I felt so great on this swim. Initially, I went out super hard for the first 200 yards to really stay in the pack and it was a ton of fun. I was getting bashed on both sides and even took a swift elbow to the goggles that seemed to create stars and a small amount of nausea. Shook it off and was right on someone's hip. Decided to try to back down to see if I could draft but every time I did that it seemed like she would crash into me, perhaps she was using me for sighting? So just swam side by side almost to the turnaround and then she went super wide of the buoys, so I had to find a new fish to befriend.

I was getting a bit hot and started to drift left and actually ran into a kayak along the middle of the river telling me to get further to the right. Ah, I never drift left since I am a right side only breather, I must have been rotating pretty well! Swam back over to my peeps and the next part seemed to go really well, never got tired and suddenly there is the bridge above (about 400 yards to go!) I must have gotten really excited and distracted because suddenly I look up to sight and a kayaker is saying, oh, you need to go back around! (I was to the right of the cement base of the bridge!!!). Oh, geez, so I swim perpendicularly to the river just to get back into the flow and am able to catch the draft of two ladies almost all of the way to the finish.

For me to swim 6 minutes faster than last year made me so happy, it made all of those early morning freezing cold winter drill swims worth it!

Work on sighting more regularly but I think this was almost the best I could expect. My 2000 yard straight swim in training was 44:xx, and I might have actually shorted that by 50 yds....shhhh, don't tell coach! Super duper happy!

Came into transition to see the racks half full! This is so foreign to me, it literally made me think I was in the wrong row. However, found my stuff quite quickly.

Why did this take so long??? Used a ton of body glide and that spray stuff on my ankles/calves, even stepped on it like Kyla told me!!!! Arghh. Anyhow, had to jam all the wet stuff in my bag and spray sunscreen, still don't know how to get this under 4 minutes! I've been trying for 4 bloody years!

not wear a wetsuit? oy.

Well, I decided to run up the hill this year as the mount area looked absolutely bumpy and terrible and no one else was mounting. Mounted at the top of the hill and proceeded along River Road. I love this part of the race and felt super strong but held back a little to get my legs under me and get my heart rate down.

After 10 minutes, I realized I had not started my Garmin. Smart move. Didn't matter much as I wanted to use it to occasionally check my power and heart rate. Was happy to see I was holding 80-85% as planned and my HR was right in low-mid zone 3. Breathing felt good, started to do calculations in my mind and knew if I could keep it up, I could maybe better last year's 2:47 or maybe even a few minutes faster that's how good I felt and my mph at this point was averaging over 20.5.

Rolled past the first aid station at mile 15 or 18, and didn't take water. It was hereabouts that I recall hearing a very loud noise. Like a pop or snap or something. And I vaguely remember seeing a red thing (like a water bottle top thingy) on the road. A guy behind or passing me said, hope that wasn't me...and I remember thinking, same here! And I looked down to see if I'd flatted and I hadn't, and I felt for my cartridges and they had not fallen out.

I kept powering on, but was checking my power to see that the average had dropped almost 15 watts in only 10 miles and I hit the 29 mile timing thing at 1:28 which seemed wrong to me. I would check my heart rate and it was still right in middle zone 3. Bugger! I remember Steve telling me if I didn't feel good, don't worry, give up 5-10 minutes on the bike to have a good run, especially this year with less run fitness. So, I carried on but started to get frustrated. And people were passing me like no tomorrow. Then the 50+ women started passing me from the previous wave and I started to get really concerned that maybe the knock in the head was messing me up. Started to drink more of my sport drink, I was honestly at a loss.

Then I remembered reading an RR from Beth Walsh, where her tire was rubbing the whole race!!! This was at about mile 35 and I jumped off my bike to see that indeed, my tire was completely resting against the brake pad. REALLY???? And I've been riding like that for almost 20 miles??? Am I stupid or am I stupid? Crap. Okay, fixed. Wait, what's that spoke doing poking out??? OH, F. NO! A spoke had completely broken and was dangling off the side. Oh, I guess that's what that freakishly loud sound was! Well, I was at least a little less frustrated with my fitness at this point and almost sighed in relief. But now I was a bit peeved at myself.

