Parris Island Sprint Triathlon

I realized two things after this race.  One, I don’t know how to be happy w/my results regardless of the outcome.  Two, I will never NEVER feel good during a sprint.

The crew and I always travel down the night before, and this time was no exception.  Race packet, check.  Dinner w/sucky waitress and weird Jamaican guy, check.  Then comes time to clean the bikes….we ALWAYS do this the night before and for some reason Jeff wanted to be Mr. Overachiever and already have his done.  I actually offered to have another baby if it meant someone would clean my bike, everyone declined that offer.  Fond memories of 2 years ago floated through my head, me being pregnant, Sarah and Jeff cleaning my bike for me……SMACK!  Wake up Nicole!  You’re dreaming!  I’m not cleaning that nasty bike (this is all from Sarah).  I then ever so sweetly start “trying” to clean my bike while asking Jeff all these questions about how to do it.  He comes over, takes control of the bike, and does atleast half the work for me.  SCORE!  In the meantime, Sarah’s making snide remarks under her breath.  Thank goodness Jeff’s hard of hearing or else I’d had to clean it on my own!  The bikes are finally clean and then I have to listen to moans and groans about how early I make us get up on race day.  Nothing like being prepared and early, that’s how I feel about race morning.

I wake up the morning of a little grumpy, sore throat, and tired.  Sleep never goes well the night before a race.  Oh well, suck it up buttercup!  We all leave on time and have had our bathroom breaks….some a little more so than others, hehehe.  We go over our race times from last year, discuss splits and areas for improvement and then all set our goals.  It’s a little game we play, they hate it, I love it!

Race morning doesn’t go as planned for me, I have mean people on my rack and I swear I have “be an a**hole to me” written on my forehead.  I end up having a meltdown after seeing a baby and missing my little man, luckily for me Heath was already up and awake.  He probably wasn’t prepared for my meltdown, but he handled it like a champ.  I was at an advantage being pissed off anyway, I tend to race harder if I’m mad.   I stretched, got focused, and reminded myself to quit being a wuss.  I do this b/c I love it, and not every day is going to be roses and sunshine but at the end of the day if I’m away I need to make it count.

The seeding for the swim looked to be getting a little out of order as I see some people breast stroking and they’ve started before me.  I decide to go ahead and get in line and get this party started.  My turn comes up, Eminem is playing, Setup guys are getting people in the mood, and I dive in….Ouch!  I think my goggles may have permanently imprinted on my face w/that dive.  I try to remember to find my groove, but go fast as well….haven’t mastered that in a while so I’m pretty sure it was an epic fail.  Each turn I’m trying to push w/o killing myself which is impossible at this point.  I know the deeper the pool gets the closer I get to the finish.  I was atleast able to flip turn on one end of the pool, the other end was hopeless.  I finally reach the ladder, hit my lap button, and am not exactly thrilled w/the time.  The time the chip had was 9:25 (11 seconds faster than last year).

I fumble in transition a little, silently cursing myself, and am grateful when I finally mount my bike.  I see Sarah in the near distance and give her a little shout when I pass her.  Now it’s time to work.  I’ve been doing a lot of trainer rides, so I was hoping my time would be better than last year and maybe break the 30 minute mark. I tried to not watch the clock and just concentrate on keeping the cadence where it should be yet go as hard as I could.  My 5 mile alert goes off and when I look down it says I’m right on target to be under the 30 minute mark.  Just 15 more minutes is what I kept telling myself.  I pushed, I thought of form, and I kept hoping someone would just shove me to the finish line.  My 2nd 5 mile alert goes off, but I’m not at the finish.  DARN IT!  My time was still good, but I wasn’t sure if I could make it to transition w/the time still left on my 30 min. mark.  I roll into transition, look down, and again, disappointment.  Chip time was 31:06 (last year 30:56).

All I could do at this point was pray I hit that run and found the legs I used to have for transition runs.  NOPE!  I start out the run feeling the heaviness and cussing myself for doing the half marathon race last weekend.  Just make it to mile 1, work work work for it.  Mile 1 arrives along w/an aide station.  I’ve been dreaming of how this water will feel dumped on my head.  I take sip of water, go to pour the rest on my neck and totally miss my neck probably drenching the person behind me.  So sorry!  If I’d been able to talk I would have apologized.  I look down at the mile alert and realize that I feel like I’m working MUCH harder.  Now my goal is to make it to the turn around and not look at the watch until the finish.  I finally see the turn around, and manage to get water on myself this time.  All I can think of is I can do anything for 10 minutes, I can do anything for 10 minutes.  Mile alert 2 goes off.  One more mile Nicole, that’s all you have.  Give it what you got.  I round the familiar corners and tell myself 3 more turns and I’m home.  I think I scared a few people I was breathing so hard AKA stalker breathing.  With 2 more turns left, I tried to kick it into my last gear, I’m sure I went a little faster but it wasn’t much.  I finally make it through the finish chute w/a total time of 1:03:42.  My run was 21:35 (last year 22:00).  I was 8th overall female (again) and 1st in my age group.

I couldn’t remember what Sarah had said my time from last year was, but I was thinking it was 1:05.  I knew my improvements were minimal, and couldn’t figure out where 2 mins would come from.  After looking at the results today, it makes sense.  My time from last year was 1:04:03 and this year 1:03:42.  20 seconds.  UGH!  I should be happy w/improvement of any kind, my problem is I always expect more.  I’m going to work on that this year.  I’m going to start accepting any improvement as being better than none.  I’m also going to quit degrading my improvements, and own them.  If I did something well, it’s not just b/c it was downhill or maybe it wasn’t as windy, it’s probably due to the fact that my training and consistency have gotten better.  It’s probably due to hard work.  I deserve to be happy about having a good race.

People never cease to amaze me.  A friend told me this was his 1st tri years ago and his swim was so bad that he’d never been back.  The great part was that while people were walking faster than he was swimming he still kept swimming b/c that’s what you are supposed to do.  He manned up and took 10 minutes off his swim!  Courage, determination, it’s just awesome what a thing called triathlon can bring out in people.  Way to go Dave! Sarah and Jeff had great races, they both met some of their goals.  Sarah’s still puking while racing, but that girl HTFU’s and still improved on her bike and run times from last year.  Jeff managed to step up his game on transitions going under the minute mark for both.  He finally decided to leave his bucket of water, chair, and flotation device at homeJ!   I love my hubby, his comment to me about mean people during my meltdown….”thats why I find it easier to just be an a**hole, then you expect people not to like you.”

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