Since the delays due to weather post-poned the race almost an hour, my nutrition was officially off. I always struggle with nutrition and was so proud I had a breakfast that would last me until I finished the swim. Then I would eat on the bike. However, I'm now starting the swim hungry. There's nothing I can do, it's too late to eat and not cramp, so I tell my tummy we will eat immediately on the bike. It agrees to wait.

The other problem is the cold. My arms and hands are shaking violently from the cold and I know if I push the swim I'll be injured. So, I mentally consult my spreadsheet and calculate that for every 5 seconds in 100yard pace, I only gain 2 minutes on the entire race. I decide to sacrifice 4 minutes and swim slowly. It kills me, but it's my only choice. I'll have to make it up later.

So, we get in the water and I take it easy. Super easy. Half way through, I still haven't broken from the group, and I realize I have no idea what stroke my left arm is doing. It's nothing I've ever seen before but I have no control over it. So, I keep going. I catch some feet which I've never done before and go along for the ride. Never pushing. Never elevating the heart rate at all. It's killing me, but a necessary sacrifice I keep telling myself. If I push this, sub-6 dreams will be shattered.

Not much I could do given the circumstances. I didn't train as much as last year, so I knew my swim would be slower. Next year I will train more. However, in this scenario I do not regret not pushing harder, I would have paid for it later. More training would have gotten me a faster easy pace, so that's where the payoff would have been.

During my practice ride yesterday, I realized we headed straight into a harsh headwind so I decided to keep my shoes off the bike. I'd rather have as much power ASAP then be struggling to put the shoes on in a headwind. So, I got to transition, took an extra second to double check the rain damage (it was pretty bad) and got going.

5/22 in AG

Wind dependent put my shoes on the bike. Not have spent as much time double checking everything, just trust that I had done it right and the rain didn't do any damage

I get on my bike, get going and reached into my bag for some much needed nutrition. Ron had told me weeks ago to think about every bad-case scenario and plan for it. I had planned for the rain. I had not planned for the rain melting all of my food together!!!! My lovingly cut shot-blocks were a huge giant rock of melted gu that I couldn't pull apart! I spent half the race just trying to break of chunks to eat.

So, I'm riding into the rain (do you know how much rain drops hurt at 20+ mph with no windshield? It feels like someone chucking rocks at you from a close distance, that's what it feels like!). Thinking "ow, ow, ow" and thinking my whole body is going to be bruised by the end of this. Then I thought, so what? It'll be worth it when I break 6 hours. I get to the first aide station, grab a bottle at 19 and feel like a pro! Now I'm getting into this.

Then I hit the 6 mile mark. Everyone's being good, slowing down early and staying out of each others way. It is quite a site to see all these triathletes cyclo-crossing it – we had to climb over a ditch into a grassy field, run through the grass, back over a bigger ditch, through a river of rain water and then back onto the road! As anyone who knows me and how graceful I am can imagine, I did not do this so smoothly. My rear break doesn't catch and my bike flips up, my pedal cuts up my calf and my saddle slams me in the back! OW! I don't look at my calf, if it's bleeding it's bleeding, I'd rather not know and I take off running. Finally I get through the obstacle course and back on my bike. Try to pedal and guess whose chain fell off? Now I'm off the bike, fixing my chain, covered in grease and finally ready to go. I get going and the rest of the bike course is uninteresting at best. I just keep pushing. There are tons more hills then I thought, but none too crazy steep. I never had to drop my front chain ring, but I was getting tired of hills towards the end. The worst part was the entire back half was really rough chip-and-seal. So, the ride went like this:

Rain

Rain

oh shit this water's too deep to pass – just hang on! (luckily made it through that ok, just kept my line and didn't touch the breaks)

Rain

cyclocross

rain

relief / hills

chip&seal

ouch! More chip&seal

oh yay! Chip&seal and rain! Remind me why I do this again?

relief/hills – really?

More rain???

2 miles to go

Aakk! Headwinds!!!!

Oh good, there's transition!

Anytime it got rough, I just thought about my sub-6 goal. I was so focused on this goal it was amazing and pulled me through. When it got really rough, I heard myself telling me "if you break 6 in these conditions, no one, not even you, can say you didn't earn it". And, I believed me!

What would you do differently?:

Not drop my chain.

Realistically though I did pretty good. I need to work on my turning, the turn-around was ugly and I could have done that better. I also got very nervous on the way back, there were a lot of us close together (not drafting, but just a big pile-up) when the rain hit hard. Most people stayed in the group, but I significantly backed off until I had a lot of road to myself. I probably lost some time here, but I felt safer and that's huge.

At the last mile, my computer had an average of 18.8. I figured that was high because it wouldn't count the run. So, I pushed enough to recover for the run without sacrificing my average. If I realized my average was actually 18.9, I probably would have pushed just a little harder to hopefully hit 19.

