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 Swim
Comments: I wade into the water and BAM!... it's time to swim. I quickly put my goggles on and started going. Mind you, the water was very shallow. People in the previous waves were walking to the 2nd and even 3rd buoy's. So I started walking. The water was cold and I didn't want to put my face in it. I walked half way to the first buoy. Then I started swimming. At one point, I figured if I went to the inside of the buoy's the water might be deeper. So I stood up, walked left, across the swim traffic. Then I started swimming on the inside of the buoy's. Now, I made sure to turn on the outside of the turn buoy's, but otherwise I stayed to the inside. My sighting was spot on. After the first turn I noticed I had to keep correctly to the left, but I stayed on top of it. At one point some guy on my right kept swimming into. I popped my head up and so did he. He grumbled something and I pointed at the buoy to our right and said, "The buoy is THAT WAY", and he swam off in the right direction. Geesh! As I was swimming I noticed that I left the swim cap colors from my wave. Then I was in the wave ahead of me... and then the wave ahead of them. Which would have been Jonny's wave. I saw one other pink cap hanging with me, but I swam my swim. And my goal was to swim fast. To kick and to not let up. When I started to decided to take it easy I reminded myself... strong swim and bike... survive the run! Then the swim was over. It seemed fast! I ran up the ramp, pulled my wetsuit below my waist, pointed to a wetsuit stripper, sat on the ground... and she pulled it off perfectly. I then ram into transition. Ooopsss! Left my favorite flip flops back near the exit... had to go back. Yes, stupid, I know. What would you do differently?: Um, not leave my flip flops by the exit and return for them!  Transition 1
Comments: Overall a pretty decent T1. I won't complain. I wish I could have gotten sunblock on, but it wasn't happening. So I ditched it. I knew I had a stick in my jersey that I could put on my face while riding. As I was leaving transition, I looked to my left and there was Jonny! I made sure to get out before him. So I had reached my goal of catching him on the swim and passing him in transition! PS- This was just a training day for him... and my A race. So yeah, not really fair. But hey, he wanted to hold me off at a race in August where I had not tapered for it, and he had! What would you do differently?: Ditch the flip flops!  Bike
Comments: I wanted to have a strong bike leg of the race. I didn't ride all season not to. And I knew my run would suck... so might as well ride strong. Started out on the first loop. You initially go through some busy roads to get to the country roads. The busy roads were ran by cops and they did a good job. The course was hilly than I expected. I thought it was going to be pretty flat. Nope, not flat. Hum. Oh well, I didn't let that deter me. I pressed on and kept moving. I did a great job on just carrying two water bottles this year. Last year I had this bright idea at Longhorn to carry two water bottles and a Camelbak so I wouldn't have to stop for water. Big mistake. Didn't repeat that mistake. I had 40 oz of water on me and only refilled both bottles once on the course. The temperatures were cooler so I wasn't going through too much water. Overall the bike rid was pretty uneventful. I played leap frog with a few people who eventually left me in their dust. My goal was to keep a 18 mph average (or more), so I would let them go on- had to ride my ride. After the first loop I had a 19.2 mph average. Made me very happy! Also probably made me a bit lazier in the second loop. I still pushed so my average would stay up, but my quads were starting to burn and my mental focus was waning. This is the first HIM I "raced" in my head. It's the first one where I didn't see it as a day to take it easy. I wanted to push it on the swim and bike. In both instances I found it harder towards the end to keep the mental focus on race, up. I would catch it though and push myself again. What would you do differently?: I had a great bike ride. Best average ever in a HIM for me! So I'm proud of my effort. Transition 2
Comments: Nothing to speak of. Changed into my shoes and got my running gear together. Had to change tops due to having a cycling jersey on. Didn't have my tri top so I had to run with 4 gels in my hands. Annoying.  Run
