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 Swim
Comments: It was a time trial start with them sending 2 swimmers off every 10 seconds by jumping off the dock into the water. We had watched the sun start to rise which was absolutely beautiful but it was a biznatch because as soon as I hit the water the sun was right on the Horizon line with the bouys, I couldn't see anything. White Lake was crazy, it was totally clear, you could see everything clear down to the bottom, k I saw the remains of the titanic down there, in addition to multiple golf balls and lots of cinder block bricks - yeah wtf? Anyway, this extremely clear lake was also very deceptive as it looked like I could touch the bottom with my hands and yeah remember me saying I couldn't see anything because of the sun, I stopped and tried to touch bottom so I could get my bearings, yeah that was a no go, I was treading water and in addition to the awesome (read sarc font for the "awesome") sun causing me not to be able to see any bouys my gogggles were fogged so I had to actually lift them up to find some other white heads to swim after. I had to do this 2 more times during the swim, but other then that and you know seeing the titanic on the bottom of the lake the swim was pretty uneventful. It actually passed more quickly then I thought it would or rather was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. In all reality, this was probably the easiest swim of the season - go freaking figure, the longest swim was the easiest one - how does that work? The course had you end the opposite dock from where we took off. I came up the steps and there were volunteers standing there telling me to hold the rail because the steps were slick, I got onto the dock and the next thing I know I heard was velcro releasing and felt a tug, it was the volunteer getting my wetsuit un-done, wow, I didn't know I paid to have someone undress me - ha ha ha - I asked the volunteer as he was unvelcro-ing (yes I made that word up)and unzipping me, do you like stripping...he laughed and so did I. I took off down the dock to transition and peeled myself out of the top half of the wetsuit and like any HFP race it was a hike from the swim end to transition. What would you do differently?: Nuttin Honey.  Transition 1
Comments: Thank goodness some of you guys have given me the trick to stripping a wetsuit along the way. I did the whole, pull it down to the ankles stand on one side to get one foot out and then stand on the other side to get it the rest of the way off. I was out of my wetsuit and into my bike shoes sans socks in a hurry. What would you do differently?: Nada Enchilada  Bike
Comments: Ahhh the bike, my least favorite part of the race and I'm sayin it was F-ing cold when we started out. It was still probably in the low-mid 50s and the first half the ride was in the shade. I was cold, so cold my teeth were chattering which at least was entertainment for a while. I stopped at mile three, yes I said mile three, because surprise, surprise I had to pee. For some reason I forgot to try and warm up the lake and it hit me as I was starting on the bike, thank goodness for the porta-potty at mile three. Got rolling again and ate a cliff bar, Mike caught up to and passed me around mile 10, he chatted with me for a minute and then pulled a head, I tried to hang with him for a minute then realized there was no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks I was going to keep up with him so off he went. At mile 20 I had a raspberry hammer gel - Disgusting - I'm sorry but I just have issues with putting any warm, nasty, gooey composite in my mouth, uck. Somewhere around mile 30 I was bored out of my gord and so I started singing to myself, and before I knew it was singing, okay more like screaching nails on a chalkboard at the top of my lungs and all of a sudden this guy comes out of no where and passes me - ah ha ha so he totally heard me singing to myself like an idiot, I was cracking up and was totally embarassed, he didn't even say anything as he passed - he probably thought I was nuts, hell, I thought I was nuts but man it gets boring out there. I kept moving right along. At mile 35 I had to stop at the aid station because, yep, you guessed it, I had to pee again. And seriously I had to wait on some dude in the porta-john he was taking forever to pee, I felt like yelling to him "If you shake it more then twice that's considered playing with it" I refrained as there were some youngsters working the aid station and I wanted to appear to have some couth, ahh, whatever but that easily cost me 2 minutes between waiting on the bonehead to pee and me going pee. Got rolling again and at mile 40 I ate my second cliff bar. Rolled into transition and was very happy to get off the bike, we at least my crotch was happy for me to get off the bike, tri shorts and the padding are great and all but really? let's be honest, that ain't much padding for that long of a ride. What would you do differently?: I don't know increase my bladder from the size of a pea to the size of a watermelon so I wouldn't have to stop and pee so many times. Transition 2
Comments: I actually decided that I would wear socks for the run (i learned the hard way that while I would rather run without socks - anything over 7 miles requires socks otherwise I'll get a blister) so I stripped the bike shoes and put socks on and slid into my running shoes and put a hat on and off I went. What would you do differently?: Hmmm...  Run
Comments: Just another run right? As is charactersitic of HFP it was a double out and back and just to make it known HFP I hate you for this sh*t - It just ain't right to bring folks so close the finish line and then send them back out again. The run actually went well for all intents and purposes. I didn't treat it like a long run, just a bunch of short ones, it was running from aid station to aid station. I had actually thought about this run prior to the race as the distance was a bit overwhelming to me - who hell am I kidding the whole race overwhelmed me I digress, anyway, my plan was to run it and walk at the aid stations. That's pretty much what I did. It was hotter then a set of sweatty boobs at this point in the 80s. I stopped at every aid station and took two cups of water and a cup of ice. I'd take a sip out of each water and then dump the rest on my head and then I would dump the ice down the back of my shirt and in my sports bra and off I would go hearing the clack, clack, clack of the ice in my boobs -ha this is how hot it was even with ice in my boobs there were no fripples it just felt good. At the turn around at transition I took a Hammer Gel and yes I've already established how I feel about putting warm gooey sh*t in my mouth - this was even worse - it was apple cinnamon flavor - really? OMG it was F-ing bad and I apparently showed that on my face as Teresa saw me and starting cracking up and then I started laughing and I think I aspirated the crap - jesus. anyway, i got it down took a sip of water and off I went. I felt totally fine for the entire run until the last two miles, I think my entire body wanted to cramp up - I swear to you the last two miles I looked like a little old lady with a sitck up my...when I turned the corner toward the finish line, hell I won't lie, tears streamed down my face, I wiped them away and ran to the finish line. What would you do differently?: Notta dang thang. Post race
Warm down: Walked around for a few minutes, got some water then headed back to truck and grabbed some clothes so I could go shower and change. The venue for this race was awesome because they held it at an FFA camp and there were cabins with bunk beds for sleeping and showers and indoor plumbing and stuff. Awesome, just sayin...got showered and changed and then we got in the car to head out - had an 11 hour drive back to ohio. What limited your ability to perform faster: I don't think I could have gone any faster, this time was faster then I had ever anticipated. My goal for the race was finish it, my B goal for the race was to do it between seven and severn fifteen my A goal for the race and best case scenarion was six thirty five - to go sub six???? I don't even have anything to say. Event comments: I'm not sure what to say. This was my first HIM, sh*t this was my first season of Triathlon and it was awesomme. Without getting into any details, I'll just say this...Triathlon is my temple. It's an addicition and you know what? I'm ok with that. A freaking HIM? Really? I was never supposed to do a HIM and certainly not in my first year but with a push along the way and a solid and ok, even stubborn, mind set, I got there. Hell it's two days later and I'm still on top of the world - although I did finally cut my race bracelet off. Last updated: 2010-08-25 12:00 AM
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United States
HFP Racing
80sF / 0C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 21/43
Age Group = Girls 25-29
Age Group Rank = 2/6
Met the Triathlon Parents (Mike and Teresa) at their house at 5:30am Saturday morning. The bikes were already loaded on the rack so I grabbed my pillow and blanket and wetsuit, layed my wetsuit on the back of the truck on top of the truck bed cover and threw the pillow and blanket in the backseat and headed back to the car and grabbed my race bag and my nutrition bag threw them in the truck and off we went to start the 11 hour drive to North Carolina. I had the whole back seat to myself so I propped my pillow against the door and leaned up against it and decided to take a little snooze. We arrived at the race site around 4:00 and checked out the venue and watched some of the triple T'rs finish their second race of the day. We got checked in and then decided to go find something to eat. When we got back from eating we started to get our stuff together. Now, remember I said I had laid my wetsuit on the bed cover of the truck....yeah, it never made it in the truck, it was dark in the morning when we left and I was sleepy and forgot about it, yeah, it was 7:30 the night before the race and I realized I had no wetsuit - FUDGE NUGGETS - I was freaking out, #1 that I was going to have no wetsuit for the race and #2 that I had lost my wetsuit that was given to me FOR FREE and that I was going to have to buy another one. There happened to be a vendor at the event that was doing wetsuit rental so $50 later I had a wetsuit for the next day. It was actually a great suit - a Full Length Orca suit that actually fit me perfectly - my awesome hand-me-down suit is a little big for me so it was nice to have a suit that fit like a glove. Anyway with rented wetsuit in hand I was able to relax...a little bit. We decided to crash out around 8:30 - it was dark and there wasn't anything to do so we went to bed...although the sleeping was minimal. I don't think I ever got into full REM sleep. I woke up at least once and hour and looked at my watch...nerves, nerves, nerves.
Woke up around 5:30 the next morning with the Tri Parents poking at me, I raised my head and begged for 10 more minutes, they gave me 10 more minutes and then Mike started throwing stuff at me to make me wake up. Got up got my stuff together, ate 2 Frosted Strawberry Poptarts and a cliff bar, got changed and took my stuff over to transition. It was cold (upper 40s) and they were actually closing transition so I ditched the sweat pants and fleece pull-over and pulled my wetsuit on - not so easy to get into one of those things when it fits properly, talk about feeling like I was stuffing a big fat sausage into a too small sausage casing...got the suit on. Walked out to the dock, watched the sunrise as the national anthem was sung and tried to think about the day ahead and remind myself it was just another long training day, no need to stress. I stood and watched as the Triple T'rs started and then got in the water and swam a few strokes. Until they called for the White Lake Fall Challenge peeps. Holy Sh*t this is it, was the last thought that went through my mind as they called for my division to step up.