Big Fish Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

This was a great swim. The first lap I spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that I had to do another lap, and keeping myself in check. I forced myself to calm down and not follow the 2 or 3 women I saw shoot out the front. I knew I was still ahead of most of the wave of women and spent most of the swim swimming through guys from the two previous waves. The triangle was a little lopsided on the back stretch and I made a mental note that I could cut out a lot of swimming if I made a tighter turn around the first bouy and made a straighter line to the next... which cut out a ton of bodies and extra water on the 2nd lap. It was SO cool to get out of the water on the beach and jump back in with the whole crowd of spectators and all the sprint athletes yelling for us. So cool. Except I had another lap to swim! 2nd lap went fine, I was much calmer and felt great. On the way in I noticed a chick gaining on me and lo and behold it was my teammate Erin, who kicked my butt in Hawk Island and was a competitive swimmer in HS (I think). I was so excited that I was in front of her and decided to keep up with her. We were neck and neck to the beach and I think I might have made it over the mat first. Awesome swim, loved it.

Nothing. According to the results, I had the 3rd fastest female swim time (out of 28) and the 26th fastest overall swim time (out of 140). That's pretty cool!

Or... maybe I should slow down on my swim considering what happened in T1? Or...maybe I should just actually start practicing my swim more... now THAT's an idea (I have VERY low swim practice time this year).

Ran up the beach to the hill and passed Rick/Trixie posse who yelled for me. Into transition and just went ahead to sit to take the wetsuit off. I borrowed a teammate's ProMotion suit which was AWESOME in the water, but when I'd practiced with it it was a little tougher to get out of. Yeah. Disaster. I pulled too hard with my left leg and it instantly cramped up. Totally in a massive knot and I'm still stuck w/both legs in the suit. I almost lost it... I had no idea what to do and kinda felt like that was it... how can I do anything?

Sat there waiting for it to relax and gingerly inched my way out of the wetsuit, gently put on helmet, socks, shoes and glasses and extremely tenderly walked my bike out of the transition area and onto the road. It sucked. SUCKED.

Drink more water, practice longer swims, maybe when I get a new wetsuit next year I should consider zippers?

Well, I started with a cramped calf... it was pretty intense. I was totally panicked about that but just tryed to calm down and spin. After a mile or so I realized for some reason I was in the big ring (even though I'd checked it pre-race) so it helped to get out of that. Enjoyed going down the big hill... and then just focused on pedaling. Drank as much gatorade as I could because I figured I needed it. On the back of the Oly course it was pretty up and down so on the downs I started trying to stretch out my calf but Holy Crap did it hurt. I was really worried about the final Big Hill (History: Big Fish sprint was my first tri ever last year and I got off my bike and walked up the hill), and whether if I had to get out of my saddle to pedal my calf or somewhere else would cramp. I had a gu about 5 miles in (with a split second of indecision about where the heck to put the garbage, I hadn't thought that far! But then stuck it in my shorts leg).

So then- at the turn around... I realized my vision was getting wonky. I looked up and went, "Oh that's just nice!". I get tunnel vision and weird camera-flash type spots in my eyesight pre-migraine and I'm not sure which scared me more, losing vision or a future migraine. It was a very, very dark moment. I really felt awful and things didn't look great at all (literally!!). If there had been any SAG type vehicle out there I might've given up.. but I kind of told myself, "Look, girl, you're 12 miles out and there's no other way to get back... just keep pedaling as long as you can and eventually you'll get there... don't think about TIME for crying out loud!". It kind of worked. I'd already been passed by a ton of women (my whole age group, I thought), but there were loads of men passing me the whole bike course, so that was encouraging (that I wasn't the only one out there). Erin passed me in the begining and I saw Matt and Robyn ahead of me at the turn around.

Just keep biking, just keep biking. The more I drank, the better I felt. Vision slowly but surely cleared though I was still waiting for the migraine. And then, I went up and over the first "fake out hill", (the one I last year thought was THE hill) and then there She was, The Big Hill. I saw the little Lutheran church on the left and very sincerely prayed to God for strength. I hit the bottom of my gears at the very begining of the hill but it didn't seem to be getting harder. I very deliberatly changed my focus from the top of the massive hill to the few feet right in front of me and kept repeating "just that much more, just that much more". Mid-way up I got inspired to force myself to smile- I think my mom told me once that smiling can sometimes help you change your attitude or something. Or I was just delirious and smiling like a total idiot. And then... I was up. And at the end of the bike course. Oh Thank God.

Except! I'm coming into the park again where there's bike traffic and two way runner traffic on a tiny narrow road all separated by orange cones, I'm THIS close to being off my bike and what happens? A tiny, blonde haired 2(ish) year old comes running off the side and RIGHT in front of my bike! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!? In a split (time warped second) I hear his mom scream and my hands slam on my brakes and my bike skids. I canNOT believe that a) I didn't hit the kid and b) I didn't wipe out. It was SO FREAKING close. Talk about adrenaline. I was totally done after that.

Dude, extenuating circumstances. It was rough for me to just complete this, much less "race" it. I was a hurting puppy and it took considerable focus just to stay on my bike.

More T.I.T.S., more water, better shifting, more hills, fewer little kids. ;)

In and out. Grabbed the extra gatorade bottle & gu I'd put out just in case it was hot... I was very thankfull it was there.

Realized .5 miles in my number was upside down, so I guess I should work on that.

This run reminded me of the "Run Thru Hell" race I did last year. Dirt roads, plenty of up and down but thankfully shady. I really was just so damn thrilled to have kept going that it didn't matter that my calf was still sore. I actually passed Erin again on the run and was pretty excited because she was so much faster than me last time, it made me feel like maybe I hadn't lost that much time on the bike.

I definitely got a 2nd wind on the run despite the fact that my body hurt. I was in a good mood and tried to cheer or smile at all the runners heading in the opposite direction. I was glad I had my own fluid so I could drink when I wanted to instead of at the water stops... I think I drank a lot more this way. Except for Erin, there were no other women anywhere near that I was going to be able to catch so I just tried to run a consistent pace and get DONE. I walked up several hills so I'm just tickled with my pace (shocked, really).

Frankly, I really enjoyed this run!! I was toast by the last mile- my cheers had dried up and the last volunteer only got a mouthed "thank you" because I had NOTHING left to give. Came around the final corner and the BT mob was in full strength. I was SOOOoo happy to cross that finish line!

NOthing

Found Trixie & Robyn first and unloaded a stream of swear words about my race. :) Claimed it was harder than my marathon... got some strange looks but I'm still considering that. It was definitely harder mentally... in a marathon all you have to do is keep running! :)


The calf cramp. Ouch. That's never happened to me in any race tri or running, ever. I must have been seriously dehydrated or something. Back to the drawing board.


Big Fish is a fun race, great & challenging course. I'm sure I'll be back.