Good news / Bad news with this swim.
Good news first:
Totally calm about the swim leading up to this race, no panic or anxiety while waiting for my swim wave, and no anxiety in the water. I am finally learning to not stress out about open water swimming. I used to have a very real fear of drowning out there. To be honest, I was kind of looking forward to this swim.
Bad news:
Quite dissapointed in my time. The water temp was good, bouys on the right, enough bouys that I was able to see them, no pain in my shoulders, only minor contact a few times mostly as the relay wave swam over me, new goggles worked perfectly (I forgot mine and had to make a trip to Dicks Friday night), no nauseau, so there was no apparent reason for my time to be so slow. I was hoping for about 45 minutes. My swim time in both of my IMs has been ~1:45 so I'm a long ways off if this is my HIM swim time on a good day.

Swim more. Probably should do more swim speed workouts, but that probably isn't going to happen.

Some day I will break down and cut my wetsuit so maybe I should just go ahead and do it. Nah. I'll keep having ridiculously long T1 times. I was obviously in no hurry. Completely dried feet and put socks on. Swam in just my sports bra so had to put shirt on. Also wore arm warmers and a jacket, and cycling gloves. Just a training day........If I was actually racing today I would be VERY upset over this T1 time, but then again this T1 time wouldn't have been this long.

Cut my wetsuit. No.

I knew the bike was going to be tough for me today, but was hoping it wouldn't be quite this tough. 3:30 was my target time. I was pleased that I didn't have too much trouble with my left IT band (thanks to lots of foam rolling this week) but my lower back was in loads of pain.

I had 3 goals for this race:
1. Training day
2. Get a measurement for my triathlon fitness
3. Ride the road bike to see if Vineman is possible on July 31. It is hilly and I would take my road bike if I decide to do it. Otherwise it will just be B2B in October which will definately by my Kueen K.

Very pleased with myself today that I stuck with goal #1. Race mentallity never entered the mind today.

I knew the biggest factor in goal #2 was the bike. I could not have gone much farther on the bike today. I was done for when I finished this ride (actually my lower back and hamstrings were done for). I did good with hydration and good with calories so that wasn't an issue. Time in the saddle just hasn't been there and time on my feet for long runs doesn't carry over. I've only been back to cycling for 5 or 6 weeks so I'm not surprised or even dissappointed as to where I'm at but needed a true gauge to build on.

Vineman is NOT going to happen. Not this year anyway.

Don't know how much better I would have felt if I had been on the tri bike versus the road bike. Probably some better but not good. My bike computer died at mile 25 so I rode the last 30 miles without it and I was just about at the 16mph average at that time so I didn't fall way off. 16mph was what I was shooting for, just would have like it to come with a lot less effort and pain.

Ride my tri bike. But I needed to know how I'd fare on the road bike.

I will probably run the Umstead 100 miler again next year so if I want to follow up the spring 100 with summer tris and fall IM then I need to find a way to keep some bike rides in my schedule during ultra training.

What can I say. Again, I'm in no big hurry. I had to pee so bad I couldn't stand it. Took off my jacket but kept the arm warmers for the start of the run. Should have taken them off too. This pair of running shoes doesn't have tri laces so had to actually tie my shoes.

This was not a good run for me. Coming into the day I knew that I would probably struggle on the bike which would seriuosly affect my run. I was pleased in that I didn't hurt real bad, the IT band was OK, the pain in my lower back from the bike subsided, the hamstrings remained very tender.

Training day so the plan was to do a 5:1 run/walk ratio. Good girl, you followed the plan. Another concern coming into today was running on pavement. Since I have become primarily an ultra runner I never run hard surfaces anymore. The sprint tri a couple of weeks ago was the first pavement I've run in a very long time and it was only a 5K. I was able to stay off the pavement and run on the side of the road for about 80% of this run which helped the legs but trashed the pace.

The good news about for this run was that I had FUN. I love to run. I seen so many people out there on the run course that just looked miserable. I could not help but feel during this run that I belong to the ultra running world, not the triathlon world. The atmosphere during a an ultra run is one big party (even when people are seriously hurting) we run because we love to run, many triathletes run because it is a necessary evil of their sport. There were very few people on the run course that I could even engage in some friendly chit chat.

There are lots of things I would have done differently if this was an A race, or even a B race. I seriuosly thought about doing a fourth lap of the run course but decided that probably wasn't a good idea.

Funny. They were announcing the winners in my AG as I crossed the finish line. They did not announce my finish, the person handing out medals was not paying attention and did not see me finish or give me a medal. The photographer was kind enough to send me back to get my medal. Then he sent me back a second time to the same person for the really important item: my pizza coupon. Thank you Mr.Camera Man!


I am 6 weeks post my first 100 mile run and this is my third race during those six weeks. First was a sprint tri and last weekend was a 15K trail race, both of those events I 'raced'. Last weekend I did not intend to 'race' by lost my discipline and knew that it would greatly affect this weekend's HIM which it did. Given the chance, I'm sure I'd do the same thing again.


This is by far my lowest ranking in any race I have ever done. Well no, I did DNF my first HIM attempt (freaked out in the swim). My HIM PR is 5:39 and I'm typically right around 6 hours so I'm a good hour slow and I'm a long ways from IM fitness.

I turn 50 this year. I decided last year that to celebrate the 50th year of my life I would do 3 things?
1. Run my first 100 miler
2. Run another Boston Qualifying marathon
3. Complete another Ironman

Goal number 1 was accomplished at the Umstead 100. The problem is that I enjoyed that so much that I'm finding that I don't have a lot of interest in continuing on with goals 2&3. I really want to just do trail running and ultras. The plan currently is to stick with my original plan for 2011 and then let that fitness cary me into a spring 2012 100. I just have to keep telling myself that I'm doing 100 mile training, just taking a different approach to my training this time. I do have to admit that training for and completing a 100 mile run did not give me the overall fitness of training for an Ironman.