Introduction
Lobsterman promised an exciting who's who of my training buddies, all in one day, in the same place, doing the same race. It was the showdown I'd been waiting for all summer. I will do my best, but I'll warn you now that this will not be a short race report. Sorry. First, let's introduce the cast of characters:
Lobsterman promised an exciting who's who of my training buddies, all in one day, in the same place, doing the same race. It was the showdown I'd been waiting for all summer. I will do my best, but I'll warn you now that this will not be a short race report. Sorry. First, let's introduce the cast of characters:Mary, aka Iron Matron: Most of you know her. If you don't know her, you should go read her blog and get to know her. She's blazing fast, and the only one that I knew I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating to a bloody pulp.
From left to right: Michelle, Alison (hey, if I had abs like that I would never put on a shirt either!), me, and Anne (who does not ALWAYS have crazy Einstein hair like that!)Michelle, training partner and accidental running coach. I told you guys about her that day she made me run so hard I pissed myself, then she made me keep running. Michelle is a fast runner and a strong cyclist. She can tear up hills like a woman possessed, and makes me see stars trying to keep up with her.
As Margaret Cho says, in every group of friends there's the sweet one, there's the smart one, and then there's the ho. "Look around. Which one are you?!" If Alison's the sweet one, and Michelle with her PhD from MIT is the smart one, then that only leaves me and Anne to be the ho. In this case, let's define "ho" as "cut-throat bitch".
And then there's Anne. Anne appeared in my life at the beginning of the summer at our regular Friday morning open water swims in sewage-infested water. She was one of Michelle's co-workers and a friend of Alison's from the outside world. I painted a mental target on her forehead the first day when she violated two of my major pet peeves:
1. She tried to turn our good-natured, everybody-swim-to-the-buoy-and-wait-because-we're-all-friends-here swim into a race. At each buoy she would comment on who got there in what order and how far apart. Strange, because at the time she was usually turning up last.
2. Michelle introduced me and mentioned that I had just gotten back the week before from riding from San Francisco to LA. I refuse to brag, but I believe that when a third party mentions my impressive and astounding feats of strength and daring, that all should nearly faint in the sheer blazing glory of my awesomeness and superhuman achievements. Anne did not do this. Anne said, "Oh, I'm training for the Pan-Mass challenge". Like it's the same thing?! The Pan-Mass Challenge is 192 miles over 2 days, LifeCycle is 550 over 7 days. Pan-Mass goes across Massachusetts, an iiiiitty-bitty little state, LifeCycle crosses half of California, a great, big state the size of Italy. Which is not to say that the Pan-Mass challenge isn't a great achievement. It's just that, well, I'm better and everyone should bow before me.
And things with Anne progressed. One day she was talking about a work friend of hers, "He's a really good cyclist," she said. "You couldn't keep up with him..." How dare you?! I thought. You've NEVER seen me ride hard, because I'm waiting for your sorry ass all the time! But the real moment when I really set her in my crosshairs was on a regular Tuesday night ride. There's one hill in town, and we were riding up the shallow back side of it. I'm riding along, twiddling my thumbs and enjoying the company when Anne rides by me singing:
"One way, or another, I'm gonna get you,
"I'm gonna pass you, pass you, pass you, pass you..."
"Aw no she di'in't!" I said to Michelle, who I think was riding next to me. Then louder, "don't you piss me off, Anne, or I'll lay the hurt on you!" I then clicked up about 4 gears and rode to the top of the hill as hard as I possibly could.
"I'll get you on the downhill!" she yelled after me. So I waited for her. At the top of the hill I softpedaled for about a minute until she caught up. And then I went. She never caught me on the downhill. It lead to a whole downhill war, though. For weeks we were trying to set speed records down that hill: 40 mph, then 40.9, 41, and I finally called an end to it when I hit 42.
Anne wasn't a very talented runner, either. She'd never been a runner and was coming back from back surgery. She routinely held about 10-minute miles. Then she signed up for a 4-mile race an Michelle advised that she "run like she stole something". That's all Anne needed. Overnight she dropped over a minute and a half off her average pace. She ran that 4-miler in about 8:25 miles and hasn't slowed down since.
