tested them out. Much better in terms of visability! Rode around a little bit before racking the bike on Saturday. Tried to run back to the hotel, but my achilles cramped up so decided not to mess with it by running anymore. I let one of the team doctors massage it and had some stim done. We pay $100 Team USA user fee on top of the entry fee. That fee covers the medical and mechanical support. The Team USA doctors rock! They were a big help to me all week. Saturday night I had a relaxing massage right before bed, and then crashed. My roommate was in the 3rd wave so she got up an hour before me. I finally got around 5:30 and ate my 2 Clif bar breakfast, grabbed my gear, and made a stop at the medical room to have them tape my arches. I headed over to transition and got set up before they kicked us out at 7:00 AM. I thought I had my entry and exit stratagy worked out, but ITU has rules about marking racks and I was in for a rude suprise later on.
My wave didn't go off until 8:40 so I found a shady spot under a palm tree and napped a bit, and listened to my race psych up music. I stretched for a little bit and then went down to watch the swim. I got in the water and did some easy stroking and just getting loosened up.