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| 1500m Swim ~ 25mi Bike |
First, let's recap how
wonderful the Rev3 organization is for letting me switch my registration for a second time to the Olympic AquaBike event. Not having to ride 56 miles, and not having to run made for a relatively stress-free race. At the Team Z pre-race dinner on Saturday night, people were saying the water temperatures were too warm for a wetsuit. This is great news for me as I am
so much more comfortable without the wetsuit, even though I know it's faster and more buoyant with one. This eliminated the need to make the decision on whether or not to wear mine. Jon and I had a good dinner with my swim lane-mates, Linda and Chris, and met Debbie, another fellow Z'er, before calling it an early night ready for the 4:30 wake up call.
This race was point to point, meaning there was a different location for T1 (swim to bike) and T2 (bike to run, finish line). Most people had to go to T2 first to set up their gear, and then take the shuttle to T1. Since I wasn't doing the run, and had nothing to set up, and since I had Jon to drive me, I was able to go directly to the swim start. I was also able to take my bike pump which was crucial since we had to set up our bikes the day before. As I'm pumping air into my tires, the lever on my front tube broke.
Uhh.. what now? I already filled it with air, so it
should be fine.. right? I asked the girl next to me what she thought and she also thought I
should be OK. Just to be sure, I checked with the bike mechanics they had on staff... yeah, you
should be fine.. All this use of the word "should" is making me nervous, but nothing I can do about it at this point. Time to make the
half mile trek down to the water.
Jon and I stood around waiting for the start of the race, trying to determine which were my turn buoys
(versus the half distance turn buoys). The national anthem played and soon I found myself wading into the water. It was very warm and comfortable, and no current at all.
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| If you look closely, you can actually see me in both of these photos Jon captured (I think) |
As the horn sounded, most of the people just walked through the water, it was that shallow. I tried swimming, but eventually it got hard to navigate through all the vertical people, so I stood up and walked a bit. People walked almost the first third of the course, but by the time we got to the first turn, everyone was vertical. There was one girl that I was side by side with for much of that first and second segment, but then somehow she got ahead of me..
humph. As we neared the second turn buoy, we noticed that the buoy was
moving! No fair!! I thought it was just me, but swimmers behind me were shouting at the kayakers
(in a fun-loving way), "do you see this, is it just us? The buoy is
MOVING!!". I finally made it past that turn and found myself side by side with another swimmer, until she, too, got ahead of me.
What the hell is happening?! So I put my mind to it and started swimming harder until I caught up and passed that girl..
take that b!tch [err.. I mean very likely a really nice lady who just happened to be swimming her own race at a slightly faster pace than me]. I swam hard from that point on and felt really good in the water. My watch said 34 min as I walked out of the water which was over
5 minutes better than my time at
Rock Hall, but my official time for the swim was 31:50.. OK, even better :-)
Remember that half mile trek to the swim I mentioned? Well, we had to retrace that path back to transition. I walked
every last step of it, and don't feel guilty at all. 7.5 minutes for T1? Fine. When I get better in all the other areas, I will start caring more about my transitions.
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| There I am on the left, off in the distance.. WALKING!! :-) |
I got to my bike, put my shoes on - first time without socks, not because it would save me a second or two, but it was just one less thing to have to worry about. As I headed out on the route, I was nervous about that front tire. Luckily, the first part of the course was pretty flat and I had time to settle down from the swim, and drink some of my nutrition. This is only 25 miles versus last weekend's 50 miler, so
bring it!
I made a left turn onto one of those small, narrow streets.. the kind where civil engineers like to hide hills. Seriously, every small winding street that goes through the woods has them, even in the flattest of towns... and this was no different. The nice part about this section was it was completely shaded. There's a few curves and then some caution signs indicating a large downhill section... and at the bottom of that section are some really rough patches of road, requiring you to brake to maneuver around pot holes and such. It's really too bad we had to brake so much because what followed was the only real significant uphill of the course. Don't get me wrong, there were a few other parts that I had to drop into my granny gear, but this was the biggest, and essentially, you had to start from a speed of zero.
As I'm climbing that hill, there are cyclists passing me... like, there are a
LOT of cyclists passing me. I'm confused, not because there are faster cyclists than me, but because I was in the last wave
(and the longer distance race had an entirely different bike course), and while I had a good swim, I knew there weren't *that* many people behind me, and certainly not those with the high performance disc wheels and aero helmets (aka, men under 40). I could not figure out what was going on.. had I made a wrong turn and cut off part of the course? No.. cause the volunteers definitely flagged me down this road. What is going on?! Then..
ooooohhh... we must be doing 2 loops. OK, that must be it.
Wait.. FCUK!! We have to do this winding, hilly section again?!!
Yuck!
I passed the 10 mile marker - seriously?!
only 10 miles done?! - and eventually got to the turnoff for the 2nd loop, which wasn't really a loop since there was only one small section we had to do twice. I was dreading that section though. I kept telling myself it was only a 5 mile section, and to go as fast as I could before that point since the hills would likely slow me down. There were other people doing their 2nd loop also, so I wasn't alone, and at one point I even passed someone!! It was a nice ride, but then finally I was back to that narrow, winding road.. except,
it wasn't so bad the second time around! Maybe it was because I knew I was nearing the end of the bike, or because I'd convinced myself somehow that it was worse than it was, but I got up the hills no problem, didn't even have to go into my granny gear as much as that first loop. Go me! Passed the 20 mile marker and I was on the home stretch. As I was turning into the last mile or so, it occurred to me that I was done as soon as I got off my bike.. no transition and no run. Awesome!
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| See my spot, #797.. right there in that first corner next to the Run Out! |
I dismounted and crossed the timing mat, but forgot to look at my watch for my time. I took my time walking my bike to it's spot in the transition area, and wouldn't you know, I had the best spot ever, right next to the run out exit. If I were doing the whole triathlon, it would have been fantastic.. but the official clock had stopped for my event and I didn't care how long it took me to rack my bike and take off my helmet and accessories. I took a minute to bask in the fact that I was finished with my race, and confirmed with a volunteer what I was supposed to do next. I walked out of transition and about 20 yards to the finishers chute which I jogged down barefoot. They announced my name as a finisher, and I hoped people didn't get me confused with the rock stars that were finishing their run.. one of the volunteers asked me if I'd done the whole run barefoot as she handed me my medal and finisher's hat..
Yep, I told her.. I ran the entire
50 yards from transition barefoot :-)
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| Barefoot finish... bad-ass!! |
Jon met me at the end of the finisher chute and I finally looked at my watch. 2:32.. hmm.. my goal was 2.5 hours.. but wait, my time officially stopped once I finished the bike, so maybe? And the official results confirmed, my finish time was
We made our way to the Team Z tent for some post-race food and beverage and cheered on the rest of the finishers. Then, after a quick stop in the Rev3 store, I picked up my bike and we made the long walk to the jeep. The afternoon was spent at a local winery and a visit to Colonial Williamsburg, followed by a full day at Busch Gardens on Monday. Luckily, the ride home on Tuesday was significantly faster than the drive down, and we had the afternoon and evening to rest up for the 3-day work week.
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