It was infuriating, not only had her run made tremendous progress, but also her swim was back up to where it had been back in her competitive swimming days. When she got a wetsuit, she became untouchable in the Friday morning sewage swims. And every time she got to a buoy faster than someone who used to be ahead of her, she commented on it, "Wow! I must be getting faster, Denise used to be so far ahead of me, and now I have to wait for her for a whole minute!" Every time I hit a major benchmark in my training, she seemed to have surpassed it on the same day. Eventually I stopped updating people on my progress, but I would still come home from a good workout only to find an email in my inbox that I'd been outdone yet again.
This. Was. War!
I'm an extremely competitive person, and I'd finally met my match. I cut off the shit talking entirely, but I started telling EVERYONE around me about how this chick needed a big ol' slice of humble pie, and I wanted to be the one that shoved it down her throat. I don't usually talk about my races outside my blog, but I told people at work about my war. I told my parents. I told the guys at the bike shop. I told what ever friends I have that AREN'T associated with work or the bike shop. Every workout I tried to find another way to get just a little bit faster so that I could beat Anne to within an inch of her life at lobsterman.
Mary came and picked me up Friday night and we had dinner and drove up to her parents' place in Maine, where we would spend the night. We talked about the usual things that girls talk about when they get together: which cake recipe was best, lipstick and nail polish shades, the joys of childbirth and motherhood, the latest issue of Redbook, which presidential candidate was more of a hunk... You know, the usual. I hope I don't embarrass myself or Mary by saying this, but she really is such an inspiration. Every time I talk to her, she says things that leave me thinking for weeks afterwards. I believe she and I see the world through a similar lens, and she somehow she knows exactly what to say and how to say it to make me see things in a totally different light. She is such a fierce competitor, such an amazing runner, such an impressive athlete, and I can learn (and have learned) so much from her. So if I link to her all the time in my blog, it's not because I'm in love with her (well, not really), it's just that the things she says are always on my mind. It was great to get so much one-on-one time with someone so much wiser and faster than I am and peel back even more of the layers of what makes such a driven, successful woman. Also, she won my everlasting admiration for using the word "scuttlebutt" in a sentence.
After a shitty night's sleep (which was not entirely due to the grandfather clock outside my room that chimed every 15 minutes, I promise!), I woke up, showered, and got my stuff ready. I had wanted to put my hair in 2 braids, since the ear flaps on my new aero helmet have a tendency to make my hair fall in my face and look like shit, but I forgot a brush. I did the best I could to braid it with my fingers, but it was not holding up to drying. Before we got to the start I must have bitched about my hair about 10 times. "Would you shut UP about your damned hair already?!" Mary finally yelled. "If you don't I'm going to tell everyone in the blogosphere that all you could talk about was how worried you were about your damned hair!" But I beat you to it, Mary! Now they know.
Putting our two heads together we managed to find the race site early enough to get good parking, I changed my hairstyle for the third time that morning. We went to registration to pick up our numbers. When the volunteer heard my 4-syllable last name, and Mary's hyphenated last name she said, "What would happen if you guys had children who had to have all those last names?!"
"I'm pretty sure we couldn't have children," I said. What a weird thing to say. Then I left Mary to go set up transition.
I had a bit of trouble figuring out how the numbering on the racks was supposed to go, and as I was moving my stuff from one rack to another, this stocky little troll of a man came up to me. "First of all, your bike is facing the wrong way. 313 goes here."
"But I AM number 313."
"But your bike is facing the wrong way." He pointed out which way my bike should be hanging on the rack and picked up my helmet condescendingly like I'd just tried to pull a fast one on him, and that I'd have to get up pret-ty early in the morning to outsmart this cat. "Second of all, you can't ride in this helmet."
"What?! What's wrong with it?!"
"It hasn't been approved by the WXYZLMNOP." He looked inside the helmet, and then put on an ah-ha!, just as I suspected expression. "Yep, no sticker. I bet you didn't buy this in the US."
