Escape!

Such a cool race. Super challenging for sure for several reasons, but super cool.

We camped there at the state park which is totally the way to go. So nice to be there early, and they have nice bathrooms and showers. Got there that evening in time to eat a traditional whole wheat pasta, all natural Ragu sauce and sauteed zucchini and yellow squash dinner with my friends Chuck and Shayla who camped with us. Also checked out the transition area. Yikes! You have to mount on an incline and do a standing climb the first 50 feet you're on your bike. Interesting to say the least. Slept fine, awoke to a nice calm, reasonable temperature morning.

1.75 mile Swim: 49:07. Wasn't a good swim. My goggles fogged up the entire time, and the buoys were non existent for the first mile of a 1.75 mile straight shot swim. Not so much fun. I probably could have just swam straight to the hill we were sighting off of, but the buoys on the far side of me threw me off and I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to swim by them or not. Should have just gone straight and not tried to align myself with the buoys. Oh well. When I got out I was in 6th I think, and a whopping 7 minutes behind the lead, Sarah. Ouch. Was super cool to all be driven out in boats to the island 1.75 miles away. Was kind of a party all of us in the 6 or so boats just hanging out before the race got started.

39 mile Bike: 2:13. Very happy with that time. I had practiced it pretty hard in 2:20, so was very happy to be under that on race day and still feeling fine. Bumped my avg from 15.4mph to 17.4 mph, or something like that. This course is a beast, one like IMSG it helps to know beforehand. Nice barefoot mount and made it up from T2 fine, then flat for the first 8 or so miles, then climbs 2000 feet along a mine to 9600ft in about 5 miles, with a 8-9% grade the last 2 miles up. Quick 1000 ft descent, rollers out to the turnaround at Electric Lake, and do it all again, backwards. I didn't push the first climb too hard, but felt good and pretty strong on it. Descended both sections pretty well, but got toasted on the second one by the girl in front of me. She is just wicked fast on the down hills - darn! I worked my way up to maybe 15 seconds behind her too by the second climb when I was down by maybe 2 minutes at one point. I'm pretty happy with how I went down though and wasn't willing to risk anything, and knew we all still had a run to go. Stayed smart, on top of my nutrition. Had the pleasure of having a local retired pro Marcel Vifian ride up on his scooter next to me many times during the bike and the run offering compliments, motivation, encouragement, even against HIS athlete who was right in front of me. But as he put it, "It's about getting the best race out of yourself not about who you beat so I encourage everyone to have their own personal best race" He also figured by me going faster it would motivate his athlete Ali to go faster. :) I really appreciated his encouragement. Very cool guy. Oh and also very cool, got to use Powertri's race wheels that day - mmmmm

10 mile Run: 1:19. Happy with this. Not estatic, but happy. This is a flat run on the road, but oh boy is it hot! It is super exposed black black pavement. I had planned to take my jersey off soon into the run and that is exactly what I did (go ahead and take note of the abs folks. I get a lot of grief for being as small as I am after my 3 kids, but I'm not perfect. I don't think I've ever gone totally without a jersey before, but in that heat, I didn't even care). The other precaution I took was to attatch 2 dry sponges from the dollar store (come in colorful packs of 10) to my race belt with little hair elastics. No extra weight, no bounce, nothing to hold, there when I needed them. About mile 5 I pulled them out, stuffed them in a cup of water, then quickly put them under my bra straps. I would repeat this every aid station. It was quick, and effective at cooling me down and giving me something to suck on when I was dying waiting for another aid station. That was an issue with this course. It was so hot out and 10 miles is a long way to run still. Aid stations 1.5-2 miles apart just wasn't enough for me. I guess I could've brought my own water, but didn't want to deal with any extra weight if at all possible.

The legs felt decent. I went out with a pretty decent clip and just hoped to be able to hang onto it. I left transition in 5th, that worried me a little, but then I saw the lady who supposedly went into transition in 3rd, riding her bike as I was a mile into the run. I thought 'what the heck?' and then it dawned on me - it's a relay!! So now I was in 4th. Came upon the 3rd place gal around mile 3 and she said something like "darn, I thought I told the volunteers back there not to let any women catch up to me". I said sorry and ran right on by. She tried to hang with me for a bit, but I was fine. From about mile 5 on it was just a game in my head of 'can I hold this pace for 5 more miles?' I was pretty confident I could, but there were a lot of times I was just dying to get to an aid station, sucking the life out of my sponges, and just putting one foot in front of the other trying to keep a quick cadence. About mile 8.5 there was relief knowing I could see the finish across the dam, but man the running was a challenge. Mile 9 came and hit me hard. That last mile was brutal. I hit a wall for sure. I don't think it was a nutritional wall, more of a heat and exhaustion wall. My legs were heavy and slow, and I wanted an excuse to walk, but I didn't, and finally rounded the corner and got to finish. SUCH a relief!

Gotta love the cheery 'smile for the camera' finish (I've been working on it).....
and this what I looked like 2 seconds later. It was a really hard day out there!

Total time: 4:24.28. With the bad swim that I had, I'll take the time. I managed to pull off a 3rd place overall women podium spot which was great. I really was happy with it. After coming out of the swim like I did, that was my goal for the day. My awesome teammate Sarah Jarvis had an absolutely outstanding day!! I beat myself up a little on the way home that I ever allow myself to compare me to her, thinking I'm in her league, but I can't do that, can't think that way. She is an animal, and just showed up and had a fantastic day! I have so much respect for her.

All I wanted to do from mile 5 on was jump in the lake as soon as I finished, but I found something colder and closer. I tromped in shoes and all immediately up on finishing. Oh it was great!

So fun to see so many friends, congrats to you all! I love the camaraderie of this sport, makes it so great to have so many people to say hi to and cheer for out there on the course. Good times!

And speaking of good times, I thought I'd put a video together for this race. Nothing fancy, a lot of pics you've seen already on this post, but the video shows some of the coolness of the course :) It also shows that I can laugh at myself. My personal favorite moments in the video are the wetsuit pull (kind of like a reverse wedgie I imagine) at :07, then my little 2 year old baby saying talking about the boats, followed by my reaction from 1:15-1:18, makes me laugh every time. And then Sarah and I talking about how we both hit a hard wall at mile 9, about 2:24. Enjoy!