I decided to go to a team ride in nokesville. Time to get back in the saddle (pun intended) my plan was to join up with the beginners in a no-drop easy pace ride. 26 miles. We set out and immediately I felt the anxiety building. I figured as I kept going, the encouru would eventually ease up. Except it went the other direction. I dropped from my 2nd position spot and was now the last of our little group. The panic set in as cars were wizzing by us… coach Ed came and retrieved me after only 6 miles suddenly I’m unsure of even Olympic distance But I was committed. I’m grateful I had signed up for a relay because if it were only for myself, I might have backed out… and I feel like nobody would have questioned me.
Still confining most of my rides to the trainer, I checked in with Laura who had recently gotten herself a new bike and was up for some training rides. Outside! We stayed in and around Herndon, biking from our neighborhood and exploring the area…. On roads, with traffic. It’s not quite the same as open country roads, but it was a start.
Race morning. The nerves are there. I made my iced tea and Kelly, Sweeney and I set out from our rental house to the race site. Easy check-in, xena racked (new bike replacement is still on Covid back order), and made our way over to the team z tent. I grabbed a banana which would later prove to be not enough, but there wasn’t much I felt like eating. Socializing with the team, wetsuit and all the other things…. Somehow in that hour(ish) I heard about 500(ish) various bike crash stories. Awesome, thanks for sharing.
We all made our way over to the swim start. It was a time trial start vs wave start. Took my ginger pills and albuteral tab (instead of inhaler - works better for me). Lined myself up, made my way to the dock, gave my race number to the official and jumped in. Cold! It didn’t take me long to settle into a rhythm. The water was choppy! It would soon become apparent that I spent way too much time focusing on the bike and not too much time in the pool. Slower than I would have liked, but I was moving along. Along the final stretch of the first of 1.75 loops I felt a sting on my arm… jellyfish! They were everywhere! I can’t recall if I’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish before, but if so, it was nothing like this. The damn thing must have attached itself to my arm and hung out for a bit. Ouch!
I felt my Garmin alert twice, which is set to go off every 500 yards. For a 1500m swim I should be over 2/3 done. Except I wasn’t. I had at least half a loop to go. I’m not sure if the course was measured long, or if I was swimming way off course…. But based on my log map, I held a pretty good line to the buoys. Finally on the last stretch, I made my way to the finish. How long can I stretch this out so I don’t have to get on that bike? Not long enough, soon it was time to climb up the ladder for T1. Heading up the dock I passed Sweeney and Kelly cheering…. It was time.
Socks on. Bike shoes on. Helmet on. Sunglasses on - not cycling sunglasses since I failed to replace those. I glanced around but there was nothing left to do. It was showtime.
Heading out of transition Kelly was there telling me to just stay calm. It took me a few extra seconds to get clipped in, but was then able to settle down a bit. I gave myself permission to settle into a low gear, who cares how long this takes. Easy does it. I glanced down at my Garmin and not even a mile had elapsed. Breathe. Luckily the shoulders were wide and the traffic was light, though my hands and wrists started hurting a lot from my tight grip on the handlebars. I caught myself holding my breath every time I heard an approaching car (or in some cases a cyclist with noisy disc wheels). But I was doing it.
The Olympic distance separated from long course at mile 13 and once I made that turn I was pretty confident I would make it. The “hill” that I had been nervous about was nothing; maybe I had some muscle memory from all my hard work earlier in the season…. Though to put it in perspective, the net elevation gain over the 25 miles was X, so pretty flat overall.
A few women who had passed me in the first 15 or so miles were all still within sight. I felt that if I could keep it that way, I wasn’t as alone out there on the roads (which if you think about is kind of silly because they were well out of earshot). Then we turned into the headwind. OMG the headwind. My hands and wrists hurt. My arm was stinging from the jellyfish sting. I will also point out the last time i rode in a tri-suit (i.e. minimally padded bike shorts) was Nov 2019. Those last 10 miles were so hard, but now I knew this was going to happen. Barring a mechanical issue, I was going to be OK. In fact, that realization pumped me up to really pick it up in the last 5 miles. I ended up passing all 5 of the ones who I’d been eyeing.
Last mile!! I was so ready to be off the bike, not because it was an awful ride but because I couldn’t really say “I did it” until I was back in transition. Got to the dismount line and Kelly was right there. I have never been so happy to see her and have her take that timing chip from me. She was off and I was done! Hooray!
Sweeney met up with me and we wandered over to the team Z tent for some medical ointment for the sting. It was still stinging and in fact seemed like it was getting worse… maybe because now that my race was over I was concentrating on it more. Then it was cheer time. We walked over to the impromptu team cheering area with our cowbells.
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