"No, I bought it from a UK-based online store. I don't have another helmet. What happens if I ride in that one?"
"Then you'll get DQed."
"Well, I don't mind if I get a DQ next to my name, just as long as I can see my splits." But alas, he didn't think that I would even get that.
By this time Michelle had come over and was staring at the guy with me, stupefied. "Why don't we go down and talk to the expo people," she suggested. All the helmets up for sale were too big, so I settled on the cheapest one, a giant castle to sit high atop my head, and we snipped off the yards and yards of extra strap that hung off the clip when I'd adjusted it. The helmet-seller guys were sympathetic, I'd love to give them a plug, but I wasn't actually paying attention to the company name.
I was ripshit about the whole ordeal, but then I saw a guy walking into transition with the same helmet. "...But I rode 112 miles with this thing and didn't die..." he was saying. Turns out he'd paid more than twice as much for his than I had for mine in Austria the week before, and they'd promised him in that he could use it in the US. Tough luck all around, but at least I didn't have to worry about my hair anymore.
Anne and Alison turned up, I went for a very brief ride to make sure my bike was in the right gear, and then Michelle, Anne and I went on a short warm-up run. Anne had her garmin on her wrist even for our 1-mile warm-up jog, and thank god she never got satellite reception, because I would have killed her if she'd insisted we run an impressive 8:15 pace for our warm-up jog just because she couldn't stand to see a slow number on her screen. Then everyone suited up and went down to the water. "We've swum in colder," I said to Michelle, who swam with me on my birthday when the sewage was about 55º. I waded in up to my waist, just enough so that I could relieve myself. Mistake. I had the feeling that it never really drained properly, and I was standing around on dry land with a urine-filled wetsuit while 5 waves left in front of me.
Standing around with Michelle, Alison, and Anne, and Mary and Ange only a few feet away I started to get nervous. Really nervous. I hugged Alison and begged her not to make me swim alone. I grabbed Michelle's hand and held on for dear life. I... wished Anne luck, and meant it. Every time I looked at Anne's face I got nervous again. What if she won?! She'd made up some song about "I'm going to drop you in the swim," and I already had a fire lit under my ass, which just made me more nervous. But eventually all the women over 30 had to leave, and I was left all alone in my green cap as Alison, Anne, Michelle, and Mary all started without me.
The water felt way colder at the swim start than in the warm-up area. According to the race organizers, it was 61º. They set us off, and I found myself in relative calm right away. In fact, I felt alone. I checked over both shoulders, and there were people on both sides, so I wasn't off-course, but there just wasn't anyone around me. What usually happens is that the "real" swimmers pull ahead in one pack, and the "fake" swimmers (triathlon-only swimmers) form their own pack with a widening gap on the first one, with all the non-swimmers trailing behind. I'm almost always at the front of the pack of "fake" swimmers, and this was no exception. In no time flat, I had no one over either shoulder to gauge off of, and I zigzagged quite a bit before we finally caught up with the tail end of the wave in front of us and I was able to follow a line again without looking up every third stroke.
I used my I move for no one! strategy, and just swam on ahead, no matter who was in front of me. I'm beginning to find that after one punch, most people are gone anyway. I had trouble finding the second buoy, but at least I was warmed up now. I started checking in with myself every couple of seconds thinking, "What could I be doing right now to go faster," and then really focusing on pulling the water hard or keeping my head down. In the final stretch I imagined that it was one of those days that I had to make up a bodylength on Alison in just 25 yards. I swam like hell. By the end of the swim I'd passed a few of the jackrabbits in my wave who had gone out too fast, but I was disappointed to note that they were all men. My hard swim had come at a price though, I had a sharp pain around my left kidney, and I was really drained running into transition. I got out in the middle of a big clump of slower people from waves before me, and wasn't very aggressive about pushing them out of my way.
Swim time: 19:32, which may have been short, or there may have been a current, or I may have been Michael Phelps.
Pace: 1:11/100 yd or 1:18/100m, I AM Michael Phelps.
