MiamiMan Aquabike

First time doing back-to-back races!  I was awake early (in part due to terrible temperature control in our rental house), and hit the road back down to the race site.  This is the race I've been focusing my training on most of the year, ramping myself up to longer rides for the first time since Ironman.  

I felt ready but was super anxious about cutoff times.  Like super anxious, kind of like I was for Ironman.  I knew I had a good chance of qualifying for Worlds since there weren't even 16 people signed up on my age group, but in order to qualify, I'd have to finish within time limit.  

I met up with Laura, who was doing the Olympic distance, not the half (long course).  Had breakfast at the team Z tent.  Set up my transition area.  Anxious to get started.

The swim was about double what I did the day before.  We'd start at the same spot, do the same loop, but then get out and re-enter the water and do the same loop over again, finishing at the same spot we started the 2nd loop.  The current wasn't quite as bad, and I was able to settle into a good pace.  0:52:44 for the 1.2 mile swim.  Not my best, but I'm good with it, esp considering I'd done a race the day before.  

Off on the dreaded bike.  I wasn't nervous about the distance, only my pace.  I got a good start, but knew better than to be too optimistic.  Winds change all the time and it affects my speed drastically.  I decided to take what I could get as it comes, and tried to push it as much as possible while I seemed to have a tailwind, but still saving something in the legs for later.  The course was a lollipop course, about 10 miles out, and then 2 loops of 15 (or close enough for a total of 56 miles).  The point is, the cutoff time I was most concerned about was to start that 2nd loop before they closed the course.  So far, so good.

Amazingly, I was still doing OK, and waiting for that headwind to hit me, which it did.  There is a long stretch in the middle of that lollipop loop and it wasn't super exciting scenery, but I was excited that I was ahead of my predicted pace and was feeling better about that cutoff time.  Sure enough, I was not even close to missing the time when I made the left turn to start that loop again.  Phew.  Such a load off to know that I made it and now, no matter what, I would finish.  I still needed to finish within the time frame allotted, but I wasn't super worried about that.  

Soon I found myself in that long stretch again, just kept plugging away.  Then, I started smelling smoke.  As I continued on, the smell intensified and soon I was breathing it in.  There were no emergency vehicles or anything so it must have been a controlled fire somewhere, but it sure was making it hard to see and breath.  I pushed a little harder to get past that section, and soon enough I made the right turn, back on the stick of the lollipop on my way back to transition.  OMG, the headwind though!!  These last few miles were going to kill me, a sentiment that seemed to be shared with all of the other cyclists I was leap-frogging back and forth.  

Finally, I made the turn into the park and knew I was in the final mile.  3:48:16 total.  So funny to think about how anxious I'd been about cutoff times - this was close to a PR for this distance for me.  In fact, I was so much faster than I had anticipated, my friends missed my finish!  They were there for some post-race photos though before we got Xena ready for her ride back to VA (in the Team Z truck), and headed out to lunch, football and rest.