Mountain Man - Half Ironman
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Mountain Man - Half Ironman - Triathlon
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Swim
Comments: In the water to go pee, back out of the water to chip in and then back in. OK? It was a wade start and the water was so nice and refreshing. I wore my earplugs this time with the hopes of not having the terrible vertigo I got on the last Mountain Man swim. That sucks! I did wait about 5-10 seconds after the horn and jumped on the back of the pack. Most people were pretty decent swimmers. I had a hard time to the first buoy, its just the lack of oxygen gets you right away until you figure ‘BIG body roll, BIG breath!’ And then it was all good. I had an awesome draft from the first buoy to the third. A guy in a sleeveless wetsuit swimming right next to another guy. He was sighting really well so I could stop sighting for a while. I picked up to sight in a little bit and noticed I was drafting JOSH!!! Ha. Somehow I lost them though, and that little draft helped me because I ended up 2 minutes faster than him out of the water. Heh. The swim was uneventful, I just kept it smooth and long and relaxed. I NEVER swim, ever. So I was happy with this swim, it was fun to just be in the water and take it in. I know I should train more and I could make some large improvements, but that’s not what this race report is about. The best part was coming out of the water, popping up and realizing “I’m not dizzy?” And actually RUNNING through transition! That was a first! I saw Sandy in T1 and she asked if she could help with my wetsuit but T1 was so long I still had a ways to run, so I said ‘I got it’ was good to see people as usual! What would you do differently?: Train more! Transition 1
Comments: T1 worked out great, saw Josh come through so we could talk strategy. I would go out on the bike and wait for him to catch up. PERFECT as our plan was to race together all day. How often do you get to do that? Bike
Comments: So off onto the bike. Everything felt pretty good. I remember being cold, but I remember thinking how odd it was to be so alone out there. Last year I did the Oly and it was a zoo on that course. Not this time, serenity. I was going pretty slow just spinning my legs out waiting for J. A few minutes passed and I looked back (can’t miss Mr. Orange) and there he was. We cranked up to the hills averaging over 20, but then came the steps and I had NO POWER. None. I don’t know what it was. I do consider myself a decent climber, not fast but I am consistent. I have done the steps many times and this time I was worried about my ability to do them. My new bike gearing is much harder than all my other bikes, but still I had pre-rode this. So worry did set in – 56 miles….LOADS more hills. But I got up them, had to get out of the saddle, which I don’t like to do. Just counted to 10 out of the saddle and 10 in the saddle. Rinse and repeat. On the final step my sunglasses that I had shoved down my top since it was cloudy out went flying. DAMNIT! Some really nice guy yells up to me that I dropped them, he stopped to get them, then I stopped. Had to lay my bike on the side of the road and wait for him to climb up to me. What a NICE guy. He was doing the HIM too. But still, he could have left them in the road to get smashed and that would have been allowed. But that was pretty cool of him. I thanked him profusely and got back on to finish the climb. J had no lower gearing so would smoke me on the climbs and now he was way out front. I had to WORK to meet him at the Mormon Lake turnoff. My legs STILL felt like lead and it had been about 20 minutes on the bike. They had NEVER felt that bad. So I catch up to him and we ride side by side. There is a small hill at the beginning of Mormon Lake turnoff and I tell him he is going to have to leave me today, my climbing is just not there (in fact thoughts of DNF crossed my mind). We talked for a little bit and he reiterated how much he wanted to do this with me. We were at the most perfect part of the course; it’s like a shaded tree tunnel, smooth beautiful CAR FREE roads. I would ride the centerline sometimes. That’s when I began to remind myself how my body take a LONG time to warm-up sometimes and that I had not been doing any bricks, maybe I kicked too much on the swim, eat more, give it time, etc. Lots of ‘you’ll be fine Jen’ came into play and next thing I knew we were on the Mormon Lake steps and I felt fine. The rest of the bike course was really really hilly, I wished a few times I had pre-rode so I would have known what I was getting into, but maybe it was for the best. ;) The out and back on the course was terribly hilly – I thought you would climb out and just whiz back down, but it ended up being rolling and longer than I expected. But the highlight of that was when we were first introduced the INSANE downhill on the backside of Mormon lake. Fresh pavement and the steepest scariest descent I have ever ridden. Josh was in front of me and all I remember thinking is “get out of your aero bars you JACK A$$!” It was fun. The bike leg went by FAST, even though it took about 20 minutes longer than we had hoped for. Before I knew it we were back to the sprint turnaround fighting the headwind back into T2, I was excited and I didn’t let the thoughts of ‘oh still a half marathon to go.’ I felt like I had done really well taking on nutrition (4 gels, about 12 shot blox and a TON of water, didn’t touch my Accelerade) but I still could not stomach anything solid (like a bar). What would you do differently?: I felt like I could have ridden this course a lot faster without the heavy legs for the first 20-30 minutes, but with my lack of distance training on the bike and amount of hills I am okay with this. Transition 2
Comments: First of all I went out of T2 only to realize I forgot my race belt. Thankfully Rick was chatting with us in Transition and I TOLD him to go get it for me. HA! Thanks Rick!!! It was good to see so many familiar people in T2 who had just finished their races. So after race belt on I trudged out. Run
Comments: OK off on the run. My breathing was atrocious; J even said he was worried. I sounded asthmatic. Damn altitude. I was moving but could not get a rhythm. Everything that day took me so long to just SETTLE down. I didn’t worry at all since I knew from the bike I would be fine so I just told J ‘give me a minute’ and we kept jogging slowly, that is until my back started acting up. UGH I had been dealing with a little ‘pinch’ in my low back all week. I seriously blame it on swimming! HA! But this little pinch became a full-blown spasm on the run, complete with numb leg. I kept running the flats up to the big hill and then I had to walk. That is until I saw Paulette and Dave! I joked to Josh ‘we have to be running by them!’ So we did! PJ does a cartwheel, to which I reply “Damn you PAULETTE!” And then we high five Dave, they looked awesome. I then walked the WHOLE hill. That kinda sucked, but it was okay. We made a friend. New Josh who has already signed into the forums, see we have this recruiting thing DOWN! ;) He was doing his first tri ever as a 70.3 in Flagstaff! Crazy! He was cool. But I was starting to worry a little. My back was not getting better it was getting worse. At the turnaround I asked for Tylenol, yeah right! So I told Josh to run ahead to the general store and we would see each other across the road so he could give me Tylenol. Yeah well he didn’t want to leave me, so I would stop and stretch a little and he would run my back (awww). And then I wanted to run down the hill with my whole philosophy of “hey its going to hurt no matter what so might as well try and get this over with”) so off we went. Shortly after the hill we saw Sally on the other side with Paulette, then she crossed over to chat with us! HOW awesome. This was so nice, a welcome distraction. She filled us in on her race and everyone else. It was nice to have some connection to the world as you felt like you were out in the middle of nowhere. She stuck around for a while then headed back to see PJ and Dave finish (and miss the downpour). It felt like forever to get to the turnaround, but we finally did and then it was a long straight shot back (about 5.5 miles). This was when the thunder started to rumble and it started to sprinkle. I was excited, how fun to run in the rain! It was shortly after this I tried some Oreos at an aid station. Not a good idea! ;) I was having a good time, J and I were just trucking along doing whatever, talking about whatever, taking in the view. Then about 3.3 miles out the skies opened up and it started to POUR. I mean absolutely buckets of water. The kind that hurts when it hits you its raining so hard! You could barely see. A car pulled over and offered us jackets, so sweet but we were already drenched so we declined. We went by an aid station where the guy had a garbage can lid over his head. I thanked them profusely, called them angels for staying out in that and we went on. There was about 2 inches of water running across the road and through my shoes. My feet were making an audible slosh and picking them up was getting very difficult, as they were very very heavy. Not only that but they felt like they had NO cushion when they were wet. I had no foot pain but as soon as the water hit I felt like I was running barefoot. I found this fantastic though. I