Ok, so maybe it’s time to write one of these again…
Last year, when trying to figure out my 2017 race schedule, I just
couldn’t get excited about anything. I kinda wanted to do another full, just
for the sake of doing a full, but didn’t feel particularly committed to any of
them. Halves were kinda meh, and I couldn’t quite seem to find a focus (other
than “go faster”). I just didn’t know what I really wanted. Coach finally
suggested St. George 70.3, promising it would be a tough, “epic” type race,
which was early enough in the season to keep me motivated through the winter,
but left plenty of time to do more racing for the rest of the year.
Hey coach, you were right: it was certainly “epic.”
Anyway, fast forward through the winter, and a marathon, and a quick
build up to learn how to ride a bike again. A month out, I was feeling perhaps
a bit rusty, but pretty confident. Then we suddenly decided to buy a new house
and sell our current house, and two weeks before the race we found ourselves
madly prepping to sell, juggling agents who wanted to show the house, and
entertaining the cats during open houses. I don’t think this really negatively
impacted the race, except that my head wasn’t really in it as much as it
normally would be—I got all my workouts in (it was actually the best timing,
since I was tapering anyway), but my mind was way more preoccupied with stuff
at home than I was with racing. Good or bad, it is what it is.
After a long but annoying day of travelling, we arrived in St. George
on Thursday afternoon. And it was hot. Like 98F hot. And after the ridiculous
Seattle winter/spring, where standard weather was about 45F and rain for the
last 120+ days or whatever (not even kidding), it felt REALLY EXTRA HOT. After
picking up packets, we assembled bikes and went to bed—and I promptly fell
asleep and got like 9+ hours of sleep!
Due to aforementioned house stuff, I had been getting wayyyy less sleep
for the past couple weeks, so it was actually really amazing (and important!)
that I was able to just SLEEP so much that night. On the other hand, I did wake
up often throughout the night because my neck hurt thanks to the hotel mattress
and pillows (I think I’m just super sensitive to those things and need to start
travelling with my own pillow) soooo, there’s that.
Anyway, we got a short little run in after breakfast—and it was hot.
There was also nowhere flat, as we found ourselves up and down and up and down
and UP a giant hill…. All in our quick, 15-minute run. I feel like these things
really should have tipped us off…
But since there was nothing to be done about it, we grabbed our bikes
to spin and make sure everything had been reassembled correctly. Still hills.
Everything seemed fine. Cut it short because we didn’t want to actually do any
work, and seriously, the hills.
Finally, we headed out to Sand Hollow Reservoir, which was the swim
start and T1, to drop off bikes and bike bags and to get in a quick practice
swim. The super cold winter meant that no lakes at home were warm enough to
swim in yet, so we hadn’t had a chance to do ANY open water swimming—last time
I got an OWS in was at 70.3 WC in Australia, back in September! I also had a
new wetsuit (the new BlueSeventy Helix), and I was anxious to actually try to
swim in it. I will admit that I actually brought my old wetsuit to Utah as
well, just in case the new one didn’t fit right!
We got to T1 and I realized…I had forgotten my wetsuit at the hotel!
BOTH OF THEM! T1 was a good half hour from the hotel, but I also realllllllly
needed to do a practice swim aka go stand in some open water, so after dropping
off our bikes in transition, we head back to the hotel. Then back to the
reservoir. So annoying, ugh!!! But an hour later, we were back, and actually go
to test out the water.
FYI, putting on a neoprene wetsuit when it’s in the 90s is really not a
fun thing, but the water was cold (60-62ish I think they said) so as soon as we
got into the water, it was worth it! Luckily, my wetsuit felt much better than
it did when I tried it on (for the first time, shhh) in the hotel the night
before, and as much as I grumbled about the whole swimming thing, it felt “good.”
Allen swam a million times faster than me, and I quickly remembered how much I
hate open water swimming (ok, so I’m not sure if it’s necessarily the open
water I hate, or just the swimming in general), so after a quick 10 minutes we
called it good. It’s not like I was about to gain any big swim improvement, and
I had confirmed the new wetsuit was a go!
