3/4 mile swim, 20 mile bike, 4 mile runMatt and I headed up to Steamboat early Friday afternoon. We took the scenic route through Estes just because we could. I haven't been through the park in probably at least 15 years. It was really beautiful, although it's horrifying to see the destruction by the pine beetles. We rolled into Steamboat just before 6 and got settled into our condo and spent the evening watching the Olympics.
We slept in on Saturday (no dogs to wake us up early) and eventually made our way to packet pick-up and the pre-race meeting. Matt forgot his goggles, so we made a quick stop at Sports Authority and then drove the bike course (and here he was making fun of me about how much stuff I brought. I had 2 pair of goggles, but they were too small for him). We then decided to go for a short ride to stretch out our legs. We rode along the back part of the course since it was so close to where we were staying and we figured it would be better to ride the rollers rather than the flat stretch because what exactly would that give us. The road was a little rough with the recent chip seal, but nothing too uncomfortable other than a slight tickle along my forearms from the vibration. The rollers weren't so bad. And then we turned around and hit the wind. Let me rephrase that. And then we turned around and I hit the wind. Matt just kept on going. I battled the wind for a few miles wishing with all my might that it would not be windy on Sunday. But I can say that at least I'm getting a little better in the wind. We headed back to the condo to meet up with Mike who was going to stay with us that night. He and Matt went for a quick run and we headed over to Safeway to buy some stuff for dinner. After a yummy dinner of pasta, bread, salad, ground beef for the boys, and meatless balls for me, we settled in to watch the mens marathon. I also had a glass of wine, which I never do before a race. I also had about 20 gallons of water to counteract any affects, but it still straying quite a bit from my pre-race routine. It was a symbol that this race was supposed to be fun and no pressure. It was also an attempt to get me out of my current mindset of being done for the season - maybe if I enjoyed this race, I'd be more excited going into Harvest Moon.
I slept pretty well, especially for a night before a race. I woke up and walked out into the living room where Matt was out on the balcony laughing. According to him, what we were hearing was rain and gale force winds. I think we were all kind of thinking "Hmmm, maybe we should just go back to bed". Or maybe it was just me. The skies started to clear and the winds dropped to just below gale force. It looked like it was all passing over when we headed over to the lake. However, hanging around for the start, it seemed like it was getting worse. The wind was picking up and the temperatures were dropping a bit and the cloud cover came back. So much for no wind on the bike. The thought of just going back to car and sleeping was a very tempting thought.
But before long, the race was underway and inched my way into the icy waters reminding myself that this was the fun race. And we were off. The water was pretty frigid at first, but it wasn't as bad as Show Low and I got used to it pretty quickly. I started out in front and stayed in front. Unlike my last few races where I just couldn't get close enough to the front and had to fight my way out of the pack, things were nice and smooth from the start. I did swim into a few floaties, but I was expecting these. I wasn't expecting the mud pits at the end and sinking to my knees trying to get out of the water. I had a sudden image of Uncle Remus' tar baby - I wanted to put my hands down but then thought they'd get sucked into the mud and I'd end up on my face. Let's just say that it was not a quick exiting of the water.
I ran into transition and found my bike. I was still a little chilled so I decided to go with the arm warmers. And yes, I had also brought leg warmers and knee warmers. I decided to leave my gloves back in the car thinking that that might be overdoing it. I probably wasted about a minute getting the stupid arm warmers on my wet arms. It's kind of like getting into a wetsuit - there's always a struggle of sorts. The woman racked next to me came running up as I was fighting my clothing. Her boyfriend was right off to the side yelling that #1 was about 2 minutes ahead. She swore and then took off to catch her. Wow, I was pretty close to the front of the pack. Not like I had a chance of catching anyone on the bike, but it's still a nice mental thought to get stuck in your head right before your favorite leg.
I headed off on the bike and quickly found what I'm assuming was about a high Z3 pace. It was a little hard to tell with the altitude. I wouldn't say that I noticed it directly, but I did notice the effects of it with it just taking a little longer to catch my breath. I hit the railroad tracks and one of my water bottles went flying. I think I've lost about half of my bottles this year from railroad tracks. I kept going, ready to attack the rollers. Well, I didn't quite attack them - I was having some issues with other riders not riding to the right and trying to get around them without crashing into the cyclists on their way back to transition. I got to the turnaround and then WHAM! The Wind. Negative thoughts started leaping around and I tried to fight them out. Suddenly an old man (70? 90? old) came from nowhere. He had been riding on the bike path along the course and the bike path crosses the course by the turnaround. He was looking to his right at all of the cyclists coming towards him. He started pedaling across the street. I don't know how he couldn't know, but he seemed completely unaware that there were also cyclists coming from his left as well. He starts crossing the street directly in my path. I started to scream "Hey! Hey! Watch Out! Watch Out!" and started to slam on my brakes. He finally looked over at me with a confused look of "huh?". I slowed and swerved around him as did another guy. As the guy passed me he said "that was dangerous". You think? Well, there's nothing like adrenaline to get you going. Except for the fact that yelling had been exhausting and took quite a bit out of me. I was already breathing hard, but the yelling had been like doing some Z5 intervals. I was now completely out of breath. And dealing with the wind. The next few miles over the rollers were tough. I was fighting the wind and just couldn't settle into a comfortable pace. Finally something clicked and the moment had passed. I was on a hill and decided that the person I was behind was just not going quite fast enough. I made the pass and was back in the game. The rest of the rollers went much better, despite the wind. The home stretch was flat and should have been uneventful. But that would be too easy, right? I was getting close to the left hand turn back into the park. A car got into the left hand lane to turn as well. I assumed they were spectators and they had left plenty of room in the lane. The cop waved them through the turn since they weren't cutting anyone off. I was pretty much along side of the car as they started to make their turn. Their turn was really wide, thus making my turn really wide. They started to slow down and were practically blocking the right hand side of the road. There were a bunch of spectators on the corner. They started to yell. The car slowed more. I now had no way to get around them. I started to yell "Move! Get out of the way!" as did the spectators. The car slowed more. I was just about to reach out and pound on the window (yes, I was think close to the car and had maybe a foot of road between them and the side of the road) when they finally veered left and took off. I had been screaming quite a bit more than I had at the old man and was once again completely depleted of oxygen. And of course, I was now heading uphill. I struggled for a bit thinking that this was going to be a long ride back into transition. But I got to the final hill and something clicked again and I powered up the hill back into the parking lot.
I threw on my shoes and grabbed my hat as was off for the run. The leading wave was just starting to finish as I left for the run, so I realized that I was still pretty close to the front. The first half is relatively downhill and I figured it would be super easy. But it was also into the wind and it took me about a mile to fully catch my breath and get into a comfortable rhythm. That first mile I was definitely thinking that I would not be able to keep this up. I was also trying to conserve something for the second half since it would be uphill. Once I finally got comfortable, I was able to enjoy things again and admire the scenery. Suddenly I was at the turnaround and heading for home. The second half of the run felt so much better. I wished I had pushed a little harder. I was expecting the hill to suck, but I hardly noticed there was a hill. By the time I figure out that I still had quite a bit left, there was only about a half mile remaining. I went into high gear and charged over the hill to the finish line. I saw the clock at just under 2 hours. I was hoping to break 2, and I had about 45 seconds to get myself over the line. This turned out not to be a problem - they must have started my wave a little late. Final time: 1:58:49.
swim: 19:36
t1: 2:46 (stupid arm warmers)
bike: 1:02:42
t2: 1:12
run: 32:35
age group: 6/54
women: 23/243
overall: 111
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