Swim Rank: 72/458 Overall, 16%
Time compared to Anne: 1 minute, 22 seconds slower
The course starts riding up a mile-long, slow hill. Passing people is easy at the beginning of the bike, since most people go so slow that it looks like they're about to tip over, but I didn't feel like I had my legs yet. Then, up ahead, there was a woman in all black, charging up the thing and passing people like they were standing still. Michelle! I rode as hard as I could and caught her right at the crest of the hill. "Don't you dare let me catch you braking, Michelle!" I yelled as I came up behind her.
Tchssssssss went her brakes. "What? Like that?!" she yelled over her shoulder. She cheered me on as I rode away. Damn, I thought, I was hoping I'd pass her later so she could catch up and pace me on the run.
I rode hard up the hills, but actually didn't ride as hard as I might have liked. I felt like my legs were running out of gas before my lungs were running out of air. (There were several hills reaching from 7-10% grades). Still, no women passed me on the bike. I attacked the hills and made sure to keep pedaling on the downhills. It seemed like every time I came into a turn I was stuck behind someone who couldn't corner to save their life and would have to come to a near dead halt to be able to get around them. Seconds wasted. I can't wait till I'm old and get to leave in the earlier waves. Every race I've done this summer I've had to push my way through shitty swimmers and crappy bikers from earlier waves through the whole race.
I was trucking along, checking out every woman and trying to find Anne. In race time she was only about a minute ahead of me, but in reality it was 3 more than that since she'd left in an earlier wave. I wasn't used to seeing her ass, I wouldn't know how to spot it. Good thing she's white and pasty as a ghost. I passed one pale girl, and almost yelled something, but as I went past her I saw there weren't enough freckles. This wasn't Anne. Finally, at about mile 13 I found her. I reeled her in, and as I passed her I yelled, "Get out of the way, Anne!" She cheered and I meant to yell something encouraging back, but she was already gone when I thought of something to say. To hear her tell it, she could see me for awhile afterwards, but that was a relatively flat stretch of road with no turns in it. I was gone.
Around mile 18 a couple of guys passed me with aero helmets and race wheels, and then when they were by me, they slowed down. It was one of those things where I had to actively slow down to get out of the draft zone. I surged and passed them back, dusting one of them, but the other came back again and slowed me down again. I laid off a minute, trying to figure out how to pass him. It would have taken a tremendous effort to get by him (and he would have made me work for it in 15-seconds bursts all the way to the end), but I had to consciously slow down to not go into the draft zone. I wound up lurking behind him for the rest of the ride, not having enough to make a move, but frustrated that I couldn't ride at my own pace. I fucking hate guys who do that, I hope he grows man boobs as karma. I rode the last 5 miles considerably easier that I wanted to, and lost over half a mile per hour off my average speed in the last 10 miles (which were predominantly downhill).
For the whole second half I thought I'd be passing Mary at any minute, but I never found her. Turns out she'd had a low-speed crash and still managed to hold me off. I shudder to think of what her bike split would have looked like if she hadn't fallen and dropped her chain.
Bike time: 1:09:23
Pace: 21.5 mph
Bike Rank: 67/458 overall, 14%, 4th woman overall
Time compared to Anne: 6 minutes, 16 seconds faster, now up by 5:07
It wasn't that I rode too hard. It wasn't that my legs were tired. It was the hills. I did not feel "in the zone" for one single second of that run. In fact, I felt like shit from beginning to end. There was the matter of that mile-long hill to climb out of transition where I started breathing like an asthmatic, and I just never recovered. I was wheezing and coughing the whole, entire time. The run was gnarley hilly, and about half way up each one my legs would just... give out. I felt like I was actually lifting weights, with that second-to-last rep feeling in my legs that just wouldn't pass, even as the hills laid off. I kept asking myself, What can I do right now to go faster? and my only answer was, Just don't walk. Whatever you do, don't walk.
