Timberfest: Chapter 1...my race

This weekend was the Timberman Tri up in NH and it was a weekend of tri chaos and super fun with tri-zilla and spence to race and camp with. 'Zilla and I were racing and spence came to cheer us on and teach us how to make "proper smores".

'Zilla and I drove up early to go to the "champions dinner" and meet up with some of her family. Kate Major, Karen Smyers, Micheal Lovato and Chris Lieto spoke. Mainly difficult to hear...Karen Smyers and Chris Lieto had some great word to say about putting things into perspective when it comes to racing. It was Meeeh...but we got carbo loaded for our sat race so that was great.

Saturday was the sprint distance tri. 1/3 mile swim, 15 mile bike and a 3 mile run. It was a big field with about 1000 people (i think). The alarm went off at the crack of dawn...ok truly, it was prior to the crack of dawn as it was dark when I stumbled my way to the bathroom at 5am. As I wandered back, post teeth brushing I saw people with their bikes attached to their car leaving at 515! WHAT ARE THEY DOING? We had plans to leave around 545 so we could get a parking spot. All I could think was "HOW is getting up at 5AM to get a parking spot a related to a FUN sport? It's not" (OK i'm not a morning person)The other thought that went through my head was "Why in the WORLD am I up this early??" (again, i'm not a morning person)We trundled our way out of our tent and to the race site. Those people were super silly to get there that early, and basically I didn't appreciate the heart attack.

To the race site we went. I racked my bike, ate as much pre-race food I could muster and headed to the swim start. This was ages away from where the transition was because the swim was half a rectangle where we started at one end. Anyway we get to the swim start and have to wait a half an hour because a truck had overturned on the bike course. Lalalalalalala. What do you do with yourself as you just wait, and wait and wait, try not to be nervous(although, not so much this time...am I becoming a veteran?) and wait. Time went by and we finally started at 8am.

My swim wasn't that great. In all good fashion I got kicked and hit and pretty much everything you expect in an open water battle. I could tell I kept dropping my hips and I'm not sure if I was really sighting as I was just trying to maneuver around wack-o swimming people. I didn't realize that some people actually do the back stroke in the swim. I've seen the froggy back stroke, but never the all out back stroke. Finish: 11:01

T1: run the beach, see Spence cheering her head off, try to remember what my number is, socks, shoes, helmet, glasses, bike...out to the bike. T1: 2:30

Bike: The course was fairly hilly, but not too bad. We had driven parts of it the day before, but I was basically going in blind. Not my favorite thing to do, but it didn't turn out too bad. The hills weren't sooooo bad that a granny gear was necessary, but enough to be hilly. Not too hilly where I felt the urge to use my breaks on the descents so that was super fun. It did make me consider aero bars though when I was passing people in aero. Overall it went pretty well. Finish 54:37 avg speed 16.5mph. I was hoping for a little more speed, but it was pretty decent over all.

T2: Hat, running shoes, race belt, gel 1:32

Run: The run was hilly at first. I didn't realize it either for a bit. I kept thinking "what is wrong with me? Going slow and high HR" ahhhh, i'm on a hill. What was tough on the run was that my chest seemed to be cramping up. This happened when I did the Fairlee Tri in July. My legs felt fine, but I felt like I couldn't get enough air. I did have a crazy high HR at this point...somewhere in the 170s. I was just trying to relax so I could push hard through the run, make my legs hate me and go as fast as I could. Now I look at my run time: 25:33, 8:31min/miles, and I accomplished the "go as fast as I could" part. I've never seen 8:31 min/miles before. The last time I "raced" a 5K, and truly ran as fast as I thought I could was 2+ years ago and that was 8:45 min/miles. There was some discussion of whether or not the 2nd mile was short...but for the time being, I'm just going to belive I can run that fast. :-) That makes me happy.

Overall 1:35:13
30/59 for my age
180/476 for females...this was AWESOME to see. I don't think I've been in the top 50% of a race before! Props for big race fields.

An interesting thing I discovered was the average HR I maintained (according to my HRM). It said 170 was my average HR. I don't know why I find that so amazing, but I did, probably because I wasn't crazy sore the next day too.

Overall it was a good race to finish the season on.