Tempe International Triathlon - Olympic Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

Finally it was time for the pink caps (my group) to go. We got in the water and swam up to the bridge. We had a few minutes before the gun went off, so as we treaded water, everyone around me bunched up towards the middle and I ended up on the outside. I didn't want to be there, so I moved to the middle. I decided to follow Coach Colleen's advice and try to line up with the buoys and not worry about people being close to me at the start. Finally the race started, and I hit the start button on my watch. I tried to catch some feet to draft off of, but everyone was gone right away. Where did they all go? We were swimming into the sun, so I couldn't see anything. I tried to follow what I thought were the bobbing heads of the women in my group.

I kept a pretty comfortable pace, but tried to make sure I was pulling through each stroke. The first buoy seemed like a long ways away, probably because I couldn't see it. My goggles were fogging, and the sun wasn't making it any easier. But I was able to make out people in front of me. I wasn't that far off of the group after all. I figured several probably went out fast and started to fade, whereas I was consistent and not blowing my energy wad in one shot. One of the lines from the move Pirates of the Carribean popped in my head at that point. It was the scene where Captn. Jack is sailing towards the Black Pearl in persuit of Captn. Barbosa and says "We're catching up!" Finally I was able to see the buoy for the first turn, and I was a little bit to the inside of the course, which surprised me. So I had to correct to the left to make it around. Suddenly, a bunch of people in white caps appeared. It was the guy's wave from behind us. At first this worried me, because the faster guys were at the front and would be catching us slower girls. I think a lot of them knew it, because most were nice around me and didn't punch me or anything. Most of the guys could tell they were coming up on me and switched direction slightly so that they didn't crash into me.

I was so glad to be heading west because I could finally see! There were even a few pink caps still with me. I checked my watch just after the turn at I was at 17:54. A little behind schedule, but I had to remind myself that this was without a wetsuit, so that was probably the difference in time. The second half was pretty uneventful. As I made the last turn around the buoy, quite a few people appeared. I could see the beach in the distance so I headed straight for the swim exit. The only thing was, there was a ledge off of the beach in the water that I couldn't see. So I kept wondering where the ledge was. I must've swam right over it because my hands hit beach dirt, so that was my cue to stand up. Got out of the water and ran to T1.

Swim faster without a wetsuit. Need to work on navigation a bit more as well.

4th fastest T1 time in my AG. :)

I left a water bottle with wash water by my shoes, so I was able to rinse off any leftover sand. Socks and shoes went on, then helmet and glasses, and I was off! The bike started up a hill, and we had to run over the timing mats and to a mount line. I did my usual flying cyclocross mount, but knocked off one of my rear water bottles. It was just an extra for "just in case" so I didn't bother to go back for it. Oh and the night before I had frozen all of my water bottles, including my aerobottle on the front. In the morning I realized I couldn't put the straw all the way down. But by the time I started the bike it had thawed enough.

Swing my leg over the saddle higher when I've got rear bottles on.

Started out with a slight hill climb, then onto Curry which had yet another hill. Lap 1 I just wanted to get my bike legs. I looked down and noticed my computer wasn't working, so I'd have to estimate everything by my watch time. Thankfully, after a few miles it came back.

On the first lap I was pushing it pretty good. I looked down at my watch and finished it in 21:30. If I could hold that pace I'd be ahead of schedule. I focused on keeping a higher cadence rather than mashing the pedals, and it worked out pretty good, especially on the hills.

The course was pretty crowded at times. In some of the corners we'd be going through 2 wide, and I hoped that the other person would hold their line. On Lap 2 I drank some of my vanilla Spiz. I probably should've drank more, but I was too focused on my riding. It's times like these that I start having these mental arguments. It was like in the cartoons where an angel appears on one shoulder, and the devil on the other.

Angel: "You really should slow down and focus on drinking your Spiz."
Devil: "Worry about it later. 2 more laps to go so you can drink it then. You're on track for a great bike time!"
Angel: "What about pacing? What about the run?"
Devil: "Who cares! You suck at the run anyways. Take the small victories like a good bike time while you can!"

Needless to say, the devil won. I kept pushing hard where I could on the bike. I drank half of my bottle of Spiz, which is right about where I should have been. On the last lap dorkboy came riding up next to me. He had a pretty rough swim (literally!) so he was just trying to enjoy the bike and run. Bummer.

My last lap I came down the hill and had to brake a bit to hit the dismount line correctly. I unclipped and did my cyclocross dismount and flew into T2 at a full run.

4th fastest T2 time in my AG. :)

I made sure to rack my bike backwards to get the saddle over the bar. Then it was off with the bike shoes, on with the run shoes, and I grabbed my hat, bottle, and number belt. I ran down the center of the racks, and the race official yelled for me to get on the sidewalk (like that made sense). So I did, but had to get back off of the sidewalk and go down the middle to get to the timing mats. That didn't make much sense.

Nothing. Transitions are my best. :)

The first part of the run was rough for me. But I forced myself to keep moving forward. I was going slow, but I wanted to try to run the whole thing without walking. It was really hot out by this point. I was so glad I was wearing my white TTG hat to keep the sun off of my head.