Comments: Well this is where my race went to h@ll. I knew going into it that I probably wasn't going to run the whole way. With the Achilles tendon issue and not having the miles I wanted during the season, I just knew it would be a sufferfest. I started out slow and told myself to keep a steady, slow pace. Did that pretty well for awhile. I was also trying to do a walk/run interval- but I can't recall what that was exactly. The run course is brutal. Out and back, on a path, with NO SHADE ANYWHERE. It was hot at this point and the sun was out in full force. Me and running in the heat just did not mix this year. By the end of my training season I was DONE with the heat. DONE WITH IT. Mentally I just couldn't handle it anymore in training- and I wasn't happy with it for the race. So the heat, in addition to my Achilles tendon pain flaring up, and the run course being flat out boring made me want to quit. I mean seriously, it's the only time I just wanted the run to be OVER WITH. I just didn't want to do it... I knew I WOULD... but I started analyzing if I could quit or not. Ha! Jonny passed me about 2-3 miles into the run as expected. He kept on and I just did my thing. I had a lot of rest time at aid stations and would do a walk/run when I could muster up the strength to tolerate the pain in my Achilles. FINALLY the freaking run was over and I was SO HAPPY! What would you do differently?: Not get injured. Be OK with running in the miserable heat. Post race
Warm down: I didn't see Jonny at the finish line. He told me he had hurt his toe getting out of the water, so I went to the medical tent. Yep, there he was. At every HIM he does, he ends up needing medical attention at some point. Hum. His toe was pretty bad off. Didn't know someone could stub their toe THAT BADLY! So once he was done in the medical tent, we got some food, and our cool finisher shirts and then we headed back to the hotel. It was hot and I was done being in the heat. *NOTE* Even though my run SUCKED on this race... I still PR'ed it from my Longhorn HIM in 2009. I think I found my time in the transitions and on bike. Ha! Event comments: Overall a very nice race. They did a very good job of putting it on. The parking situation (and lack of shuttles) was less than desireable, but otherwise a solid event. Some of the nicest volunteers ever. I might go back and do this race someday. Who knows. Last updated: 2010-06-15 12:00 AM
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United States
Oklahoma Redman Triathlon
80F / 27C
Sunny
Overall Rank = /
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 10/16
Here is some back story for you leading up to this race...
9-15-10 (Wed- 10 days before the race), I was running and didn't make it more than .50 without acute pain in my left Achilles tendon. Not good.
9-19-10 (Sun), I moved from my apartment into a place with Jonny. While I had movers, I walked up and down stairs for a good 6-8 hours that day. By the end my right Achilles was in pain. I was limping around the next morning, unable to walk without pain.
9-20-10 (Mon) I tried to run again. Made it .20 before the left Achilles started hurting again. Right Achilles was fine. But the pain from the week before was still there. At this point, I realize that my dream of running fast or even running at the HIM... was quickly slipping away. I had to come to terms that the run would be a suffer-fest that I was going to just survive.
9-23-10 (Thurs) I was freaking out that night looking for my favorite tri top. I just about lost it. It didn't help that the apartment was looking like Phase 1 of Hoarders! Mentally I am NOT OK living in a disorganized mess. I had been living with boxed for 3 months before moving and I was DONE with it. But I was too busy to unpack too much before the race on 9-25-10. I was ecstatic when Jonny found my tri top. Threw it in my suitcase!
9-24-10 (Fri morning), I take stuff out of my suitcase. I had put 3 total tri tops in there. Tossed them out. Yep, you see where this is going!
9-24-10 (Fri) Jonny and I drove up Friday morning to OKC. Made it there around 3:00 PM. We went straight to check in our bikes and do packet pickup before checking into our hotel.
Pickup was easy and so was checking our bikes. The venue itself was nice, and all of the needed items were close together. What wasn't close was parking. Really, there was no parking CLOSE to the start. We made a note to get there early Saturday morning.
At 8:00 PM I decided to lay my clothes out for the race. Oh. Great. Yeah, I tossed that favorite tri top out of the suitcase. Nice. Glad I found it the night before the race! We quickly rushed to Target up the road. I bought a black sports bra, and a tank top to put on for the run. Luckily I had a full front zip bike jersey I had packed. I also had my tri shorts.
Got there at 5:00 AM. The race started at 7:00 AM. Oh look! The parking lot closest to the race is empty! Oh wait! That's because no one can park there. So we had to park about .75-1.0 miles away. Not sure why they have a race at a venue without proper parking. And no shuttles were going to run... until 10:00 AM... just for the spectators. Weird!
Got into transition and set my area up. Used the restroom. Then I gladly put my wetsuit on. It was cold... around 55 degrees. Bbbbuuuurrrr.
After that I stood around with Jonny waiting for our waves to go off. His was 6 minutes ahead of mine. My goal was to either catch him on the swim, or transition, stay ahead of him on the bike... and then have him pass me on the run.