Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report – Part III

Transition

Transition was kind of a weird set up.  It was shaped like a weird little Tetris piece, the one that looks like a Z.  Luckily my rack was in the middle and was very easy to find since all I had to do was look for this:
and my rack was just on the right side of it.

As I ran into transition I had the top of my wetsuit stripped easily.  I got back to my bike and attempted to get the rest of while standing.  I should have just sat down though, because I was dizzy and just about fell over!  Finally…wetsuit off…Camelbak with Infinit on, race number, sock, shoes, bike helmet, glasses, Garmin…all on.  Time to get going!

T1 – 3:59

The Bike – 56 miles (or 90 km)

The bike is a two loop course.  When you look at the elevation profile it looks scary.  Plus at the athlete’s meeting they really drilled it in to you that this course is hilly…very hilly…extremely hilly.  My dad and I drove the course on Sunday and I realized that…it wasn’t that bad.  Yes, there are three nice climbs out there, but for the most part the hills are pretty short.  The rest is a lot of steady gradual uphill and really fun descents.  It may be hard to be fast on this course, but it was definitely a fun ride.

When I got on the bike right away I felt bloated.  Uh oh, I think I swallowed too much air on the swim.  It has happened to me before, once while doing a trial swim out at Arbour Lake.  When I got home I looked about 5 or 6 months pregnant thanks to the air and water I ingested in the lake.  I was pretty sure the same thing had happened at the race.  At first I tried to burp but I wasn’t getting relief.  On one burp I just about threw up.  Uh oh…

Despite the bloated feeling my first loop of the course went pretty well.  I was feeling strong on the uphills and doing my best to take advantage of the downhills.  Just after an aid station there were photographers up the road.  The guy in front of me went to drink his water, fumbled with his bottle, and wound up flying off the road and going into the bush.  Luckily he stopped himself before he could tumble too far down the hill.  He said he was okay…but that was a bit scary!

I hit the halfway point in 1:36, which I was pretty pleased about given the difficulty of the course.  After starting the second loop things got more uncomfortable though.  I was feeling gassy on both ends and it was affecting my riding.  I decided to stop at the next aid station so I lost between 6 and 7 minutes thanks to that.  But what do you do?  Take the extra time and hope you speed up?  Or finish the bike off potentially getting slower and slower?  I decided to stop.  I did feel better after stopping but my stomach was still gurgling.  I knew I was in for a tough run.

So what happened?  Given that I felt just fine before the race I knew what was affecting me happened on the swim.  It was too early on the bike to be the Infinit (plus I’ve trained with it and have never experienced this before).  The lake water essentially locked my stomach up.  It wasn’t emptying, which also meant that my nutrition wasn’t being absorbed.  As I was trying to take the Infinit in the situation just kept compounding.  According to Angie I should have just thrown up to clear things up and start fresh.  Oh well…hindsight..!!  No one really wants to barf, eh?

Lap two took me about 1:54…so thanks to some slowing down and my aid station break it was significantly slower.  Disappointing…slightly.  But…I am happy with how I raced the bike given the discomfort.  I trained well for this course and I am really happy with that.  I never felt like the course was too challenging for me.

56 mi in 3:30:02
F30-34: 30 out of 49 finishers

Transition

I racked the bike, took off my helmet and Camelbak, grabbed a couple of gels, swapped out the shoes and took off.

1:51

The Run – 13.1 mi

The run is a two lap course, and you actually run through downtown and the crowds four times.  That is a fantastic set up.  For the most part you are running on the roads the entire time, but traffic was pretty minimal and not an issue.  There was one kid driving a red sports car that did not want to leave room for the runners and I had to hop on the grass.  He blasted his horn at one of the runners behind us.  Hmm…jerk…
When I started running I was feeling not too bad.  I worked hard to reign in the pace as no matter what I didn’t want to go out too fast.  I knew that even though I had grabbed gels that I most likely wouldn’t be able to use them.  I had assumed they would have Coke on the course and I figured that would get me through.  Instant energy, plus flat Coke is what I use to settle an upset stomach.  Imagine my disappointment when I realized that it was only water and Gatorade out there.  Crap.  The first four miles actually went okay.  In the fifth mile my stomach was really sloshing so I decided to hit up the porta-potty at the end of mile 5.  Imagine my disappointment when…nothing…  Things were well and truly “locked up.”  I trudged on and while I was still running, I was slowing down.  As I passed the aid station at mile 6 there was a girl running the other way that was looking for Gu but only Powergels were available on the course.  Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to use it I handed her one of my Gus.

