Mudwater Triathlon - Olympic - TriathlonOlympic

This event has the best race director in the world, but he has issues with delegating work! He was actually IN the water with us, it really cracked me up!

Only 22 ladies doing the Oly and we all started together. I was right inbetween 2 women for a little while but it wasn't long before we spread out. Very calm, very strong. I felt great!

Near the end of the 1st loop, the lead Olympic guys, who'd started 5 minutes ahead of us, catching us. Fasty fast fast fishies! As I was breathing I saw Kevin Nickel (who won overall, I recognize his stroke a mile away - very unique) pass me, and one more guy, and they I swear I saw Michael. Same top, his exact stroke, there he goes. My boyfriend just lapped me on the swim, hahahaaaa!

On to lap 2 and now I was coming up on the BOP sprint swimmers. Felt a little bad, one was hanging onto a lifeguard boat, a few floating on their backs. I wanted to encourage them but I didn't want to stop.

Passed a few guys on the last stretch - it was so shallow people were walking around the last turn bouey and you could stand up most of the last straight away (I did not, but just a note of interest).

Came out of the water feeling a little winded and my watch reading 25:25. Really happy with that!

Squeeze my boyfriend's butt as he passed me :)

Very standard T1. Chatted with my rack mate as I'd swum very close to her almost the entire swim. Nothing unusual to report.

Nothing

Out on the bike course I started really strong and passed a bunch of sprint-ers right away. Tried to keep a strong pace and then thought I might blow up doing that so I backed off juuuuust a little. I noticed my Garmin, which I'd set to "multisport mode" hadn't changed to "BIKE" even though I'd pushed the button. So after pushing a lot of times I just gave up and stopped it. Just as I am typing this, I realized I was pushing "start/stop" instead of lap. User fail!

Pretty uneventful first half. I'd made a 1.5-hour bottle of Infinite I was sipping from but otherwise drinking LOTS of water. Good call as I really think it helped on the run.

Right before the mile-long-hill I saw literally the biggest snake I've seen outside of a zoo just slithering across the road. Freaky. A girl behind me yelled out "SNAKE!" to warn others. Right after that I took a saltstick pill.

The "hills" on this route are long but not steep - I felt I got up them pretty good! Then we turned into the headwind. I was prepared for this - and it wasn't bad - but it was definitely there, probaly 15mph. But Honey Badger don't care about the wind... honey badger doesn't give a shit! Hahaha I was actually saying this out lout to myself... "look at him grimmace" I was really cracking myself up with that. But it did work, I REALLY picked up my effort here and passed someone even!

After the next turn I was basically back in the park and sailed in. Felt FANTASTIC about my effort here.

Nothing at all - executed well.

Very average T2 - my rack mate's bike position left very little room for mine so I had to be careful not to knock hers off.

If I really cared I would have put Yankz on my running shoes.

Right out of transition my buddy Adam, who was volunteering, handed me a wet icy towel and it was heaven. I'd forgotten to grab my sweat towel so this was absolutely perfect. And my legs felt GOOD! I was ecstatic, but wondered how long that was going to last.

They had 4 aid stations each loop, so 8 for the 10K, which was awesome - and had the icy towels at ALL of them! I really think those towels made the difference on my run. At the end of the first loop, Michael's Dad passed me and I said "Hey you're not allowed to pass me!" and he thought that was pretty funny :) - that is one fast 57 year old.

There were a few times I *almost* stopped to walk, but I knew I'd be mad at myself if I did. The temperature was rising, everything was getting harder. I noticed I was pretty parched inbetween aid stations. I let myself walk the aid stations just long enough to grab water, gatorade and an ice towel, but never had to walk the rest of the time - NICE LISA!!!

My friend Karlene caught up to me in the last half mile and I tried to stay right behind her - sped up to do this - but it didn't last. I was really happy to see the finish line and stoked I ran the whole way in the 90+ degree heat!

Nothing - this was exactly the run I was capable of today. Nothing more, nothing less.

Had a great time chatting with Michael, his parents, my coach, and tri club friends - tried to stay in the shade.

Got 2nd place in my age group! I'm not supposed to say there were only 2 awards given (one girl got an overall award so I got 2/2 after she was taken out of the AG) but that was the situation. A little disappointed I wasn't at least in the middle of the 3, but I *did* tie my PR for Olympic distance so I'm VERY happy about that :)


Heat.


This is a world-class event put on by the best tri club in the world! :)