Women passed me, men passed me. I didn't even want to look. It was too demoralizing to be passed so easily by so many people while I plodded along at my pathetic whatever-I-was-running, wheezing like a fat girl in gym class. I pulled my visor down so that I wouldn't have to see the people coming back in the other direction, and I tried to give myself tunnel vision so I wouldn't notice the people passing me. Still, I noticed enough girls who looked under 30 to know that I wasn't going to place. You cannot imagine how much I hated my life for those 54 minutes and 54 seconds of it. I felt so sorry for myself, and there seemed to be nothing I could do to ease my suffering. And if I dug deep, intensifying my suffering wasn't getting me there any faster.
I hit the turn-around and started back in the other direction. It felt like I'd been climbing the whole first 5k's, so this MUST all be down hill. But there were so many hills on the way back too. Michelle passed in the other direction and cheered for me, then Alison went by and cheered for me. I didn't even react. I was busy dying. On the last hill, a steep motherfucker, I walked. It was probably only for about 5 seconds, but I still walked. And the blood flowed back into my legs, and for 5 seconds I felt better. Then I went back to running and feeling like I was inches from death. In retrospect, I don't think my decision to take my bento box off my bike was a good one. I burned between 1,500 and 2,000 calories this morning, and only had about 12 oz of Accelerade on the bike and about 8 oz on the run. I have never seen pee so dark as I saw in the restaurant bathroom a couple of hours later.
I ran down the 1-mile hill into transition, still wheezing, still being passed, and not giving a rat's ass about it. We had to run a full lap around transition, and at the 6-mile mark, everyone started sprinting. Pat Benatar's Hit Me with Your Best Shot (thanks to Damon for correcting my error) came on the PA, which was one of my war songs that I would listen to get myself psyched up before a "Beat Anne into the ground" workout and I tried to sprint, but soon it was clear that I'd puke if I tried. I didn't want to lose a minute just because I was tossing my cookies under a tree 1/10 of a mile from the finish. In fact, just the thought of accelerating smacked me with a wave of nausea. I actually slowed down in the final stretch. As I rounded the last corner and came in to the finish line, I was wondering if I was going to have to stop and yack before I got there. Mom and Dad were on the other side of the barrier smiling and waving. "I'm gonna puke!" I yelled.
Mom laughed. Mom's an easy laugher. "No, I'm serious!" I said, and slowed down more.
And I finished. Somehow, I did not puke.
Run time: 54:54
Pace: 8:51 min/mi (not as slow as it felt, considering the hills)
Run Rank: 284/458 Overall, 62%
Time compared to Anne: 2 minutes, 20 seconds slower
Overall time: 2:27:15
Rank: 139/458 Overall (30%), 5/23 Age Group (22%), 23/158 women (15%)
Time compared to Anne: 3 minutes, 38 seconds faster
When I came out the other side I saw Mary, who had finished 10 minutes before and interrupted her conversation to have someone to commiserate with. She hugged me, even though I was all sweaty and gross, and it felt good to hug someone after what I'd been through, even though she was so sweaty and gross too. One by one Anne came in, then Michelle (who had had horrible stomach issues on the run), and then Alison. As we walked down to the water to soak our tired legs, we shared war stories. "I'm interested to see how I stacked up to your friend," I said. "Several months ago you told me I couldn't keep up with him and I got all pissed. I'm curious to see if it's true." In fact, I rode 15 seconds faster than he did. It's not much, but enough.
"I said that?!" said Anne. "I can't believe you passed me at mile 13." (she was the one that noticed the mile, not me) "I was hoping I could keep you off until at least the end. I couldn't even stay with you for a second. You don't ride like that when you ride with us."
"No," I said. "Of course not."
She stopped and she just looked at me. There was a glimmer of understanding in her eye. FINALLY! After all these long months of suffering through her heckling and haranguing every time I rode with the group she finally realized that, on the bike anyway, she may have been racing every training day, but I wasn't. And then, just for a second, I saw it. For just a moment she nearly fainted in the sheer blazing glory of my superhuman strength and awesome power. My overall win hadn't been too stellar. She'd swum and run faster than I did, but I think she might have gotten a tiny, itty bitty taste of that humble pie. She'd underestimated me, and the first commandment of Clairedom is that you do not underestimate a Claire!
