I think I would have been way faster if I had swum in anything remotely resembling a straight line. *sigh* something to work on for next year.

swim straight. and fast. :)

Up flight of wet and uneven stone stairs, with a volunteer every 5 feet telling us to be careful, to use the handrail. Saw KathyG again. Cracked some people up by commenting that no one told me it was swim, stairs, bike, run instead of swim, bike, run. Looooonnngggg run to my rack. Did my stuff, looonnnggg run to the bike mount. Not a bad time considering how much running was involved.

We had ridden the course two weeks ago, so I knew what to expect. I passed a few people, got passed by two (the joy of starting out very BOP). I tried to focus on riding sustainably hard. At one point, I realized that I was singing out loud to myself. Cracked myself up. Made up a little song (to the tune of I got you babe) called “I’ll drop you, b*tch”. Really had a great, great ride, thought about climbing well and really powered over the rollers. Legs were tired, but not abnormally so. Had a little bit of cramping in my glute, and discovered that on a downhill, you can use the tip of your saddle to apply pressure to the bad spot. Spent the entire bike course talking to myself. I think I was talking to myself outloud at some points. Good thing I was all alone out there. Drank one and a half bottles of water, had 2 shot bloks every 20 minutes (per plan).

Push slightly less hard.

Dismount. Ouch. Ok, run to spot (really far), switch stuff up, run to exit (also really far. WTF?) Ran past Marmadaddy and say “I mother-f*cking hate mother-f*cking running” as I run by. Realize about 30 seconds later that he was videotaping. Whoops.

Let’s call it a slog. First ¼ mile felt normally bad. Next ½ mile felt like ragged death. Shins and calves totally cramped. Switched to a run 8/walk 2 plan. Shins didn’t really feel better when walking. Was actually crying at one point, which pissed me off. Passed exactly one person (she was 73). Stuck with the 8/2 plan for the first 30 minutes. At one point, my lower legs were so dead that all of the work of running was my upper legs – no foot control or spring at all. Was not exactly speedy. Anyway, started to loosen up in mile three – switched to 9/1, then ran straight for a while as the walk break corresponded to a downhill. Finally got my mojo back around mile four, and just cruised. Legs were working, feet were painful but not abnormally so. Laughed my butt off at the mile 4 water stop, where the volunteers threw water on me (at my request) and were generally very funny. Felt like I had a shot at not having an embarrassingly slow run.

Then I hit a loonnng, gradual uphill that sucked every last remaining bit of life out of me. Ran/walked it as best I could, at one point I think I was running 30 seconds and then walking 30 seconds. The last bit of the race was really just survival, I ran as much as I could. Walked the last bit before the turn into the park so that I would be able to run the entire finish chute.


ease off a bit on the bike.

Got my chip taken off, got my medal, got my cold wet washcloth and a race waterbottle filled with ice cold water. Nice.

Oh, wait, does my watch say 3:31? Yes indeed – my pre-race plan had a best case of 3:30 and a worst case of 4:00… and I was at the lower end of the range. Either my estimating skills suck, or I didn’t have that bad of a race.

Saw AdCo and friend, AdCo directed me to the volunteer with the hose… I just stood under it for a while and cooled down.

Ate, visited the BT'ers, hung out, chatted, drove home, shower, nap.



Next year, I will attempt to get more than 3 and a half hours of sleep the night before. :)