I broke the rule of not trying anything new on race day. I carried with me on my race belt a pouch of e-caps, as I wasn't sure if I needed them on the run. I decided with how much water I was drinking, I should probably take at least 1 every hour. Since they were electrolytes, I figured chances were nothing bad would happen, but a greater chance of something bad happening if I didn't take them. At every water station I poured water all over me, and drank cold water. I also had water in my bottle that I was carrying. That was for helping to get the gels down. At Mile 2 I decided to start on the gels, so I opened one and took a shot, and downed a lot of water with it. But after that, somehow the gel bounced out of my rear pocket. I don't know exactly where, but I wasn't going back for it.

We had to climb up the Curry Rd. hill, and I felt so slow! But I was still jogging, and not walking. We passed under the 202, and I saw a ton of people on their way to the finish line. Ugh...I still had 4 more miles to go! We crossed over the bridge and entered Tempe Beach Park, and that's where the 2nd bad spot was, because the Sprint people got to turn around right then and there, but the Olys had to keep going. I ran into Marie-Claire at this point in time, so once again nice to see a familiar face from the club. I was wearing my purple TTG jersey, so I would get a lot of comments from folks on the course like "Go Tri Girls!" So that was pretty neat.

After the beach park, we ran along the Tempe Town Lake. I couldn't see the turnaround point, and every time I though I saw it, it turned out to be another water station. I was thinking the turnaround was down by the lake, but it wasn't. It turns out we had to run up the sidewalk to the sand berm along the lake. Last year during the SOMA HIM I was walking at this point. This time I wasn't going to walk. I ran along the dirt trail and dumped my water bottle out, as it was hot water. I stopped briefly at the aid station to fill up with cold water, but kept "running" (or not-walking) after that. I saw dorkboy again at this point, and he went on to finish his race. It felt like the bridge to the finish line was so far away at this point.

I kept chugging along, and opened up my contingency gel that I had stashed in my water bottle's zippered pouch. Along the way I slowly ate my gel. I saw a lot of strange things along the way, like people staggering. It was turning into a bad scene for a lot of folks out there.

I was dumping so much water on myself in order to stay cool that I had another new issue arise, one that I will call "booty chafing." Not to be confused with the booty call, or bootylicious. In fact, it was so not bootylicious. But it's more mature sounding than diaper rash. All the water was settling at the bottom of my shorts, and the chamois seams were rubbing as I ran. So a note for future races...when in doubt, add more BodyGlide. Or add some BodyGlide. There's no such thing as too much BodyGlide.

Along the run route there were mile markers, and at the bottom of each one there was a little saying. I can't remember exactly what they said, other than when I read them, they made me sniffly. I've noticed emotions get all wacky during races. Normally I would have read the sayings and been like "yeah...whatever dude" (complete with eye rolling). But out there on the course I was pushing myself, and when I read the sayings I was like "yeah...I know what ya mean" (sniff). I'm going to be a bawling mess during IMAZ. I'll have to take salt tabs not from the sweat, but from all the crying I'll probably be doing. At that point, reading the active ingredients on the back of the gel package will probably set me off.

At Mile 5, the wheels started falling off the wagon. My stomach was growling and wasn't satisfied with the last little bit of gel that I was scraping from the package. My legs were starting to ache badly, and I developed a side stitch, which made it hard to breathe. I couldn't stand up straight, but I didn't want to stop. So I probably looked like I was running like a little old lady being hunched over with that stupid side stitch. Someone bring me a walker!

I shuffled along the bridge and looked down at my watch. 3:24:34. Dang if I could just pick up the pace I could make it in under 3.5 hrs! I started to run a bit faster. The side stitch protested, but I didn't care. I made it to the shade of the 202 and hoped that the finish line wasn't far. If they had played an evil trick on me with the course layout and there was more to go, I probably would've broken down and started crying. But I turned the corner and the finish line wasn't far. All of a sudden I started really running hard, as if the finish line was pulling me in. I crossed the line at 3:29:53. Officially under 3.5 hrs!

Run better.

Got my chip taken off and headed to the feeding station. It was kind of nice that it was roped off and labeled "athletes only" because I've been to races where spectators have eaten the food, and there was none left for the slow finishers like me. I got some cold water which was great, and slammed down about 10 oranges right away. Oranges tasted like the fruit of the gods at that point...they were so tasty! I didn't care that I looked like a 3 year old with sticky orange juice all over my face. Hey, I had diaper rash (sorry...booty chafing) at that point so it was par for the course. I grabbed a bagel and headed off to pick up my stuff in transition. We got back to the RV and I was so happy we had found a shady parking spot. The RV was nice because I was able to change and towel down right away. After races in the heat like this my clothes are always so rank it's almost like they should be burned. But of course I can't do that to my TTG jersey, and it always seems to recover after a good washing. My shoes were soaked from the water at the aid stations, so those will definitely need a good washing.

I fell asleep on the drive home, but woke up just as we got to Tucson because it was super windy. I'm so glad the winds stayed south that day, and we didn't have to deal with them during the race.


Being on travel for work and not getting my workouts in for the last 3 weeks leading up to this race. But even with that, my body seems to feel better after these longer races compared to the sprints. I came in last in my AG, but I checked the results for the sprint and I would've placed MOP for that race.

Today (the day after) my legs are sore, but I'm not feeling too bad. My next Oly is in Show Low for the Deuces Wild race, and I've been considering signing up to do the Xterra race the day after the Oly as well. But now I'm thinking not because I'm so slow and BOP in these races anyways.


I think they could've had Gatorade or something else besides water out on the course. It was so hot that people had to rely on what they brought out onto the course with them for electrolytes. I'm glad that I planned ahead and was self-sufficient.