Well, this race wasn’t something I was really looking forward to just b/c of the shoulder situation and what not, but I had signed up and figured why the heck not. Sarah decided to sign up at the last minute as well and crashed at my place. With Heath not figured no biggy and tons of sleep . . . wrong! Wrigley was peeing in his crate at 1:30 in the morning! I guess without Heath here to nudge me I didn’t know that a certain someone was wining. Oh well, sleep for 3 more hours and then get back up for the race. I really didn’t have any expectations for this race except I was hoping to break 21 mins. on the run. Other than that, I just prayed that the shoulder didn’t act up too much on the swim.
I started the swim smooth and just trying to focus on my stroke since I haven’t been in the pool lately. I didn’t even do a warmup today:) I can’t say it felt great, especially getting passed, but it wasn’t too terrible other than being slow. I ran out of the pool and looked down at the watch and read 7:46 something and just kind of went with it. The best was having Heath and Wrigley cheering for me. I had no idea what my results were from 07 (last year I voluteered since I had to have the tailbone removed). It’s a good thing I didn’t. My transition was slower than normal, I just couldn’t seem to get the garmin on! (stupid for even trying)
I hit the bike and just tried to get into a groove. I rode yesterday and my middle 20 miles were at IM pace and on the hills I really tried to focus and remind myself what pain felt like. I have gotten accustomed to not racing over the past two months and forget what true sprint pain feels like. Everytime things would get a little hard I would just remind myself to embrace the pain, I do love it or I wouldn’t do this (remember that Clay!). I would also have to say that everytime I looked down I had a smile on my face, thanks so much Sarah for the bike streamers. She didn’t think I would ride with streamers on race day, but something about today needed to be fun and I knew if I rode with them I would have fun. I was hoping to break 20 mph on the bike, but boy is that bike course a doozy. I didn’t even notice that when I came into transition I had met that goal, my bike was 43:31. Wohoo, yea me!
Transition from bike to run was a little more like normal, all I could hope for was that the runnin legs were there. I thought I turned the garmin on and wasn’t going to look at it until the first lap was over b/c I had hoped to negative split. So I just pushed, and I pushed just trying to focus on turnover and hope I can hang on. I hit the hills and felt strong the first loop, I was hoping Eric Stone would help pace me but I found myself passing him. His knees hurt, I knew there was something b/c he’s a far better runner than I am. That MC can haul some you know what. So, on my own:( I hit the 2nd loop telling myself I don’t have that much longer. I look down to check the garmin and I guess I didn’t hit start after all, well crap. I thought worse things, but that’s the grated version. Heath yelled for me to hurry so that’s what I tried to do. I ran into Troy on the 2nd loop and smacked him one nice good time, and then realized miss Kat was out running too. It was nice to see friendly faces. I just kept telling myself one last hill, and I think the name of that road is something like Helle . . . I took notes the first time around. I finished strong and tried to catch Pam Ogle who was right ahead of me finishing, but I didn’t have that much left. The run was 21:19, oh well.
The results for the men are a little hard to read right now but I have to give props to David Minnich, one of my Team in Training athletes, he finished very well today and felt great. Laura Todd Boone, another TNTer, finished her first ever tri today!!!!! Wohoo for her!!! David’s doing the Augusta Half as his event and Laura is going to DC. Lucy Allen had a PR which is great considering most of her training has been cycling related. I think all of gvegas did this race and there are too many people who placed to name, so CONGRATS TO EVERYONE!! I have to say thanks to forrest for puttin up with me, I swear every year he takes on a new challenge:) Congrats to his placing, I’m sure regina will enjoy the wine. Thanks to Dr. Kyle Cassas the girls from Proaxis Therapy for their help after the race. Needless to say, the shoulder/arm/neck were not too fond with me after all was said and done and it was nice seeing them there and having their help. The final time was 1:14:42 and I was 8th overall and 2nd in my age group. Karma beat me by 15 seconds, and I’m sure if she wasn’t injured she’d done much better than that.
The worst thing that happened today was that kat informed me the boy dog we requested (that’s what the vet told us to get), is not a boy after all. I guess I don’t pay attention to peters and peepees as much as I should. Wrigley is still Wrigley but her collar is now appropriately changed to red instead of blue. Heath wants to send her back, I told him no . .. .besides Dana Sparks already tried to steal her from me anyway.
P.S. Paul, I promise to blog more often:)