I knew I would be seeing my parents soon and since I was only taking in Gatorade I figured I’d be hurting at the finish line.  If I couldn’t have Coke on the course I definitely wanted some after I crossed the line.  As soon as I saw my dad I asked him to run to the convenience store, buy a big bottle of Coke and open the top to let it flat a bit.  Thanks Dad!
Things started to go downhill on loop two.  My digestive system wound up going through this viscous circle.  I would run, then the gurgling would start and I would feel like I had to poop my pants…run through it and then I would feel like I had to throw up.  So I walked…a lot…  I was not a happy camper.

I have never thought about quitting a race before until now.

Evidently I don’t have to dig too deep for a reason to keep going though.  The first thing I thought about what that I wouldn’t be able to wear my new visor and really nice pullover.  That was enough!  I’m sure if I needed to eventually I would have come up with reasons like, I’ve trained for this and travelled to this race so quitting would be the ultimate disappointment…  I knew my health wasn’t in jeopardy so really there was no reason to quit.  I would make it to the end, it would just be slowly.

Around mile 10 or 11 I recognized Sister Madonna Buder.  I have to admit I got a little choked up once I realized who I just saw.

I wanted to get this race over and done with, but my running breaks were getting shorter and shorter before the nausea would just be too much.  Athletes running in the other direction were trying to be so encouraging…thank you so much…but despite wanting to run I just could not get past these stomach issues.  I’ll admit, I held my own little pity party at mile 11.37.  there may have been some crocodile tears.  This was not how my day was supposed to go.  I trained hard for this and I was better than this.  Sadly, these things do happen though.

I looked at my Garmin and realized that I was really close to setting a new personal worst.  If I could just keep running the last half a mile I may be able to squeak in under the line.  Time to pick it up.  I was so happy to know I was just around the corner from the finish line.  I could hear the announcer and the music.  The Rembrandts were playing.  I’ll Be There For You.  Seriously…this would be the song playing when I crossed the finish line?  Yuck.  Funny about the things you think about sometimes!

I was in the chute heading to the end.  So much cheering..!!!!  My parents were there shouting my name.  Finally.  I was done…  I think this picture shows just how relieved I am that it is over.
13.1 mi in 2:40:25 (just 1:33 shy of my personal worst)
F30-34: 35 out of 39 finishers

Overall: 7:02:02
F30-34: 38 out of 49 finishers

I took my chip off and got my medal then saw my parents right away.  We found a bench to sit down on and I chugged a bunch of that Coke down.  Apart from Gatorade I took in no other nutrition on the run course.  Surprisingly after all of that the pizza looked so good that I scarfed down a big piece of pepperoni.  After grabbing some cookies I was ready to leave so I grabbed my bike from transition and headed out.
At the end of the day I can take some good positives away:
- I had a good swim.  I normally question why I do these things on the swim, but not this day.  I also chose to put myself in the mix a bit more since I wanted to swim close to yellow cord.  I survived.  I just need to practice my open water a bit more so that I’m not taking in so much water while swimming.
- I trained well for this bike course.  It wasn’t scary at all.  I LOVED riding this course.
- I toughed it up and finished when I debated quitting.  I would be so disappointed in myself today if I had quit.  Ultimately today I am not disappointed.  I’ve analysed the race, now time to move on.
- I’ve learned some good lessons for racing next year.  

Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report – Part II

The Swim – 1.2 mi (or 1931 meters)

The swim is an in-water start off of a floating dock.  Waves go every three minutes and the swim is a fairly narrow triangle.  There are small peg type buoys set up very frequently.  There is a large orange sighting buoy halfway out, another large buoy where you turn left, then swim 100m to the next orange buoy, then turn around and head back.  One final sighting buoy halfway back.

There was still a bit of fog on the lake when we went off.  It was absolutely beautiful out there.
The water was quite warm.  Officially 69F, so wetsuit legal for everyone!  After you move away from the floating dock the water is quite clear.

The buoys are actually all tethered to a yellow cable.  Because the water is clear enough, if you swim close enough to the cable you can actually follow that the entire way and have minimal sighting to do on the swim.  I had started to the outside, but wound up moving inwards toward the pack to avoid getting off course too much, then found the yellow cable shortly thereafter.  Since I am a back of the pack swimmer I knew I would be in a prime position for getting run over by the fast swimmers in subsequent waves.  I was willing to take that over going off course and sighting all of the time.

The next wave behind me were the men 40-44.  My feet were touched a couple of times, but it seemed like as soon as they found you they would move out of your way.  No big deal.