I'd achieved my main race goals of 1) beating Anne, and 2) breaking 2:30, but as time went by I got madder and madder, and madder, and madder. I could have ridden harder. Only about a minute and 20 seconds separated me from the fastest female bike split of the day. It had been a very competitive field, but just as always, I'd fallen in the top 15% overall of the swim and bike, and plummeted to around 60% in the run. Whatever I may want to say here, I've said in other race reports 100 times, but FUCKIN'-A! I'm SO SICK of being such a shitty runner!
I'm an extremely competitive person, and I'd finally met my match. I cut off the shit talking entirely, but I started telling EVERYONE around me about how this chick needed a big ol' slice of humble pie, and I wanted to be the one that shoved it down her throat. I don't usually talk about my races outside my blog, but I told people at work about my war. I told my parents. I told the guys at the bike shop. I told what ever friends I have that AREN'T associated with work or the bike shop. Every workout I tried to find another way to get just a little bit faster so that I could beat Anne to within an inch of her life at lobsterman.
Pre-Race
Mary came and picked me up Friday night and we had dinner and drove up to her parents' place in Maine, where we would spend the night. We talked about the usual things that girls talk about when they get together: which cake recipe was best, lipstick and nail polish shades, the joys of childbirth and motherhood, the latest issue of Redbook, which presidential candidate was more of a hunk... You know, the usual. I hope I don't embarrass myself or Mary by saying this, but she really is such an inspiration. Every time I talk to her, she says things that leave me thinking for weeks afterwards. I believe she and I see the world through a similar lens, and she somehow she knows exactly what to say and how to say it to make me see things in a totally different light. She is such a fierce competitor, such an amazing runner, such an impressive athlete, and I can learn (and have learned) so much from her. So if I link to her all the time in my blog, it's not because I'm in love with her (well, not really), it's just that the things she says are always on my mind. It was great to get so much one-on-one time with someone so much wiser and faster than I am and peel back even more of the layers of what makes such a driven, successful woman. Also, she won my everlasting admiration for using the word "scuttlebutt" in a sentence.After a shitty night's sleep (which was not entirely due to the grandfather clock outside my room that chimed every 15 minutes, I promise!), I woke up, showered, and got my stuff ready. I had wanted to put my hair in 2 braids, since the ear flaps on my new aero helmet have a tendency to make my hair fall in my face and look like shit, but I forgot a brush. I did the best I could to braid it with my fingers, but it was not holding up to drying. Before we got to the start I must have bitched about my hair about 10 times. "Would you shut UP about your damned hair already?!" Mary finally yelled. "If you don't I'm going to tell everyone in the blogosphere that all you could talk about was how worried you were about your damned hair!" But I beat you to it, Mary! Now they know.
Putting our two heads together we managed to find the race site early enough to get good parking, I changed my hairstyle for the third time that morning. We went to registration to pick up our numbers. When the volunteer heard my 4-syllable last name, and Mary's hyphenated last name she said, "What would happen if you guys had children who had to have all those last names?!"
"I'm pretty sure we couldn't have children," I said. What a weird thing to say. Then I left Mary to go set up transition.
I had a bit of trouble figuring out how the numbering on the racks was supposed to go, and as I was moving my stuff from one rack to another, this stocky little troll of a man came up to me. "First of all, your bike is facing the wrong way. 313 goes here."
"But I AM number 313."
"But your bike is facing the wrong way." He pointed out which way my bike should be hanging on the rack and picked up my helmet condescendingly like I'd just tried to pull a fast one on him, and that I'd have to get up pret-ty early in the morning to outsmart this cat. "Second of all, you can't ride in this helmet.""What?! What's wrong with it?!"
"It hasn't been approved by the WXYZLMNOP." He looked inside the helmet, and then put on an ah-ha!, just as I suspected expression. "Yep, no sticker. I bet you didn't buy this in the US."
"No, I bought it from a UK-based online store. I don't have another helmet. What happens if I ride in that one?""Then you'll get DQed."