Next up was a dinner get-together with Wattie Ink teammates who were in
St. George. So much fun! We had some good food and a fun time chatting
about the race (and laughing at how sunburnt Allen and I were from being in a
state with sunshine for 24 hours), before all heading off to bed. Something about a race the next morning… ;)
Up until this point, I was still very much in denial about a race. I think because of the house distraction, I
just hadn’t been thinking about it much and it truly did not feel like there
was this thing I had to do tomorrow!
Usually I’ll be fine, but then finally start getting nervous the night
before—not this time! I tried to go
through the motions (also hard, as the first race of the season meant I
couldn’t really remember what those motions were) and honestly didn’t give
anything much thought. Maybe I should
have cared a little more –and it’s not that I didn’t care, I just didn’t feel
any pressing urgency to anything—but I got everything ready to go, and went to
bed.
Early alarm clock the next morning.
I distinctly remember looking at myself in the mirror, brushing my teeth
at 4am, and asking myself what I was doing.
Why do I even do this? I could be asleep in bed right now. Seriously, Rosanne, WHY!?
But instead of think about it too much and trying to remember the “why,”
we grabbed our bags, grabbed some coffee, and hopped onto the hotel shuttle,
which dropped us off at T2, where we would take the bigger bus out to T1.
That’s when I realized that I had left my cold bottle of Gatorade and
my bottle of EFS (aka my bike nutrition) in the fridge in the hotel room.
Ok, quick, change of plans.
There was always the chance to go back to the hotel and get it, but that
was going to be stressful. I had a
package of clif shot blocks in my T2 bag (which we had access to) as a “just in
case” thing, and I knew the first aid station on the bike was only 10 miles
in. So I grabbed the shot blocks, to at
least have something with me out of the water, and figured I could just drink
my speedfil bottle (full of Herbalife CR7) for the first 10 miles. Clif products were on course, so as long as I
was diligent and took nutrition in the form of shot blocks or gels every chance
I got, I figured I would be fine.
Got to transition. Started
feeling a bit more real, and the nerves finally started to kick in. Tried to remind myself that I always seem to
figure it out once it all starts. Pumped
my tires, prepped my CR7 bottle, and arranged my bike transition (which was
literally just helmet and shoes and the shot blocks, so it took a good 30 seconds)
…and waited around. Killed time using
the porta potty as many times as possible.
Dropped off morning bag, started wiggling into wetsuit, and hung out
with some teammates as the gun went off and the pro race began.
The swim start was in AG waves, which were originally 5 minutes
apart. Due to the high wind advisory
that was supposed to start around noon, race officials moved up the pro start
time by about 5 minutes, and then adjusted the wave times after that to begin
only 2 minutes apart (instead of 5), in an effort to get as many people off the
bike as early as possible. All things
considered, I think this was a good move, though the swim did get a big
congested (for a wave start swim), especially at the end.
In any case, I was in the 3rd to last wave, so Allen went
ahead to his group a little earlier and I was left to wait around a bit
longer. Soon enough it was time to queue
up, and I found my group of red caps, and we made our way to the water. Even the sand here was red sand, which was
kind of cool :) Things were a bit rushed, because of the quick 2-minute
staggering between wave starts, but it worked out ok as long as you were paying
attention.
A short little swim out to the deep water start, and suddenly the
announcer was saying it was 15 seconds to the start! Without really feeling real, I got my garmin
ready to go and…. GO!
Swim - 39:31 (18th/54)
I actually felt good swimming, right off the bat. The starting mess wasn’t really that chaotic,
and I felt like I got into a rhythm pretty quickly. I started counting buoys, and realized I had
no idea how many there were (standard procedure) and that I had also completely
forgotten how long a 70.3 swim really is.
I reasoned that 20 was a good number of buoys, but wasn’t really sure
what the course looked like (other than 2 left hand turns), so after a while of
getting bored, I started thinking we must be nearly done by now.
And then we finally hit the first turn.
I contemplated looking at my watch, but convinced myself that it had
probably been only a few minutes (and not an eternity, which is how it felt),
and kept swimming. I started passing
people in earlier waves (although I also started getting passed by those in the
waves behind me), but generally it was all fairly tame. I vaguely wondered if I should be swimming
harder, but just focused on not freaking out and moving forward.