Swim, swim, swim…I felt like things were going so well.  That I was swimming efficiently and moving well.

When the next wave of speedy swimmers arrived, the women 35-39, things changed.  The lead swimmers were very aggressive.  If they found your feet they were beating at your feet and pulling on them.  I just wanted each of us to move out of the way and swim on.  They wanted to fight a bit more.

At the time I didn’t think it affected me, but when things got more interesting I think I wound up swallowing more water and more air than normal.  I tried to burp a few times to sort things out but nothing.  Little did I realize how much my “nutrition” on the swim would affect my race day…

The swim ends at a boat ramp, so it was a pretty easy run up and out of the water:
No wetsuit strippers here though, so you are on your own for that one.

1.2 mi in 45:46 (2:24/100m)
F30-34: 38 out of 50 swim finishers

Lake Stevens 70.3 Race Report – Part I

Preface

I debated over how candid I wanted to be in my race report.  You know, we all like to leave details out sometimes, right?  I couldn’t be honest about the race if I didn’t detail it properly though, and perhaps other people can learn from my mistake.  I truly believe it was one mistake that led to my downfall on this race.  It probably isn’t even so much of a mistake as opposed to a “who knew?” kind of thing.  Anyhow, be forewarned, that some of this may be a little bit TMI…

Pre-Race

It has been an interesting few days in Seattle, some of which I hinted at yesterday.  I discovered Saturday afternoon that my left cleat was falling apart so I quickly found a bike shop to get it replaced.

This morning I put my team tri top on and realized that the stitching was coming apart near the bottom of the zipper.

Then as I was bending over to put some things away in my bag my mom inadvertently noticed that a hole had developed in the rear seam of my tri shorts.  A pair of Zoot shorts that I have ONLY used to race in.  Seriously, I was apparently just falling apart all over the place.  Omen?  Luckily I had brought along a spare pair of shorts so no one was getting a show on the bike. ;)

Because my pre-race nutrition strategy had worked well at GWN I did the same thing this morning.  A peanut butter and jam sandwich 2 hours before my start.  A banana a half an hour later.  A gel 30 minutes before getting in the water.  All systems looked like go for a good race.

Transition opened up at 4:30 am, pros were set to go at 6:30 and my wave was up at 6:50.  We left the hotel at 4:30, got to Lake Stevens by 5:00 and I had plenty of time to get everything done.  Bikes were checked in on Saturday afternoon, so I had minimal gear to haul Sunday morning.  We had the option to purchase “premium” parking for the race for the Lake Stevens Chamber of Commerce for $20.  I hummed and hawed over it, but ultimately I went for it.  If that took one less stressor out of the day, then it would be worth it.  It turns out that I was assigned to the lot closest to transition.  It was awesome and I was glad I spent the $20.

Before the race I noticed a familiar face in front of me heading towards transition.  Biggest Loser Matt Hoover was racing today.  I had heard that he will be racing Kona this year and he’s been doing some tune up races for the big day.  I guess Lake Stevens was one of them.

The swim start was delayed about 20 minutes as there was still a fair bit of fog on the water.  Not the best to swim in, but it definitely looked amazing.  After watching the pro men go I got into my wetsuit, then headed near the water for a quick warm up swim.  Pretty soon they were calling my wave to line up on the dock so it was go time!!

Lake Stevens is done…

My finish time says it all:

7:02:02

Considering that is an hour off Great White North it is fair to say that I did not have my best day out there today.  There were some good positives along with some good learning experiences along the way though.

I promise a race report soon, once I’ve had a chance to refuel and digest on the experience (there is a pun in there).  And once I figure out how candid I want to be about my race experience..!!

The Night Before…

Thanks to each and every one of you for all of the good luck wishes and encouragement!  It has been an interesting two days where it just goes to show that sometimes no matter how well you’ve planned things out that things don’t always go according to plan.  For example:
- Deciding to rely on your car GPS to tell you where to go, but discovering that you actually have no useful US maps downloaded to said Garmin.  And you have poor navigational skills at the best of times.
- Deciding you want to wait until the closest Chipotle to eat lunch on Friday afternoon, but thanks to a series of several snafus it is 3 pm, you haven’t eaten yet, and you have no idea how to get to Chipotle.  I don’t think this is the time to be skipping meals, is it?
- Picking up your bike shoe on Saturday afternoon and discovering that your left cleat is about to fall off.  Cue the search for a nearby bike shop to quickly change out said cleat.

But with that being said I am so excited to race tomorrow morning!!  Lake Stevens is an absolutely beautiful community.  The lake is fantastic (clear and warm, but still wetsuit legal).  The bike will be gorgeous!!!

