Anyway, here is the race report that I wrote up for my training log:
Pre-race
Josh and I drove up to Flagstaff Saturday morning and found a campsite about 15 minutes away from the race area. We were sitting around camp playing Scrabble, when I happened to look over at my bike on top of the car... Me: "Um, babe, why does it look like both of my crank arms are pointing down at the same time?" J: "Um, because they are. Shit." Turns out, the crank bolt had somehow come loose on the 4-hour drive up to Flag, and the pedals had slipped so that they were both now hanging at the same angle. We initially thought that a piece of the crank setup had actually fallen out, so we were worried. We frantically called up the local bike store in Flag to make sure they were open, then drove into town and crossed our fingers that they would be able to fix whatever was wrong. Turns out they just needed to realign the crank arms and re-tighten the bolt, so all was ok. Lucky I noticed the problem when I did, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to race at all.
Warm-up
Woke up at 4:45, ate a bagel, packed up our camp, and drove to transition. Got my stuff set up, tried to stretch out a bit and pull my wetsuit on. This was the first time I've been in the first wave of a race, which was different, but I felt totally relaxed and ready to hop in and get started when they blew the horn.
Swim (750 meters)
This was pretty terrible. Like I said, I was 100% relaxed going into the swim start, and was actually anticipating a decent swim as I'd even gone out for a OWS practice a couple of weeks ago and felt pretty comfortable. Within about 50 meters of starting the swim, I was completely out of breath. It hadn't even occurred to me that the altitude might affect my swim(Flagstaff is about 4,500ft higher than Tucson), but man-oh-man did it ever. I remained calm and never freaked out because I knew that all I had to do was turn over on my back and catch my breath, but I just felt like it was impossible for me to take deeps breaths and even unzipped the back of my wetsuit to relieve some of the tightness. There were a lot of women struggling behind me and it was so frustrating to me because I knew that I could do this swim and I felt strong and calm, but I just couldn't breathe! Ugh. The second wave of men caught up to me as I was about halfway through, and then by the time I was almost to the boat ramp a few of the faster ladies from the third wave had caught me too.
Swim time = 25m:18s
Transition 1
Coming out of the water, I was exhausted and a bit disoriented. I could barely get my wetsuit off my arms as I walked up the boat ramp, but somehow managed to jog up the sidewalk to transition even though my head was spinning. I had to sit on the ground and fight with my wetsuit for a little bit to get it off my feet, but otherwise this went pretty smoothly. I didn't try to rush since I was a bit light-headed. Made sure to take a few big swigs of both gatorade and water.
T1 time = 03m:22s
Bike (12.4 miles)
The bike was the redeeming factor of this race for me. I had promised myself the morning before the race that if I could have a good bike split, I didn't really care what else happened. And after the disastrous swim, I was REALLY ready to have a great bike and push myself. I hopped on my bike in a pack of men and vowed to track down and pass as many women as I could, since it seemed like so many of them were way ahead of me thanks to the swim. It took me a good 4-5 miles of the bike before I truly felt like I had regained my breathing and no longer felt lightheaded. I was able to get my speed up to 20-21mph very quickly, and really just tried to keep as fast a pace as I could. The bike is my favorite part of the race, so even if my legs were fried for the run, it'd be worth it for giving the bike everything I had. There were a few gradual hills on the course which I hit pretty hard and managed to pass a few people on. All in all, I passed 9 or 10 women, and was only passed by a few women who were obviously on the faster end of the older age groups and had started after me. I was feeling good for the whole ride, enjoying the scenery, and happy with my pace. I had hoped to break 45 minutes, so seeing that my split was 40 minutes was a HUGE confidence boost once I looked at the results. I love my bicycle.
Bike time = 40m:34s (18.34mph!)
Transition 2
Crossed the timing mat feeling really happy about my bike split, and thinking that I felt pretty good about being able to knock out the run in 30-32 minutes. Racked my bike, changed my shoes, then had to spend a few seconds messing with my hair because it got caught in my bike helmet.
T2 time = 01m:53s
Run (3.1 miles)
I initially felt pretty good coming out of transition and into the run, but in a matter of minutes it became obvious that I was not going to be able to finish without walking. I tried to jog as slowly as I could and take deep breaths, but my lungs just did not want to cooperate with me. I was getting really frustrated because, just like in the swim, my legs felt good and I was wanting to push myself, but I simply couldn't breathe. It's not like I had a pain in my knee that I could just ignore and keep going... I truly could not breathe, and that's not the kind of thing I could just ignore. So, I ended up walking numerous times. Kevin caught up with me and said hello, and I considered trying to keep up with him as he was going at a nice steady pace, but again I lost my breath and had to stop to walk and just concentrate. This entire run was a huge disappointment and I was basically counting down the steps to the finish line so that I could be done with the race. Once I got to the point where I could see people turning towards the finish line in the distance, I ran as fast I was able to (which admittedly was not very fast at all) until I crossed the line.
Run time = 41m:34s
Warm-down
Crossed the line and immediately looked for water. I felt dizzy and there were people everywhere and it wasn't immediately obvious where the water was, so I sat down on a random rock and tried to catch my breath and stop my head from spinning. Eventually made my way to my stuff in transition, packed stuff up, met up with J, and we headed to the car and started heading back towards Tucson.
Total time = 1h:53m:40s
If there are any photos that do not show me huffing and puffing and looking like death, I'll post them later.
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