The line of buoys was yellow, with red buoys at the turns; up ahead, I saw
a reddish blob, and was exceedingly pleased that we were indeed coming up to
the point where we could finally turn and head back to shore. Yay!
Almost done! Thank goodness!
Except when we reached it, we didn’t
turn…because this was actually an orange buoy, not a red buoy, and now there
were a ton of other orange buoys still to go, and suddenly I realized that the
yellow buoys must have just marked the first HALF of the swim, and now I had a
full set of orange ones to go. How did I miss that?! I also saw that the orange buoys re-started
at #1, so my guess of 20 buoys total seemed about right. On the
plus side, I reasoned, I haven’t been
violently kicked, and I haven’t tried to drink half the lake! No gasping and choking is always a plus! Har har har, I bet I just jinxed that…
Annoyed, I kept going. Finally,
the REAL red buoy appeared, and as I tried to correct my course (always off
course), I was finally able to turn and NOW we were heading back to shore! Now it was basically just like what Allen and
I swam yesterday, right?
But suddenly, the water was super choppy. There were people everywhere. Did they just
pile up and get stuck here, on the last little leg back in?! People kept stopping in front of me, blocking
me, getting in the way. The choppy water
kept going down my throat—so much for the not choking and dying bit. The entire swim back in was incredibly
frustrating, feeling very slow and trying to navigate through the choppy waters
and other people.
Finally, finally, I found the ramp up.
Finally, people around me started to stand up and trudge out of the
water. Finally, after swimming past more
people who were trying to WALK through 4 feet of water, the ground came up to
meet my face, and I scrambled out.
The ramp was crowded. I ripped
off my goggles and hat, lapped my garmin (and was highly irritated it was in
the 39-40 range), and forgot about the whole stupid swim. Yup: business as usual.
T1 – 2:39
I suddenly remembered I needed to take the dumb wetsuit off, so I held
my cap and goggles tightly (not wanting to repeat the CDA 70.3 debacle) and
fumbled to unzip and get my arms off.
There were wetsuit strippers, so ran to them, and got that thing off
lickity-split.
Still clutching my cap and goggles, scampered back into transition, and
made a beeline to my bike, yelling over to Sam along the way (not sure he heard,
but yay, teammate! And yes, he also
started after me, but shhhh).
Transition was funny, since everything had to be in bags. I’m sure it was NOT the smoothest transition
ever, as I started my 520, shoved my helmet and shoes on (and clif shots into
my pocket!), all while trying to get my wetsuit (and those darn goggles and cap, don’t lose them this time, Rosanne!!!!)
back into the bag.
Awkwardly ran out of transition, trying to remember how this all works,
and made a fool of myself trying to mount quickly. Again—business as usual.
Bike – 2:53:00 (8th/54)
Ah, finally, the bike!
It is (obviously) no secret that I’m a pretty abysmal swimmer, and that
getting on the bike is like the BEST.THING.EVER. I also like to go 10000% right out of the
gate, and I will never-ever-ever understand people who don’t just start
GOING. I passed probably 20 people in
the first 100 feet, not even kidding. It
was a nice, downhill exit out of the park—literally an empty parking lot (aka
TONS OF ROOM) and I got down and hammered.
I think I just like getting rid of the swim.
Anyway, after turning onto the main road, I got quickly overtaken by
Sam, but was happy to keep him in sight at least for a little while :)
The gently rolling road around the reservoir made for nice riding,
albeit a bit bumpy with the chip seal at times.
I got down in aero and—OW, WHAT IS
THAT. My back/neck/shoulders were
absolutely on fire. I wondered if
something happened swimming (no) when I realized: that darn hotel bed and
pillow!!! I kept trying to settle down
into aero but it hurt so, so bad that I would have to sit back up after about
25 seconds. I briefly wondered what this
would mean, and resigned myself to a long, painful 56 miles where I knew I
would force myself into aero no matter what.
Luckily, with some more gentle pushes and maybe just stretching it out,
it did eventually get better (taking well into the second half of the
ride). The surrounding roads in the
first portion of the course were absolutely gorgeous, with farms (and horses!)
everywhere and some terrific red rock backdrop scenery. It reminded me a lot of riding out in the
valley, except for all the red mountains around us.
