This weekend was SOMA half ironman. I had signed up to do the race with some people through TNS training. When we signed up...they didn't know me...i didn't know them, but since the sign up and Malibu and this weekend i've gotten to know my happy little team and I was pretty excited to be doing the relay with them.
And then i was off the bike for literally 3 weeks...
And then i was poked and prodded with needles and beaten up with a foam roller...
i didn't know what to expect from my ability to spin the cranks and move those wheels. The original plan for this race was to see HOW much faster on a flat course and no swim or run I could go than Vineman. I wanted to break 3 hours since I was close to the 3 hour mark at vineman.
There was much about the weekend that was fun insanity and much about the weekend that was just unfun...predominately around the fact I almost got myself stranded in Tempe by no fault of my own as well as the fact my happy little relay had to break up due to our swimmer crashing her beautiful new bike on Saturday and making friends with the ground at 30mph. Bike crashes make me inhearantly sick to my stomach and my heart went out to her. But then to find out that due to how her handle bars crunched into her top tube on top ...she totaled her bike: double sick to my stomach.
So this was Saturday: me potentially stuck in Tempe longer than I anticipated, my relay's swimmer sporting some nice road rash, a (right) decision not to race, a totaled less than 100 mile bike and a friend wondering if a whopper of a migraine was about to strike before his race on Sunday. It wasn't boding well for well...any of us.
Saturday afternoon was packet pickup and our swimmer inquired if there was a way to do the relay without the swim...to then have the directors say: hey...ask this INSANELY fast guy to swim for you. oooookkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaay
Race morning:
Still no ride home
Meet Mr. wicked fast swimmer...he's 10 shades of excited just to swim.
The relay's are in the second wave and he ends up swimming somewhere around 27/28 minutes and is within the top 10 out of the water.
My thought: well this is kinda cool that i'm now near the FRONT of the race...but also weird and a little concerned that i'm going to get passed like i'm standing still for the rest of the day. But really nice to be near the front because there was no one out there to jocky around and worry about staying back or passing or whathaveyou. Lap 1...not as many guys passed me as I thought...Lap 2 a few more zipping past and Lap 3...now we are in the thick of everyone on the course.
I didn't like the course really because there were a lot of random U-turns on the course. I ended up hammering it a little too hard in the beginning and suffered a bit the last 5 miles. But i was pleased with my effort.
And then i saw my time...
and had to laugh...
original goal: go sub 3hours (which i totally let go of with the lack of training the past month)
Time: 3:00:29
Not quite sub 3 but sooo close!Not bad for a girl who hadn't been riding her bike!
Funnily afterwards a random girl at the relay rack decided to ask me how I did. I'll admit my little brain wasn't working 100%, but something that definately bothers me about some triathletes (and i've seen it much more so here in s.cali) is that someone's reason for asking your time is to see if they bested you. I remember blankly staring at this girl thinking: WHO ARE YOU? AND WHY DO YOU CARE???? Fortunately Brian came to my rescue and said: don't mind her...she can barely talk after races. And gave my general update. But really...why was this person asking? So weird to me.
in the end...I fortunately found a ride home on Sunday...but the process of finding one was a clusterf...and i was not a happy camper.
Sometimes I think that if i have a patch of crappiness that patch will be it for awhile and i will soon spring out of it. The weekend was fun to see friends but definitely shadowed a bit by some of the not so fun things. unfortunately...i came home to difficult and distressing topics to which I am reminded: i really am bone tired and I wish i could figure out a respite.
life does not stop
3 comments:
Wow, that really is a mixed bag of a weekend.
Congrats on the speedy bike time.
Glad you made it home and I sure hope your friend is ok. We'll have a moment of silence in memory of the totaled bike. That is a heartbreak.
Ahhh, yes so close and for the record - 3:00 - that's a win in my book. And I am soooo with you on people asking race times - really? why because you know me and what that time will mean to me? because, hey i don't really care what it means to you, so i will go out of my way to give an answer without giving the time - such as I my time was exactly what i was hoping, etc.
sorry to hear that life did not magically work out all it's little kinks while you were away. Where did i put that wand? i'll have to dig it out and wave it around you a few times ;)
Congrats on the race. I have had races like that where I end up a few seconds over breaking a time barrier :) Last year in an IM I biked 6:00:01. No joke! Hope life lets you rest up soon!!
Post a Comment