race

Two weeks out of this race, I could not swim or run to save my life. I can't exactly say that I was overtrained because I really didn't have the symptoms: no nightsweat, basal heart rate was low, and my cycling was still pretty solid. Rather than take days off, I decided to just struggle through my scheduled swims and runs and then taper the week of the race. Lining up at the start line, I just prepared myself for whatever the day had for me. I said a little prayer for my mom and dedicated the race to Jill. At the start line, I met a fellow competitor, Todd Dooley, who gave me some positive feedback on my website. Todd would later give me a punch to the head to remember him by during the first 10 yards of the swim, that's racing. No hard feelings Todd. In fact, not only did Todd beat me up, I thought the entire wave was taking turns knocking me out. In crisis mode, I tried to sprint away from the group and immediately felt my arms and legs burn. Though I felt like a brick in the water, I continued to try and sprint away and 100 yards into the swim, the effort made me go hypoxic and I was hyperventilating. I had to stop and take some deep breaths. Sixteen years of racing and still making rookie moves like this. But experience got me through as I told myself to just let the pack go, and to just start swimming at an easy pace. As I swam I started to feel better and caught and passed the pack. It was a two loop swim so I just told myself to try and negative split the swim. Looking ahead, I did not see too many caps from my wave so I knew I was back in the race. As I ran back into the water for my second loop, I heard the announcer give me some props...right on. Having broken away from the pack, I was swimming solo and I had room to manuever around all the crazy kelp. Coming out of the water, I took my split and saw a 25 plus. I guess this is a record breaking day for me, breaking my all time slowest 1.5K swim ever. Hopping on the bike, I didn't expect much but have raced enough to know that you can feel horrible in one leg of a triathlon but feel awesome in another leg. At the first turn-around of the four loop course, I saw my teammates who had left in an earlier wave about 4 minutes behind. I set a goal to keep them from passing me and to maintain the gap. The ride pretty much felt great the entire time and I was able to call upon power and speed at will. I didn't really think about places up to this point but saw Todd behind me and he usually places in our age group so I knew I wasn't too far off the podium. But I didn't hold on to any ideas of getting on the podium today because my next leg was the run, and if my swim was an indicator, there was a good chance I would have no legs today. Both legs cramped up in T2 so I massaged them and took some deep breaths. A slow transition later, I started my run. To my surprise, my legs felt pretty good. My plan was to run easy speed the first of three laps, build the second, and then race the third lap. In reality, I ran solid the first lap, maintained the second, and raced about one mile of the third. Though my legs felt good, I just couldn't get myself into that race, hurt mode. Crossing the line, I heard the announcer say that I was first in my age-group but I knew that wasn't so because I knew Mark Orwat was racing today and no way was he behind me. Sure enough, I placed 2nd behind Mark. Once again, I somehow snuck my way onto the podium. Racing well means having 3 solid pieces, something I've only managed to do once this season, at Folsom a month ago. Today was a horrible swim, great bike, and solid run. Kim did an amazing job of cheering and kept me in the race mentally. Anne did equally well cheering with her poms poms and the team placed 7 guys in the top 20. About an hour after my finish, I had this idea...to be continued.