This one guy wearing a blue kit on a road bike kept passing me. Then I’d pass him back. Back and forth and back and forth. He was kind of annoying though—just got the
vibe that he was irked about it, and never made any kind of acknowledgment (I
feel like usually once I start going back and forth with someone, we usually at
least smile, knowing “yup, passing again, see you in a few”). This guy just seemed always angry.
Some fun, fast sections here (maybe it was the wind?) kept my speed up
really nicely. Speaking of the wind, the
fact that it was there was…troubling. I thought the high winds weren’t supposed to
start until the afternoon?!
After passing a school with lots of spectators out front, we turned
onto the highway—and what a view! This
is definitely a gorgeous race course; everywhere it took us was fantastic. From the farms around the reservoir, to a
highway, to Snow Canyon later…there was no shortage of fantastic views. I definitely took the time to look around and
soak it in (while TTing) because it was so beautiful.
The first aid station was also here, but didn’t see any nutrition—only
water and Gatorade. I grabbed a water
for my top holder, and refilled as much of my speedfil as possible with
Gatorade. Unfortunately, I seemed to
have forgotten how my speedfil works, and conveniently had it oriented facing
downwards, which meant it was really hard to refill it. Most of the Gatorade ended up all over me,
but at least I had kind of a full bottle of some form of calories and
electrolytes now.
Racing with cars in the lane next to us was a bit unnerving…especially
because now that I think about it, we were riding on the left hand shoulder, so
the cars were coming at us head-on.
There were lots of cones, but even so, with lots of riders around and
wind, it definitely made you think twice.
Another fast section, it was really fun to bomb down some of the little
hills along the highway, and lose hardly any speed going back up the other
side!
Around here, there was a short little climb, and I heard a motorcycle
riding up alongside us. The road bike
guy with a blue kit rode up next to me.
I was passing someone else, then looked around to move back over to the
right, but he had followed and was right there, and not giving me any
room. What is this guy doing? I
kept riding, and looking around to see where to go. There was no one behind me on my left, but
blue kit guy would not get out of the way on my right. The motorcycle (with what was clearly an
official hanging off the back) kept riding beside us. I really hoped he wasn’t going to get mad at
me, since now I was kind of just riding in the middle of the lane, but I
couldn’t move over… when suddenly Blue Kit Guy went ahead and passed me on the
right, then snaked around some other people.
Well that was dumb, I thought.
Motorcycle and official sped away, and I went back to my ride, but
shortly realized that they had slowed down and were now talking to the Blue Kit
guy…and shaking a card at him! Blue Kit
guy was totally getting a penalty (and he did not appear to be taking it well),
presumably for blocking and/or passing on the right, and I wondered if he had
honestly not realized there was an official right there watching us (I mean, a
motorcycle riding on the inside shoulder, with someone hanging off the back
staring at us, seems like it should be pretty obvious?).
Anyway, the highway continued with its undulating course, and I really
enjoyed it. My bike felt fast, I was
ticking off miles and riding strong in aero (would have to get up and stretch
on every uphill, but was getting through it).
Despite the winds, everything seemed to be going fine.
It occurred to me that I had still not seen Allen, and I wondered how
long it would take to catch him. I
started keeping my eyes peeled in the distance, trying to spot a yellow helmet,
but so far, nothing.
Finally, off in the distance around a turn up ahead, I saw him! A little yellow helmet, with a checkered HIT
squad kit. It took a bit longer to catch
up to him, but finally, going up a little hill and 1:08 after starting the bike
(…not like I checked…), I was able to pass him.
We exchanged a very quick gripe about the swim, and off I went.
Another guy on a road bike and disk wheel saw me pass him, but he was
much nicer—“nice work, girl, keep it up!!” as I passed him. We continued to go back and forth passing
each other for the remainder of the race, up until the very end, but his was a
much friendlier vibe. It’s always nice
and grounding to find someone else out there who you sync up with unexpectedly
every once in a while, even if you don’t know them at all.
