race

Upon reflection, what could have been a frustrating and disappointing day actually turned out to be a pretty comical and fun experience. So what happened then? Three of my teammates and I ran the wrong run course. There was a half-ironman in conjunction with our race and we ended up running the first loop of the half marathon which not only was longer but much more hilly. Ultimately, it's our fault but the race was very much "grassroots" and by the awards ceremony, we were all in good spirits and able to laugh it off. There was one single mass start for the men (which the race director decided to start two minutes early but only announced 5 minutes beforehand) and I was excited because our entire team would be on the course at the same time. This was our day to battle head-to-head and see which one of us was top dog. This race made me realize that though I'm faster than my teammates in the pool, I have no advantage in the open water. We all basically came out of the water together around the 20 minute mark. Out on the bike, I felt a bit tired in the legs. But as the ride went on, I slowly began to feel better, especially on the climbs. I've been working on keeping a high cadence during climbing and I first saw some reward at Wildflower. Again, I was able to maintain a higher cadence at this race. I felt like I was having a good ride but not a great one so I started to look for my benchmarks like cadence, attitude, and perceived effort. Right before the turnaround point on the bike, one of my age-group competitors passed me on the bike like he usually does. In a race one month earlier, he outsplitted me by 3 minutes on a 14 mile bike. I was not going to let that happen today. I hammered to stay within reach and I was happy to learn that he was weakest on the climbs. I would catch up to him on the climb only to see him pull away on the flats and the descents. We basically did this for the next 10 miles or so. Finally, all the hard work pushing through the climbs caught up to me and I started to feel some twitching in my hamstrings with about 5 miles to go. I decided to back off, take some nutrition and save something for the run. I knew that I was second in my age group and 6th overall at this point. With two miles left, I got passed by two more guys including one teammate and now I was sitting in last place on my team. Darn. I knew that even if I had a mediocre run, I was within reach of first in my age-group. I didn't feel great off the bike but within a mile, I started to feel a good clip building. I went by an aid station at mile 2 and they had not set up yet, telling me that they would have water when I came back. Yikes. By mile 3, I thought it odd that I still had not caught first place in my age-group and I still hadn't seen the early race leaders. Approaching the run turnaround, I saw three of my teammates and one other guy and that's when I realized we were running the wrong course. As I approached the aid station that was now set up, the volunteers told me that I was on the wrong course. After a short descent, I saw the mammoth hill ahead of me and that's when I had the flashback of doing this half marathon course three years ago. I was running the half-ironman run course which included two crazy long climbs about a mile long. At first, I felt disappointment and anger and I wanted to walk because I was thinking, "what's the point?" Then I thought about all the years I've raced and during that time, how many things have gone wrong and as I did this, I realized how those things are funny to me now. So I prepared myself to run 13.1 miles if I had to though I had no water or gels with me. At the bottom of the second climb, I saw two guys walking and I was determined not to walk and to try and catch them. I caught one and set my site on the other who happened to be Jeremy, one of my teammates. Jeremy turned around and saw me and bolted and I thought what a shame because we could have crossed the finish line together. Later after the race, Jeremy told me he thought that I was in his age-group and that's why he bolted. Little did he know that I am four years his senior and thus in a different age-group meaning we could have crossed the finish line hand-in-hand. Oops. My run split was about 9 minutes slower than what I think I could have done but somehow, I still managed to finish second in my age-group. I think without the mistake, I could have finished in 2:19, putting me 6th overall and winning my age-group. Had my teammates not made the same mistake, we would have placed 6 guys in the top 10. Our moods definitely lifted by the awards ceremony and we found lots of reasons to laugh. Initially, I was kind of disappointed being last on my team but looking at the big picture, I'm doing pretty well this season on less training and less intensity...I'm just more sore after each race.