Decided if it made it this far, what's the worse that can happen? I looked for SAG, but didn't see any trucks until about mile 40, where someone was being helped but there was a line of about 3 more cyclists. I thought, if I wait, it might take 10 minutes. Powered on, as Chalk Hill was coming up and I really knew if I could make it through, the last 13 miles are pretty easy. And they were fine. I took it easy on the descents as the tire was out of true and seriously wobbly now whenever I would look, and I couldn't stop it from rubbing the brake pads, but keeping my pedal stroke nice and easy helped a great deal.

At this point, I really didn't know how slow my bike was going to be, because I was worried about riding on this crazy wheel and not crashing.

I am actually shocked that I came in at 3:01, I was expecting more like 3:10 with how many more times I stopped to try to center the darn wheel.

HMM.

Well, I was going to try the taking feet out of pedals this year but chickened out at the last minute. I came into T2 wondering how to turn this race around. Did my favorite trick in T2(ha), and put on new socks. Sprayed more sunscreen. I am really not sure why this took so long, either!!!!

Many more bikes in T2 than last year...sadly.

At this point, with a PR safely out of reach, and my secret phantom race slipping away (yes-it was a Vegas Qualifying spot that I wanted this year)...it would have been really easy to phone this one in and say my darn foot hurt or something lame like that. But the truth was, my foot felt pretty darn good. And to be honest, I really wanted to see if I could pull off a good run and pass some folks!

And so I started off onto the run, and saw about a 7:45 pace. And I have not seen anything with a 7 in front since March...and I felt amazing. No bricks at all this year. And my quads felt totally amazing. I decided to keep to my 30 second walk break after 15 minutes. I ran like this for about 30 minutes and decided to take my Gu at the next walk break. And my stomach was NOT happy. It started to complain. So I slowed down and it settled down, but every time I tried to ramp it back up, it was would start up again. And it was moving past my stomach (not to get too graphic) but I decided to go water only until the one hour point, and I knew I would need nutrition but I couldn't decide whether to go straight to coke or take a little bit more of my second GU. Well, the better idea should have been the coke!!!!!!! Didn't I say I should have gone to the coke earlier in IM??? The tiniest little GU made my stomach rebel and I was more than ecstatic to see a port o potty within a quarter mile.

I came out of there feeling good. I was hitting 8:00-8:15's and I passed about 3-4 women in my age group at this point and decided to stop taking anymore nutrition and switch to just water. Even scared of coke. And I had to make one more bathroom stop, came out and saw a woman I had passed earlier from my AG. I made a very firm pass and decided no more walk breaks, this was with about 4 miles to go.

These last four miles, I put myself deep into a place where I was on the edge the whole way. My breathing was labored, but my legs felt so damn good. My foot was not bothering me, the only thing holding me back was my stomach, and that I attribute to my limited running, along with the fact that I really didn't have a chance to practice nutrition except on those two really easy 10 mile runs. Maybe I should have tried the gatorade?? Ugh, who knows!!!

Before this race, I had a dream of making the top 5. After my bike thing, I thought maybe top 10? I had told myself, if I made top 10, I would go to roll down. Especially because my foot was doing really well, and I knew I would be able to compete if I made it to Vegas.

So, I powered on, and I found a guy with a Sport Basement jersey on who was the perfect carrot, my pace went down to 7:45 again for the last 1 mile and it felt amazing. For some reason, once I could see the turn in to the finish line, my stomach shut up. Funny how that happens.

Came into the finish line and felt pretty happy to be done. Even took a finish photo.

Can't really complain much. Only 9 minutes slower than last year with a lot less run fitness.

Had a great chicken sandwich and fruit, took a nice cold shower and boy did that feel great. Made the crazy bus ride to pick up my car and then drove back to get my bike. Made it before roll down and then made the crazy decision to go ahead and chance it. Our age group got 2 slots. The last one went to the 8th place finisher (3 minutes ahead of me). Darn. Close but no cigar. Well, it was not meant to be! Maybe one of these days!!!


I was super happy with my swim this year and I always blame my swim for everything! This time, it helped keep me in the game.

Broken spoke was evil.

PF is evil, but I am quite happy it may be on it's way out.




It would be easy to be down about having a mechanical on the bike, but I am actually pleased with the way things turned out. Nothing is for sure, and sometimes, these things happen to make us stronger. I will return with some unfinished business!!!!

Great race, well organized, great volunteers, perfect weather, bumpy roads (still). :)