Finally, another aid station, and this time, I saw volunteers holding
out various foods. I had long since
eaten all my clif shots, and they are easy to eat and store so I rode up to
grab some—and promptly knocked the package out of the volunteer’s hand. Sighing, I set my sights on the next one up
to road and—same story! And now there no
more volunteers with any kind of food, so I settled with yet another Gatorade
(and also dumped about 75% of it on my legs in the process of refilling. Seriously, what was going on???)
I knew this was highly sub-optimal, since I was over an hour in with
about 200 calories + Gatorade (plus the swim).
But there wasn’t much to do about it now, so I kept trying to drink as
much Gatorade as possible (and started dumping water on myself) and just go go
go go.
More pretty views, more rolling hills, and more really fast
sections. I’m not sure how or why the
course felt so fast, but it was seriously SO much fun! I’m always amazed at how much faster I bike
when I race vs in training, but it’s always a big relief to see that it shows
up when it matters. I also knew the Snow
Canyon climb was yet to come, so as much fast time in the bank now as I could
deposit, the better.
We finally started snaking back through St. George, and out to the
west, where I knew Snow Canyon was…somewhere.
I also realized I was feeling really hungry. Ugh.
This is never good, because usually by the time I actually feel hungry,
it’s way too late. I still felt
relatively good, but my energy levels were starting to drop a bit, and I just
really needed more fuel.
Big long out and back. Finally,
a chance to see some people! I saw a
couple teammates, as well as Allen, on this section, which is always a good
morale boost.
But I was still hungry, and now we were turning towards what I knew had to be Snow Canyon. Thankfully, there was an aid station just
outside the entrance to the park. There
wasn’t a lot, but I knew I needed as much of whatever I could get. No clif shots this time, but there were a
couple people holding gels, and I was desperate enough that I didn’t even care :)
Thankfully, I was able to actually grab and hold onto a gel this time, and I
tore into that thing. It was some kind
of lemon flavor and super messy and got everywhere (pretty sure the sticky mess
of gels is the #1 reason why I don’t like them) but I slurped up as much of
that thing as I possibly could.
Definitely could have used about 5 more, but hey, it was something.
The entrance to Snow Canyon is nice and gentle. Some little up and downs, and you start
wondering how this is possibly a canyon climb.
It’s also even more gorgeous, if that’s possible, and again, I found
myself just looking around and ogling the sights. How
lucky I am to get to travel and race and see all these things simply because of
this hobby! There were birds and
flowers and of course more red rocks in the craziest formations, and the fresh
pavement sprawled out ahead of us. I am
endlessly thankful for the new places I’ve seen and experienced because of
triathlon, and this was definitely a highlight.
Speaking of the sprawling, windy road, it very suddenly was UP
ahead…because now the road really did seem to be going uphill. It came in short, pitchy climbs, then evened
out, then steeper yet, and soon the lesser-uphills seemed flat just in
comparison. Guess this is the climb, then, and I thought back to Shawn telling
me to just “do my thing.” Do your thing, Rosanne, just spin and ride
strong and pass people and ignore everyone else and do your thing.
My time up Snow Canyon was nothing phenomenal, and I certainly wasn’t
trying to attack it or anything, but it felt good to ride strong, conserve
energy but keep it steady and purposeful.
There were a few short, pitchy sections (and I think I may have gotten
out of the saddle once? For about 3 pedal strokes? Because I was too lazy to shift??) but all in
all it was a good, fun little climb and never felt that bad or steep at
all. In fact, probably less steep than
many of the climbs at home—just went on for longer.
Nonetheless, I was happy when it ended, and turned out onto the highway
again. But this time, it was for a
10-mile descent back down into St. George.
This was also hands-down the scariest 10 miles I’ve ever spent on a
bike.
Leaving the park, and on the exposed highway, we were suddenly faced
with wind. LOTS of wind. It was only a bit after 10:30am, but the high
winds were definitely already picking up, and it was relentless. Less of a headwind, and more of just swirly
gusts, I hung on to my bike for dear life.
At times I was in aero, and wanted to get up but there was no way I
could let go for half a second to sit up, so I was forced to stay down. On the other hand, sitting up just increased
surface area to be blown around, and created less of a steady feeling. Oftentimes, I just settled for holding on to
the bars but crouching down; I have never gripped the bars as tightly as I did
then, always trying to push down and hold as much as my weight onto my front
wheel as possible.