I’m not sure if there is live tracking tomorrow or not, but if so, it will be at Ironmanlive.com.  I’m number 724.
Here are few details on the race tomorrow!!

Nearly There

Wow...I am absolutely knackered. I have logged 49 hours of overtime working on reserves so far, most of it within the last week. Finally I had the "there's a light at the end of the tunnel" moment today at about 2:30. That isn't to say that all of my work is done - not even close - but I can fathom finishing everything in time for my Friday deadline. I am so happy that Finlay is at his grandparents' right now. I definitely made the right decision.

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On the running front I kind of felt like a wuss this weekend as I heard that a bunch of people I knew ran outside. I was freezing on just a 5 minute walk to the mall yesterday so serious kudos to my friends who braved the cold weather here. However, in my defense, I had a 45 minute run with strides to do, and who wants to run strides on a snowy, slippery surface? So I hoofed it to my Y to run inside instead (feeling ever so grateful that I did decide to join a gym this year). The track at my Y is pretty tiny...15 laps equals 1 mile. I got a little dizzy after running 71 laps yesterday. I ran at a warm up pace for 10 minutes, then ran a 30 second stride followed by 4:30 of regular ol' easy running to finish out the 45 minutes. I loved the striding part. I felt so speedy and I definitely got the heart working.

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So...the bad news is this cold snap seems to have no end in sight. Temperatures for the weekend aren't looking like much of an improvement. Coach has told me that it is downright insanity to run 35 km (or 21.75 miles) indoors. Thank goodness, because I would have a hard time trying to mentally suck it up for 155 laps (or 326 laps depending on which track I went to). And I'm not even sure if I could run and count that high. If I can't run outdoors then I'll most likely aim to run on December 24th when I'm in Kelowna. So if anyone in Kelowna can suggest a nice 35 km route for me, I am all ears. I looked at the running route maps on the Running Room website, but it sends me through the park on the same route that I got lost on this summer. So apparently I need something that is extraordinarily simple - i.e. doesn't involve veering off on to trails.

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I'm not one to make an official announcement about anything until I've financially committed to it, but it seems like everyone wants to know what I meant about Lake Stevens being good prep for my future plans. It's true, I want to race Ironman Canada in 2010. The seed was planted in my head way back in June. I met and chatted with Ray Fateaux at the Footstock race expo. He's the author of Ironstruck and we talked about his decision to go from zero fitness to racing an Ironman. At this point in time I was still throwing around the idea of just entering my first triathlon! I specifically started looking for a coach because I wanted to go from 70.3 next year to 140.6 in 2010. I almost signed up for IMC in 2009 when I heard that spots were opening up for online entry...but I knew 2009 was not the year to attempt it. I will be in Penticton in 2009 though, cheering on my friends and teammates and getting ready to commit to 2010. While Penticton is a tough course (with plenty of hills), it is supposed to be one of the most amazing. The entire town really supports the race. It isn't too far from where my folks live so it helps out with logistics, plus they will be able to come cheer me on when I toe the line. So there we go folks, I have a plan all of the way until August 2010. This is definitely one evolution...

Ironman 70.3 Lake Stevens

Who else watched the Ford Ironman World Championship yesterday? It was so inspirational - pro or age grouper - whatever their reason was for racing - it was amazing. I swear I bawled like I was watching a chick flick. I've been wrestling with when to sign up for my goal race lately, and last night I knew that if something happened and I put it off and couldn't get in I would be tremendously disappointed. I almost ran upstairs to register as soon as I finished watching, but instead I ran upstairs to bed and went to sleep. This morning at the gym I ran into a girl who raced Ironman Canada and Kona this year and now she's going pro. We talked about her Kona experience and our plans for next year and I knew it was the right time for me to bite the bullet. So for those of you wondering, I'll be racing Ironman 70.3 in Lake Stevens, Washington on August 16th next year. Why this race? For starters, I love the west coast and it sounds like a great opportunity for a road trip. I'll have a chance to wind through Kelowna to see my folks (and drop my puppy dog off for babysitting), plus get together with an old high school friend in Seattle, and if it works out I'll come back through Vancouver and catch up with friends there. For those of you wondering why I didn't want to sign up for the new 70.3 in Calgary, I had decided long before they announced the Calgary race that this was the one I wanted to do. And there is enough time between Great White North and Lake Stevens that I'll be able to recover and prep properly. This isn't supposed to be an easy race as it is mad hilly (or should I say mountainous?), but I think it is going to be perfect prep for what is going to happen down the line from that race...