Overall Time - 5:58:05 (3rd age group, 51st woman, 473rd overall)
Swim - 39:56 (941 overall)
T1 - 5:24
Bike - 3:19:47 (792 overall)
T2 - 2:05
Run - 1:50:53 (fastest run split in age group, 257 overall)
I had almost no expectations going into this race. Only saw the Olympic course before so had no idea what the bike and run courses would actually be like. I knew it would be hilly, but just how hilly I couldn't say.
Left Folsom on Thursday afternoon to head down to King City. Stopped at the bike shop en route and spent a couple hours getting refitted. I also finally paid for my AR4 and got a new skewer for my trainer so the bike doesn't keep tipping and cause me to fall over on the trainer every time I use it. And since I was retarded and left my CO2/air pump in the rental car in Austin, I had to pick up a new one and the Joe, the bike shop owner, even tested it out for me beforehand. Davis Wheelworks is the shit.
Once I was all dialed in, continued the drive to King City where the motel I was staying in is located. Luckily traffic wasn't too terrible for evening rush hour, so I was there by 7pm. Got to "tour" the town while trying to find the entrance to the Safeway parking lot. Let's just say, I made sure to double-check my locks and move really quickly between the car and the store.
The next day I got up early to drive to the campgrounds/race site to meet Brad so we could go swim. His family is super awesome and welcomed me into their nice RV/camp setup for the weekend. We went for a short swim, bike, and run to get the legs moving the day before the race. We checked out the expo, saw a few pros (got to shake Rasmus Henning's hand!), then got our stuff ready for the next day.
Race day. Up bright and early at 4:30am to eat and make sure I had enough time to drive into the race site and not get stuck in traffic. Turned out I was actually ahead of the game and got to Brad's campsite by 6:30am. It was chilly, but sunny and not as windy as it had been in days prior. Brad's wave was the 3rd wave to start, so he went down to transition early to get prepped. Brad's friend, Gary, myself, and Brad's stepdad Steven who was doing the mountain bike tri kept warm in the RV until heading down at the last moment. My wave started 1 hour and 10 minutes after the pros started. Got my stuff set up in transition and went down to watch Brad start. Made sure to Body Glide myself up before putting my wetsuit on.
Wave goes off. Swim sucked, period. Hadn't looked at the swim course at all, was mostly swimming blind and following everyone else. Note to self, check out swim course beforehand so you know what buoys you're swimming towards. I knew I wasn't swimming fast, kept getting hit by people, thought my goggles were going to get knocked off. I can finally swim in a straight line, but others can't and they would zigzag back and forth in front of me. It was an out and back swim and on the heading-back-to-shore part I was getting frustrated. Hips kept sinking and people were still whacking me. My pool swim times are getting faster, but it's still not correlating over to open water.
Spent an eternity in T1 getting my wetsuit off and everything on and into the pockets. Out on the bike you have to go through the park and then up this hill before getting out. Legs felt okay, was mostly passing people up the hill. Decided not to push the bike in fear of not being able to run, so took it relatively easy. Was frustrated in the first half of the bike as a woman passed me and got in front, then slowed down so I would have to pass her, and then she got pissed and sped up to repass me. That went on for awhile. At one point as I was creeping up on her I saw a motorcycle official go past and was like shit, I'm going to get a penalty so I had to back off. Around mile 40 the climbing and real winds began. Passed almost everyone up Nasty Grade, then got passed a few times on the descent down. I have to say, this was probably the first long course race where I didn't get passed by everyone and their mom, so yay for that. For the first time ever, I had digestion issues for probably the first 2/3 of the bike course, until we got to the hills. The EFS grape drink didn't seem to be sitting too well. Will need to look into that.
T2 went quicker. Glad I put the no-tie laces on my Zoots so they were easy to slip on. Also, non-white shoelaces make the foot look smaller. Out onto the run, began to pass people. This run course is probably the toughest I've ever encountered, including the Lake Placid run. Around miles 3 to 5 the hills became nearly vertical so I had to walk for the first time in a tri ever, I think. Flattened out, only 1 woman on a relay team passed me, and it wasn't too bad until mile 9. At mile 9 you had to run downhill to mile 10, then turn around and run uphill to mile 11. I walked at this point too, though since I am really impatient, I couldn't walk too long before getting anxious. Around this time my hips started to hurt. Down Lynch Hill and into the finish.
That was a tough race. Probably could have gone harder on the bike, but not sure how it would have affected my run. Swim was awful, probably worse one thus far. So goals for the next race are to swim better, and learn to bike hard and run hard afterwards.
Finished up my Wildflower experience hanging out with Brad's family and some of the neighboring campsites. A lot of beer was consumed. Went to sleep at 2:30 am and got up at 4am to drive to Berkeley.
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