Friday was a day of running around with errands, but I still tried to get a bunch done around the house since I'd be gone most of Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning was low key. I worked on packing for the Escape using the checklist that seems pretty thorough. Shawn had changed over my bike bottle holder for me and after lunch, we packed up the car and I was on my way to pick up Christy and Michelle at M's house. We figured since I have a 3-bike rack on the Camry it would be perfect to drive over. Well, haha on us!
Got to M's place where they both were getting their bikes out and ready to go. Shawn had told me that all the bikes should face chain ring out so that's how I figured we would load the bikes. Well, after a really sweaty 20 minutes, we had all the bikes jammed on the rack. We were looking at the rack and agreed to run to the Cyclery to see if anyone would be so kind as to double check our bike rack work. First words as we walked out of the Cyclery were something to the effect of "oh no, that's so wrong". So after a total readjustment of the bikes, facing opposite directions now, we were off (about 45 minutes later than planned).
The ride across the Alley was standard. The girls always have fun together chatting about the upcoming events. But poor Christy was still fighting her cold. One pee stop and we were following Roberta (GPS) to the race location. Found a place to park, unloaded the bikes and got them checked in to transition and got our bodies marked. We headed over to the hotel, checked in, got our DoubleTree cookies, and after some clean up and organization, we decided to go for supper. Using the iPhone apps, we were looking for restaurants; nothing was really close; asked the Concierge, but wound up just eating a the Italian place in the hotel lobby. Better service than last year. Food was what we needed. Headed to the room, did final prep for race day, and lights out with some last minute chatting and giggling.
I had to get up early since I had to get on the ferry to the island by 5:30, so I put my essentials in the bathroom as to avoid disturbing M & C. My phone alarm went off at 4:25, even though I woke up several times during the night thinking it was time. 12:30? Whew, I can still sleep. 1:25? YES! More sleep...
Got up, got ready, buttered the chafey bits, a little Body Glide here and there, grabbed my bags and was off to do my final set up in Transition. Bag back on the bike, helmet, sunglasses, bike shoes, sneakers, towels, water, gel - all good and organized well. I had about 15 minutes so I decided to see if I could find Randall (good East Coast friend also doing Olympic). Found him and after chatting about his timing chip I realized it was the one thing I didn't have - more like "OMG, where the eff is my chip?!?!?!?" With about 15 minutes left and a quick scan to verify it wasn't in a bag, I sprinted back to the hotel (in flip-flops). Thank goodness M & C were up because in a panic I was yelling, "I don't have my chip, I need lights!!!" Those chicas are the BEST! Found my chip on the floor where my stuff was piled. They agreed to return my flip-flops to transition so I could go straight to the ferry.
Which was actually a LINE to the ferry, where we wound up standing for a good 15 minutes before loading. Anywho, we were on the boat and off to the Island. The Island was the whole reason I wanted to step up from the Sprint to the Olympic. Seemed cool at the time. Sprint is a swim from shore, out, across, and back in. Olympic you are ferried out to an island and swim into shore. So we "walked the plank" and jumped off the boat and swam about 50m to the Island. Night birds were flying low and I was just trying to take in the moment as much as I could. They had water, a guy playing guitar and tiki torches on the Island. It was a little chilly standing there at 6AM after being in that 85 degree water. Tried to stay hydrated. Randall found me out there. Talked with a few random people. One jellyfish was spotted and removed from the water with a stick. Then the 7AM wave (men & elite) were lined up and were off. The ladies gathered for our 7:15 wave - found Cindy and Ann-Margret from Naples and chatted a bit to calm the nerves. Tried to locate all the buoys in the water as we were to swim a bit north before cutting left and back to shore. As we were waiting, someone motioned to get away from an area where one of the men clearly couldn't hold it and left a floater for everyone - how nice. So 7:15, wistle blows and we are off.
The swim generally felt great to the turn buoy. I was focusing on the bottom, you could see the grass - I always wonder about how deep it is, if I'll see any animals, I think about training... I'm pretty distracted from the actual process of swimming now. Some kicking and punching that goes on with a group swim, but nothing bad for me. No bloody noses or goggle-losing blows were received. Because of the current in this swim, you have to focus on really trying to swim tight to the buoy line, but it's really hard. After the turn, it was IMPOSSIBLE to spot the next direction. You knew that you were swimming to the park, which was OK to spot, but it's a pretty long park so you had to guess the general direction. And the current pushes you north. A lot. At times I felt like I was going nowhere. One of the kayakers yelled for me to head to my right a bit, but that was the direction the current was taking me anyway. Whatever. So I just tried to line up the buildings and swim that way. The swim was supposed to be 0.9 miles, but everyone agreed it was definitely more than a mile. M&C were there to cheer me out of the water.
