HILDEKQ'S Magnificently Motivational Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 16)

It's amazing what you can do on little to no sleep. I don't know about any of you, but I tend to be one of those people who wakes up every 5 minutes or so to look at the clock when I know I have to be awake early for something. Sure enough, there was a lot of clock-watching going on last night, so I finally gave in around 4:15 and got up. Did a little yoga to start getting the body warmed up, made and ate some breakfast (Trader Joe's sprouted wheat cinnamon-raisin bagels are YUM, may I just say), and started packing the car. I knew the park opened at 5:30, so once everything was in order, I hopped in and toddled off. (Funnily enough, even at that hour there were people out on the California freeways!)

San Dimas is about 18 miles east of where I am-- out in some more foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, and quite pretty, really, even on a Sunday morning when the fog hasn't blown or burned off yet. Got to the park just after it opened, and even then wasn’t the first one through the gates—but I did have a great selection of places to park, so paid my $10 entry fee to the site and managed to get up pretty close to the transition area before heading off to pick up my race packet. That achieved, I grabbed my stuff and headed into transition to set things up.

To my pleasant surprise, the transition area wasn’t particularly crowded, not even as more and more people arrived and began to set up—turns out there were a total of 476 individual competitors plus 6 relay teams, which was really quite manageable (the last tri I did had about 2000 competitors total, so much more cramped bike racks!). I found a great spot: second row in, second rack over, and got everything set up quickly. Body-markers made their way through the racers so I eventually lined up and got numbered in various places, including a sticker for my bike with my race number on it—this race allowed family members and friends in the transition area as we all set up, so I guess the stickers were to ensure that people left with their own bikes and nobody else’s as extra! Still, the family, friends, dogs, etc. actually made for a very congenial prep time this morning: one of the people setting up at the end of my row had his wife and dog with him, and the dog was clearly delighted to be there without getting in anyone’s way at all: he just stood there, enjoying the scene, tail wagging. Perfect attitude for the day. I chatted with my neighbours, said hi to some Pasadena Tri Club folk, and had a last bite or two of bagel and cheese to tide me over. By this point, the fog was clearly starting to burn off, and I knew it was going to be a hot one, so on came the sunscreen—fantastic stuff: kept me burn-free through the whole thing!

I knew from having visited the park’s ranger station yesterday that the water had been measured at 77 degrees recently, so I decided to skip the wetsuit—for a 300-yard swim, it really didn’t seem necessary, and 77 degrees is very comfortable for me. It was interesting to see a LOT of people putting on wetsuits, even full-sleeved ones, in such conditions—maybe for the buoyancy, maybe for the longer course… I couldn’t really tell, but I for one wasn’t going to swelter in a wetsuit for a brief swim.

Eventually they called for everyone to clear the transition area, so down to the beach we went for announcements, the national anthem, and the elite start—it took a while between waves for the lifeguards on paddleboards to reposition themselves, so as someone in the last wave of the day I spent a lot of time just standing around on the beach waiting. (Happily, I met up with some more PTC members, and chatted with them for a while.) The long-course waves went before us short-coursers, and then just before the first short-course wave could go, we saw a boat move one of the buoys marking our course—making the course longer than we’d been initially told. Some people were really miffed by that; I still figured it was a short enough swim that it didn’t make that much difference. Besides, by that point I’d been standing around in a wet tri outfit on the beach for half an hour: I wanted to get in and get started! Finally, they called my wave in and counted us down…I had a brief moment of “What on EARTH am I doing??” then plunged on in and swam away. I’d positioned myself well to the outside of the group, so managed to avoid hitting anyone or being hit, even though it meant I swam well wide of the straightest line between buoys. The no-wetsuit decision was definitely the right one, though—as I ran out of the water I knew I could just move to my bike and get my shoes and helmet on rather than wrestling with hot neoprene: no bad thing. Out of the water in 7 minutes and change, which also told me that the distance was a bit further than 300 yards. But no time for pondering aquatic spatial organization or lack thereof: belt on, glasses on, helmet on, socks rolled on, shoes on, grab bike and clip-clop outta there to start the bike course. 3:01 in T1; need to work on that a bit.

Irony is something that’s just not for breakfast any more: remember how I’ve been worrying about the bike section and the hills? NOT a problem for me today: having driven most of the course yesterday gave me a HUGE burst of confidence because I had a pretty good sense of where many of the hills were and also knew that there were downhills to come. Got on the bike and worked on getting a little bit of speed up before the first hill, then just powered my way up. The further I went, the better my bike legs felt, and I started passing people (!). The first big downhill was a bit scary, but by the time the second one came along on the back end of the loop, I just rode it for all it was worth. ZOOM! A wonderful—and fun!—bike leg: I felt GREAT coming into T2. Bike racked, helmet off, hat on, shoes changed, quick gulp of HEED and quick gulp of water—out of T2 in 1:29.

Took me a little while to get my run legs, as not only did I get the lovely leaden-flavoured jello feeling of a brick, but the run course was VERY hilly. I decided to just keep running, no matter how slowly. Most of the hills were up on the out portion of the out-and-back course, which left us with some big downhills on the other end—a bit rough on the quads. Then some gentle rolling and one last steep hill before the finish line…pick up the pace…push it…done. Total time: 1:17:08, about 13 minutes faster than my only other tri…and good for 5^th (out of 28) in my age group! That blew me away—I ended up 114^th out of 221 sprint racers overall, so in the middle of the pack as I’d expected. But a PR and a good AG placing? Definite bonuses for what was a fantastic race experience. The PTC members were lovely, cheering for me as well as for their teammates, bless them—first time I’ve had someone cheering for me in a race, and it really DOES make a difference! After the sprint, we all hung out near the finish line to cheer the PTCers doing the Oly—it was fun to yell like mad for them, too.

Funny how the thought process of a triathlon begins with “Wait a minute, WHAT am I doing??” and ends with “WOW, that was fun. Can I do it again?” Next race: Breath of Life Tri in Ventura, including an ocean swim. Two weeks to train more: more bike hills, more run speedwork, more swimming endurance. Bring it on!

Alex - Congratulations on your PR (and AG finish).  You smoked the course!  Good job on your race report too!