A few scary moments, but soon we were back into town. PHEW.
But even back down the side streets, the wind was insane. With less than 2 miles to go before rolling
into transition, another giant gust grabbed my front wheel and I felt the bars
skew to the left; I tried to steady the bike, overcorrecting and veered the
other way. After a few more really
sketchy wobbles, I managed to stay upright.
I need to be off of this bike Right. Exactly.
Now!! Clinging on and trying
to stay on two wheels, I finally reached transition, and not a moment too
soon. I wasn’t actually sick of riding
my bike, like I am some times by the end of the bike, but I was really getting
worried about being blown over.
T2 – 2:02
Running into transition, I quickly racked my bike. The guy next to me didn’t seem to understand
that he needed to rack his bike in his own spot, as his bike was very obviously
in my spot, so I had to shove his bike over (sorrynotsorry) and got mine
racked. I actually took my helmet off
first this time (what?! I think because it was a new helmet), and sat down.
I realized I didn’t feel very good.
I felt hot. I didn’t want to
run. I knew I was wasting time, but I
needed to just sit for a second and get myself regrouped and psyched up.
I took longer than usual to pull on socks and shoes and hat and I was
dismayed that I had no more nutrition (I was hoping I had accidentally forgotten
about some secret stash of food I had left there; nope) and I also had no more excuses
to just sit there taking my time. Unsure
of what was feeling “off,” I hoped that I could just start running and start
figuring it out—but there was no question: I knew I was going to go run for
13.1 miles and I just didn’t want to.
But the best way to get it over with is to just get started. So once again, I trusted that I would start
and things would fall into place, and got my butt off the ground and started
running.
Run – 1:55:41 (8th/54)
I wish I could say it all clicked, but it didn’t. I just felt hot, and my legs felt like
trash. Had I pushed too hard on the
bike? Was I just lacking in
nutrition? Was I maybe actually running
really well, but it just felt bad?! (A desperate and far-fetched fantasy)
I did see I was running a 6:40 pace, and new that was a bit much, so
just tried to settle down. Saw Colleen
at the run out, smiled and waved, and headed up the first few blocks, which was
of course up hill.
I got to the top of that, turned..and kept running along the same road
I had just biked down. I tried to
distract myself by watching the bikers coming in. But it just didn’t feel good. I couldn’t get my legs to turn over faster,
and I knew I wasn’t running fast enough—even without looking at my watch, which
confirmed I was running an 8-something pace.
I hate to do this but… Numbers time: I should have been running about a
7:15-7:20. After the initial shake out, including that little uphill, I should
have been able to settle in to a pace and lock into a 7:20 fairly comfortably
(comfortably in a race-type mode, which is not comfortable by any means, but a
comfortable push). Not only was I not
feeling good, and not feeling like I was in that comfy-pushing zone, I was a
good minute per mile slower than I should be—and trying to move my legs faster did
nothing. This is when I quickly realized
my legs were just not showing up to the party, and that I needed to quickly
resort to crisis-control mode—and I was less than a mile into the run.
But still hoping against hope that I could rally and maybe warm up my
legs and get some nutrition, and that I
would magically snap back into it, I approached the first aid station, threw
some water on my face, and thankfully grabbed a packet of shot blocks that some
kid was holding out for me.
They were warm, from sitting out in the sun. Yuck.
But I knew I needed them. I tore
the package open, and popped the first one in my moth….
What. Is.
This. I tried not to spit it
out, scrunched my nose, and looked at the package.
Ginger Ale.
Not only was it a warm ginger ale flavor, but I absolutely HATE ginger
in any way, shape or form. JUST MY
LUCK! I grimaced and choked it down,
knowing it was way more important to try to force in some calories. I ran a minute or two more, then forced
myself to eat another. It’s for your own
good, I told myself. But after the second
(which mostly just disintegrated in my mouth because I couldn’t even get myself
to chew it up and swallow it), I gave up and threw them away. I just really hate ginger :-\
At the next aid station, I tried again.
This time, I grabbed Spearmint, which also sounded gross but at least it
wasn’t ginger (and those were the only two options). I held onto the package for the longest time,
but never ended up eating any. I guess
on the plus side, the ginger flavor made m lose my appetite, and I wasn’t
feeling hungry any more. Blegh.