Ran to transition, loaded up for the bike, helmet, shoes, water, gel. And I was off on the bike. Now, the bike is my least favorite part so I knew it would be a suffer fest as there were two laps, 8 hills, and just a lot of time in the saddle. It sucked more than I had even thought. I haven't trained anywhere near enough on the bike and my legs just didn't have enough power. I survived it, but it took much longer than it should have. That was probably the part that I would deem embarrassing. I should have been better on the bike. At one point I was deciding to take off the timimg chip, I was so embarrassed, but talked myself into leaving it on as a reminder that I need bike work. Generally, some people were nice, but a lot of people were jerks on the course. Passing REALLY close, not yelling that they were there. People passing on the right (penalty), drafting (penalty), just doing jerky stuff. Since everyone was passing me, I got to see it all. Somehow survived the bike, and was THANK GOD back to dismount. Ran the bike in and time to get ready for the run.
My rack was right at the Swim In, Bike Out point, so that was easy, but BIKE IN was all the way at the other end. Ran the bike in, darting around the pokies walking and wandering around like it was a picnic in the park. Got it racked, helmet off, sneakers on; ready for run. I decided to go sockless with my racing flats (and on the bike). Feet were wet and grassy, but I had powdered the shoes so they were all easy on. Run out and off we go. Felt pretty good on the run, passed quite a few people, especially on the hill. A lot of people stop and walk, but I have to be in a lot of hurt for that. There was a turn-around at the 5K / 1.5 mile point, but 10K kept going. I decided to take a gel at our turn-around, grab some water and head back out. I try to thank all the volunteers that I can and cheer on fellow participants. There was one memorable guy, was kind of gimping around mile 4, but he was still going. They mark your age on your calf for Tris and his said 62. I gave him a big "you got this. You're such and inspiration!" for which he thanked me. Just goes to show you that age is really just a number. This was also the point I could feel blisters forming on my feet. Over the hill back, I saw M coming to meet me. She kept telling me to stop talking as I was asking her about her race... as if not talking was going to make me go faster LOL!!!!!!! She then started thanking the volunteers before I could just so I would not talk. She's a crack up. She definitely ran me in at a faster pace than I would have solo, so I was very happy to have here there. She kept up the encouragement as I hacked on some water and rounded the last turn (Randall was on a bench cheering us in) to the finish chute. We pushed it in, she grabbed my hand and was telling me how proud of me she was (LOVE HER!!!!) as I was almost hysterical that it was over!!!! Can't wait to see my face in those photos.
We stopped for a photo and to meet up with Christy and Randall, grabbed a bite, then decided to go get our stuff out of transition. We lost Randall somewhere along the way but all met up back in the hotel room for showers and packing. We checked out and carried all our stuff to a cafe in the hotel and grabbed a quick lunch. Randall helped us rack the bikes and load the car. And we were on our way home. We were all really tired and talking to stay awake. It poured a lot on the way back, so I was driving like a grandma, taking over 2 hours to get back. Dropped off M & C at M's place. Hugged and said our "yay us!" goodbyes. Randall did awesome, first Olympic, beating his time estimate. Christy did AMAZING even doing it with how sick she was (really felt crappy). And Michelle was like a pro out there. She is so athletic and just excels at all of this. So proud of everyone!!!!!!!
I got back home and planned to just sleep. I was exhauseted after being up at 4:25, swimming over a mile, biking about 25 miles, running over 6 miles, eating, and driving home. Talked a bit with Shawn about the day and crashed. Shawn was a bit grumpy, not sure why, didn't have it in me to really investigate. He woke me up around 8 to see if I wanted to eat and do the Sunday night bills. I did both, got ready for bed, watched a little TV and was back to sleep soon thereafter.
This is the results page: http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?pubID=3&eventLinkageID=122654&year=2011. Like I said, I'm pretty embarrassed about my time. I should have been able to do so much better. But I know I have to be proud of myself for accomplishing a really hard feat. Almost 4 hours straight of pushing myself to the limit. It was definitely the hardest thing I've done to date. I'm still pretty tired. My feet have blisters. I'm a little sore. The butt butter worked well as I'm not chafed, which is really nice (Chamois Butt'r is great stuff!). But generally just happy that it's OVER!
Now I have Chicago to freak out about. 2 weeks and I'll be blogging about that! :)
What a great read!! Congrats!
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