think I told Josh it sounded pretty, like a waterfall and he rolled his eyes at me! Tanya and Jerry drove by as we were getting close and cheered for us, then Chris came as there was an ambulance and he was worried. AWW! It was then that I realized they were all STILL there waiting for us! I picked it up (plus Josh said we could make sub 7 hours) and we ran to the finish. I remember talking to Josh about his dad in the last mile and how much he would have loved hearing about this race. These crazy ones were his favorite. “Decent” he would say and that kept resounding through my head as we crossed the finish line hand in hand, high fiving all of our friends who stayed there waiting in that awful weather, after all of their races. Yeah…Decent. Post race
Warm down: Everyone was there to congratulate us. They had even cleaned up our transition area and tried to get our stuff out of the rain. For some reason, this meant alot to me and as I unpacked it yesterday it almost made me teary thinking about all the people who helped out and care for us. THANKS GUYS! It was so nasty out and it would not have bothered me one bit for everyone to have gone home. But they didn't. The race had run out of medals as it was sold out and it was a sprint, Oly and HIM race so some of us last HIMers didn't get a medal. Chris walks over and handed me HIS. Again, I could almost cry. It's stuff like this that means the world to me. Sure the race was cool, but there is nothing better than the love and support of your friends and finishing a race like this with the man (errr....Robot) I love. Last updated: 2008-07-21 12:00 AM
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General Discussion-> Race Reports! |
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United States
Mountain Man Events
60F / 16C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 74/90
Age Group = 25-29
Age Group Rank = 3/3
This race sat in my training log as a HIM from the start of the year but to be honest I never really thought I would race it that way. The months that preceded it were chaotic, emotional roller coasters that didn’t allow for HIM worthy training, but we still did the best we could given the circumstances. As Mountain Man drew nearer Robot and I had yet to sign up as I continually played with the idea of racing the Olympic distance and even the Sprint at some point. It just depended on the day and my mood, but I honestly felt the HIM was not possible. Sometimes that’s really all it takes for me, “could I do it? Well lets find out!” What really got us signed up though was a simple inspire from Paulette letting me know only 2 people were in my Age Group – that, coupled with my sheer curiosity, plus the drive to do something a little wild in the name of Original Robot was what sealed the deal. 3 days before the Flagstaff Half and we were game.
The ESCKTC makes this weekend our own little Tri Club Festival complete with group dinner on Friday night, hot tub parties, potluck Saturday, pre-swims, pre-bikes, and just an overall party atmosphere. It’s too much fun, no room for nerves. We also did the 5K Run for Rusher as a group and that was a good way to get your head straight for the weekend and be thankful for the ability to be there with friends, loved ones and just have the opportunity to race.
I don’t do nerves so I never really let it enter my mind what I was about to embark on, plus the point here was to really enjoy it. My goals that I had posted in my log before I left (and when I decided to do the HIM were as follows: My goal: To keep a smile on my face the ENTIRE time - just like he did when things got rough. To enjoy every step of the journey, to "stop and smell the flowers", take in the view, do everything to my fullest capability - without complaint, without protest, with pure joy. THATS my goal.
I woke up at 3:30 on Sunday morning with a sinking feeling about my chip. I had gotten everything together the night before and did not remember seeing my chip. HMMM. So I went upstairs and dug for it. No chip. So odd. SO that was really my only problem of the race. We had to hightail it out of the house so I could get a new chip – what a fiasco, the chip lady at this race is no cream cookie. But it was worked out just in time for other clubbers to arrive and Paulette to begin the Transition entertainment. What a great way to begin your first HIM, cracking up at everything she says. After convincing the Type A’s its her first triathlon, asking where the “booties” that you swim around are, and spraying copious amounts of TriSlide lube all over (and taking pics of me doing odd things to Robot) we were ready to go to the water. All before 6AM! I loved how relaxing everything was.