Meanwhile, I was still watching for Allen, and finally saw him coming
back into town—whew! It was time to
focus back on the run, which by the way was still all a very, very gradual
uphill. Ugh. As we snaked up the road, we finally turned
and made a sharp right turn and…
…this is the biggest hill I’ve seen in my life.
I looked up ahead. The hill kept
going. It kept going as I could see a
stream of runners up ahead, high above me and going around a corner, up out of
view, but always still uphill.
It was at this moment, I realized this run was really not going to be happening for me.
But I ran, slowly. I got passed
more than I ever have before. I probably
could have walked faster. My watch
showed a really sad, slow pace, and I kept eying the distance. This is
a two loop course, right, so we should be turning around soon… although I do
NOT want to come run up here again…
But the 3 mile mark came and went.
Soon the 4 mile mark did, too. We
kept going and going and by the time we got up on the ridge, the wind was
really howling too, because why not add that to the mix now? It was hot and super exposed to the sun, the
winds pushing strong against us, and always
up hill, all the time.
Eventually, as we started a little out and back, and I realized it was
really two out and backs that were side by side, my brain finally put two and
two together and I realized that a) it was not a two loop course, and b) I was
going to have to run up here on top of the ridge twice.
In all honesty, it was probably a good thing. I was really dreading having to run down then
back up it, and really wasn’t sure how I was going to motivate myself to do
it. But now, I was stuck, and I may as
well just keep on going, since it was the only way to get to the end, at this
point.
Not a lot to say about the run, since it was just HOT and WINDY and I
felt pretty zapped. I was exceedingly
frustrated that I couldn’t run—I tried, but it was just a shuffle. I know I am capable of running so much
better, but I had nothing in my that day, and it was all I had in me to just
keep moving forward.
I did finally see a couple teammates on the out and backs, and kept
seeing Tu sneaking up closer and closer on my tail (he started in the last
wave, so I was really just trying to prevent him from passing me all day ;) ). It was good to see people and wave and smile,
but I was way past the point of enjoying anything at this point.
FINALLY, we crossed the point where all the out and backs intersected,
and it was time to head back down into town.
4 miles to go. 3 miles to
go. It was finally time to run down the
ginormous hill, and I tried to make up some time but I was lucky to stay under
an 8:00/mile pace at this point. I spent
a lot of time just being mad—mad at myself for not being able to go any harder,
and mad at myself for being mad about it.
Down to the bottom of the hill, and now I was telling myself it was
just the long straight push before the turn down to the finish. And yet, it just felt so, so long. It was a slight downhill, but my times were
slipping again. I tried running as far
left as possible, to get any hint of shade, but that didn’t really accomplish
anything. Nothing in particular felt
awful or painful, but I still just felt so bad, and wanted nothing more than to
just stop.
Miles 12. Just over 1 mile to
go…and I almost started crying. Like
actual tears welling up and starting to choke, actually crying.
I had 1 mile to go, but I couldn’t even fathom one more mile, and I
wasn’t even sure if I was crying because I truly didn’t want to run, or because
of how sad and pathetic that was.
I ran anyway. I walked through
the last aid station, half a mile from the finish, just because I wanted an
excuse to take a break. This is the
state I was in at this point—thoroughly defeated by the run, discouraged, and
just ready to be over with this once and for all.
At last, we got to the last round-about, turned downhill, and a
straight shot down to the finish. I
think I tried to smile at Colleen and she cheered in the finishing chute, and I
was also the jerk that magically picked up the pace and started sprinting down
the finishing carpet to pass people before the line. Sorry, I just honestly wanted to stop and
never run again, at that point.
TOTAL: 5:32:53
Not quite must slowest time, but close.
Ironically, IM Cabo 70.3 still holds the record for my slowest, and yet
I still won my age group there… Just
goes to show that things are so much more than just a time, I suppose!
In any case, I’m still processing and deciding how I feel about this
race. The run defeated me, that’s for
sure. But there were some really good
take-aways. Overall, I’m mostly focusing
on the fact that I’m happy that the race season is officially underway, and I
can confidently say I’m really looking forward to the rest of the summer!
