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 Swim
Comments: Started out just trying to get my breathing calmed down. Stayed on some feet for a little while but couldn't hang on. Pretty sure the buoys kept moving further away. The first lap seemed the hardest mentally. Kept wondering why I don't just give up the swim and do Du's. At the end of the first lap we had to stand, run around the buoy (still in the water) then head back out for lap two. I was pretty excited when I passed a dude during the transition between laps. I'm always afraid of being DFL out of the water so to have caught a guy was pretty cool. Turns out my swim rank was better than my over-all rank?!?!?! What would you do differently?: Just need to keep working on swimming I guess.  Transition 1
Comments: Yes, 8 minutes. In my defense, the run from the waters edge to transition was really long! I did have the slowest T1 in my AG. The others ranged between 3:45 and 7:19. I didn't start running right away out of the water but did run after a while. DH sorta ran it with me, it's always nice to get encouragement from him during transitions and on the course. Don't recall any issues getting anything on/off. I did dry off my arms and legs some to prevent getting too cold on the bike and I put on my sleeves. There was a younger girl that came in to T1 about the same time I did. She said, jokingly, to her friends/supporters "I think I can still win this". Gotta love that attitude. What would you do differently?: Start running at the waters edge all the way to T1.  Bike
Comments: Temp was probably about 50* when I started the bike. I was cold at first but told myself I'd appreciate the cold later as the day warmed up. I stayed aero most of the time except for turns. The roads were a bit bumpy but not too bad, especially with my new bike! I got passed by 2 people pretty early on out of T1. As the ride went on I passed 6 people. One of them was a girl wearing a kit for an ABQ race team so as I passed her I said "go Albuquerque" and she responded that Albuquerque is tired. I'm getting pretty good at catching and passing on hills! Early on in the ride (maybe 2 or 3 miles) I took a drink just as I hit a bump so the aero straw cut my lip. That made drinking the Perform painful for the rest of the ride (and the rest of the day for that matter) I took a gel about a half mile after the turnaround point. When I saw the 20 mile sign I was really surprised. The ride went soooo fast! I was pretty happy with Fi (the new bike) when we finished the ride. What would you do differently?: Just need to keep working on the engine. Transition 2
Comments: The HITS racks are ground racks where you just slide the tire between the two bars. Easy peasy and no worries about knocking the rack over. I pulled on my shoes pretty quick and headed for the exit. DH was there again for encouragement :-D What would you do differently?: This one was pretty clean. I'm happy with it.  Run
Comments: FASTEST RUN SPLIT IN MY AG!!!!!! I hit the port a pottie straight out of T2 because I wanted to be comfortable for the run. DH was there encouraging me <3 It felt so good to be running! I headed out across the dam and was almost floating. Then the hills. Big. Ugly. Hills. And a dude in a mankini. Going in to this race I was mentally prepared for a nice flat run course. When he told us the course had changed I wasn't too worried because I run hills at home. The worst of the hills were in the first mile but there were still some doozy's at about the 4.5 mile mark and up to the dam at the finish. When I saw the first mile marker I thought "is that all we've gone?!" About that time I felt something in my shoe and stopped to pull out what turned out to be a hair tie, which came in handy when the temp rose. I think I took a water at each aid station (1.5, 3, 4.5) and hit the porta potty at the half way spot. I was feeling "loose" and didn't want to end up like Salty's Boston "friend". At about the 5 mile mark I started feeling the IT band. I haven't felt that since O'side! What the... I knew that at O'side I could go about a mile before it got unbearable so I figured I could keep at it till the end. I did. I'd been passed twice on the run and I passed two people so I was feeling like the run was a neutral as far as placing goes. At the ending hill up to the dam I ran for a bit with a lady then she took off and left me one down :-( Turns out she was a teammate of Jim's and was from ABQ! What would you do differently?: Not let myself walk as much as I did Post race
Warm down: Walked a bit, met some more of Jim's teammates from ABQ. Had two half bananas and sat to watch the award ceremony. After the award ceremony I walked over to tear down my transition and grabbed a danish from the food table. Not my best idea ever. My stomach started revolting immediately, but nothing a TUMS didn't fix. After cleaning up my transition area I grabbed a (coin-op) shower there at the state park. When I came out of the shower DH met me with a bunch of lilacs. I luf lilacs. What limited your ability to perform faster: I slacked off training after O'side but I feel pretty good about my performance here. Clearly I lost a significant number of spots in T1 if my S/B/R were 83, 86, 82 respectively but I got 91 overall. Also, I was 6 minutes off the podium and 9 minutes behind first. I know it all depends on who shows up but this is an OLY PR for me and I'm pretty happy to be within 9 minutes of first! Event comments: HITS is still in the process of developing and puts on a pretty cool race. They don't have the crowds yet but hopefully that will come. I have no complaints about the organization of this race, except maybe it would've been nice to keep the flat run course ;-) Profile Album Last updated: 2013-01-03 12:00 AM
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United States
HITS Triathlon Series
42F / 6C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 91/108
Age Group = F45-49
Age Group Rank = 5/7
We drove up to GJ on Saturday for check in. We were staying in a 6 person "cabin" because I'd waited too long to book a room. The cabin was actually an 8 person recreational trailer which gave us plenty of room to bring the bikes in and spread out. Once we checked in we went for dinner at Old Chicago where I had my fave pre-race meal of Italian Nachos and a hefeweizen and we got to watch the Rockies game, the Nascar race AND the Tour of California!
After dinner it was back to the "cabin" to get all of my stickers and tattoos placed in the appropriate places then off to bed. We brought our own linens but the bed wasn't super comfy. I slept ok, not great, but that's pretty normal for a pre-race night.
In the morning I had a crescent roll and a packet of peanut butter and packed up to head to the lake. My SBux app showed a store that would be open at 5:30 on a Sunday morning that was en route to the race. We got there a smidge early so we waited... Then we got our chai's and were headed to the race.
We got to the lake and in to transition with plenty of time to chat with the racers around me. The sprint starts before the oly at HITS races so we had until 7:10 to be out of transition and didn't start until 7:43 (7:40 for the men)
The guy next to me in transition, Jim, was also from ABQ and had also done O'side this year! So we had lots to chat about. His life partner stood with my DH on the other side of the fence (my spot was next to the fence) and we all chatted about the drive up to GJ and races in ABQ. We'll be looking for Jim and Johnny at races in ABQ! Jim forgot his wet suit and the water was about 62*. Fortunately someone had a spare! (who carries a spare wetsuit?) Jim was able to squeeze in to it before transition closed.
Another lady in our trasition area turned out to be someone DH had worked with about 15 years ago when we lived in the area! So cool.
So when transition closed we headed down to the waters edge for the athlete meeting. The RD explained the two loop swim, the ride (no aero in the park) and that the run course had been changed. Now instead of a flat out-n-back two loop we were doing a VERY hilly out-n-back one loop the other direction. The single loop garnered some cheers from the crowd but I think we all could've done without the hills. After the meeting the RD offered a prayer for those who wanted to participate. SO COOL!!!! Then he had us line up on either side of the carpet where the last of the sprint swimmers were coming out of the water and cheer them on.
Nothing really, some walking, got in to the water after the men took off so I could acclimate to the water temp.