However, the happy thing is without the dismount I would have definitely averaged 19! Being 18 was the highest I thought I would average (and even that was a pipe-dream), this is awesome!

The other thing I need to do is cover my food so rain won't hurt me nutritionally. I also need to put my Accelerade in my aero bottle, otherwise I won't drink it and will suffer on the run...

I knew this wouldn't be the best. I've been fighting bad blisters all year and have to wear toe socks. Try putting those on quickly! Actually, I rolled them up and did put them on quite quickly, but it still slowed me down. I also spent too much time thinking. Looking around at the wet mess, debating the socks, etc. I should have just gone with the plan.

In the future There will be no thinking in transition! Just do it!

15/22 (pretty bad!)

The run is pretty much ankle-deep in water for about 1/4 - 1/2 of the course! So, I just took it as fun and splashed around in the puddles. I knew I had some time to spare but didn't want to get too cocky so I kept pushing and pushing. Then at the turn-around at mile 6, I saw these 2 guys in front of me who could have been twins! Same build, same jerseys…ut-oh, I'm seeing double. Now I'm in huge trouble. I'm seeing double and I've had to pee since I got on the course so I took a breather in the port-o-potty. I'm still upset because my Garmin again registered 9:59s and my official time was 10:05s, without the stop I would have broken 10s! But, it was necessary, I couldn't not stop. I was still seeing double despite all the endorolytes. My pace was significantly slowing no matter what I tried. I started realizing that I really needed an aid tent (hyponutremia – had that problem at the marathon too) so I kept promising my body at the finish, we'd go straight to medical and get a saline drip. It wasn't convinced. When I felt like stopping or walking, I reminded myself how hard I had worked and how I'd always regret not pushing. I would never get this chance back, I had to push it for all I had in me. At mile 10 I started with the Coke (didn't want to start too early in case my body rebelled) and took my first unscheduled walk at 10.5. It broke my heart as I had gone that far without walking anything but the aid stations. I bio-freezed my back which was killing me and a sweet woman grabbed me and literally knocked some sense into me. She kept running with me and talking even though I could barely make a coherent sentence. But, she kept pointing out all the men we were passing and how bad ass we were. She finally dropped me and I took in some more Coke. Now I was feeling a bit better. I found another woman and ran with her for a bit. She said I must be there for the Championship – I was fast and looked so good! I was flattered. Then she smacked me on the butt and told me to run off! By the next aid station I decided to keep my pep by talking to everyone going the other way. I got tons of surprised smiles and it made me feel better. Then at 12 I caught another guy and we said there would be nothing to stop us now, they'd have to pull us dead off the course for us not to finish. We were tired so we ran together in silence, then in single file when we hit the narrow portion of the course. I stopped at the last aid station for a final swig of coke and picked it up a little.

Now, here was my 2nd mistake (nutrition was #1) of the race. At Galveston, the race totaled the correct length but the mile markers were off. The first 3 were short so I thought I was going too fast and slowed down a bit, then at 3, I picked it up to a final sprint thinking there was only .1 left. There was about .25 and I was going way too fast to sustain. So, I saw the 13 mile marker, but my garmin read 12.75. I couldn't pick it up too early so I picked up slightly but not as much as my final kick should be. I immediately saw the finish line! I kicked it up but I finished with a bit left in the tank which upset me! My garmin was off – it read 12.85 for the whole race! I thought it was a short course, but Brittany said her Garmin was dead on. So now, which do I listen to? The course markers or the Garmin?


Fuel better on the bike and learn to pee on the bike. If I had taken in my electrolytes like planned on the bike, I wouldn't have bonked so hard on the run. If I could pee, I'd have saved a few more minutes and broken 10s.

I also had a sunburn by the time I got half way through I was burning up. Next time I will put on more sunscreen, even though it's raining and overcast!

I'm coming up to the finish with no idea how close I am to the 6 hour mark. I think I did it, but I might be close being I have no idea how slow my swim was and my run had significantly slowed. I see 6:05 on the clock. Did I do it? Did I really not just break 6, but possibly slaughter it (my wave was one of the last to start)? I don't want to get my hopes up yet, so I ask a volunteer "is the time on the clock for the start of the full or the half?". He said "the half, no wait, the full. Yeah, the full…so you'd have to subtract about 20 minutes from that to get your time". My eyes welled up and suddenly nothing hurt anymore. I did it!

I entered the finishes tent and ate and shared war stories with other finishers, absolutely glowing with pride. This is the first time I've set a concrete, aggressive goal, shared it and let it run my whole race. I am so proud of the effort I put out there and at times wondered who I was, so focused and not letting anything get the better of me. So, besides just hitting a number goal, I learned more about myself out there then any other race I've done.


Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition!