Mountain Man - TriathlonOlympic

As I stood on the boat ramp, my HR was only 90, so I knew I was keeping my nerves in check. I was going to try out a new tip from AZChica, and when the gun goes off, to count to 10 before I started swimming. I did this, and it was great in the respect that there were few people around me, and I could imeadiatley use proper swim stroking instead of the flailing survival arms that you have to do to try to get through the punch fest. This helped keep me be calm which is what I needed to do given the high altitude and the freak out you usually have because you can't breathe. This was all great. I had no freak out, and felt good about how my swim started. The BAD part, however, was I was in the way back with all the people who WERE freaking out, and frog swimming within the first minute. It was hard to manuver through all of them. Also, as soon as my timing chip strap became wet, it loosed up and started sliding off my ankle down my foot!!! I was like OH CRAP! WHAT DO I DO? I knew I couldn't undo the velcro to tighten it up because I would need two hands for that, so I just started trying to shove it up under the leg of my wet suit. This worked for about 100m, and then it slipped out again. So again I tried to shove it up under the suit, and I had to make sure I didn't kick. This made me stop twice and obviously is counter producting to making forward progress on the swim!! However, I am still happy about how this swim felt in my head. I didn't have those "OMG WHY AM I OUT HERE? I CANT SWIM!" thoughts. My head pretty much stayed in a happy place. So that, for me, is a victory.

This took forever. I had cynders all stuck to the bottom of my feet, and I had to try, and try to wipe them off. Still had some stuck between my toes, which bothered me during the rest of the race, but what can you do?

I was a little deflated coming out of the swim knowing I was WAY in the back of the pack, and that on this tough of a biking course I would probably not be able to catch up much. So I just trudged along best I could. I was feeling some resistance that felt like more than just the road, but I could see between both brakes on either side of the wheels, so I knew they weren't rubbing. It was not my best bike leg, but I still enjoyed it and always love the mountain scenery.

I ordered lock laces, and they came on the Saturday before the race. Problem was I was already in Flagstaff!! So I was still tying my laces.

Ugh. This run has a horrible mountain switchback road you have to run up, and it became a series of walking and running segments. About 3 miles in I could tell my stomach was starting to bail on me. I needed to drink more Infinit, but was worried about my stomach getting worse. Because of this I basically ran out of energy on the last 2 miles. My tank was simply empty. I had NO final push, which is usually my strong suit. There was a girl in front of me I was trying to catch, but I had nothing.

Me. As always. I have to say my heart really wasn't into this race. But that's ok. Not every race has to be some GRRRRRR! Fest. I really enjoyed the views, and of course loved the weekend with my peeps. So overall it was still a great race! Bottom line is I could have spent that Sunday morning on the couch, but I did not. I was out there doing it!


First year they sold out at 750 people. They did NOT have enough bike racks and argued with people for half an hour about it before they finally brought out another rack. They stopped posting Oly times just after the 3 hour mark, and at the 7hr mark on the HIM, they deflated the finnish line, took people's bikes off the racks and laid them down (to put away the rack), and ran out of medals. So people spent $200 to do a HIM in the POURING rain, put in a respectible time of 7hrs, and all the get is a timing mat and like 10 people standing around who MIGHT notice them coming in. There were still about 5 people on the course when we left, and I felt so bad for them. Horrible. The only GOOD thing was that they had kayakers this year! What a concept! High altitude race = lots of people freaking out in the water. Maybe a few kayaks would be helpfull!! Boo on this race! It's beautiful. That's it.