"Well, I don't mind if I get a DQ next to my name, just as long as I can see my splits." But alas, he didn't think that I would even get that.
By this time Michelle had come over and was staring at the guy with me, stupefied. "Why don't we go down and talk to the expo people," she suggested. All the helmets up for sale were too big, so I settled on the cheapest one, a giant castle to sit high atop my head, and we snipped off the yards and yards of extra strap that hung off the clip when I'd adjusted it. The helmet-seller guys were sympathetic, I'd love to give them a plug, but I wasn't actually paying attention to the company name.
I was ripshit about the whole ordeal, but then I saw a guy walking into transition with the same helmet. "...But I rode 112 miles with this thing and didn't die..." he was saying. Turns out he'd paid more than twice as much for his than I had for mine in Austria the week before, and they'd promised him in that he could use it in the US. Tough luck all around, but at least I didn't have to worry about my hair anymore.
Anne and Alison turned up, I went for a very brief ride to make sure my bike was in the right gear, and then Michelle, Anne and I went on a short warm-up run. Anne had her garmin on her wrist even for our 1-mile warm-up jog, and thank god she never got satellite reception, because I would have killed her if she'd insisted we run an impressive 8:15 pace for our warm-up jog just because she couldn't stand to see a slow number on her screen. Then everyone suited up and went down to the water. "We've swum in colder," I said to Michelle, who swam with me on my birthday when the sewage was about 55º. I waded in up to my waist, just enough so that I could relieve myself. Mistake. I had the feeling that it never really drained properly, and I was standing around on dry land with a urine-filled wetsuit while 5 waves left in front of me.
Standing around with Michelle, Alison, and Anne, and Mary and Ange only a few feet away I started to get nervous. Really nervous. I hugged Alison and begged her not to make me swim alone. I grabbed Michelle's hand and held on for dear life. I... wished Anne luck, and meant it. Every time I looked at Anne's face I got nervous again. What if she won?! She'd made up some song about "I'm going to drop you in the swim," and I already had a fire lit under my ass, which just made me more nervous. But eventually all the women over 30 had to leave, and I was left all alone in my green cap as Alison, Anne, Michelle, and Mary all started without me.
The Swim
The water felt way colder at the swim start than in the warm-up area. According to the race organizers, it was 61º. They set us off, and I found myself in relative calm right away. In fact, I felt alone. I checked over both shoulders, and there were people on both sides, so I wasn't off-course, but there just wasn't anyone around me. What usually happens is that the "real" swimmers pull ahead in one pack, and the "fake" swimmers (triathlon-only swimmers) form their own pack with a widening gap on the first one, with all the non-swimmers trailing behind. I'm almost always at the front of the pack of "fake" swimmers, and this was no exception. In no time flat, I had no one over either shoulder to gauge off of, and I zigzagged quite a bit before we finally caught up with the tail end of the wave in front of us and I was able to follow a line again without looking up every third stroke.
I used my I move for no one! strategy, and just swam on ahead, no matter who was in front of me. I'm beginning to find that after one punch, most people are gone anyway. I had trouble finding the second buoy, but at least I was warmed up now. I started checking in with myself every couple of seconds thinking, "What could I be doing right now to go faster," and then really focusing on pulling the water hard or keeping my head down. In the final stretch I imagined that it was one of those days that I had to make up a bodylength on Alison in just 25 yards. I swam like hell. By the end of the swim I'd passed a few of the jackrabbits in my wave who had gone out too fast, but I was disappointed to note that they were all men. My hard swim had come at a price though, I had a sharp pain around my left kidney, and I was really drained running into transition. I got out in the middle of a big clump of slower people from waves before me, and wasn't very aggressive about pushing them out of my way.
Swim time: 19:32, which may have been short, or there may have been a current, or I may have been Michael Phelps.
Pace: 1:11/100 yd or 1:18/100m, I AM Michael Phelps.
Swim Rank: 72/458 Overall, 16%
Time compared to Anne: 1 minute, 22 seconds slower
T1
"Way to go, Claire!" I heard from a couple of racks away. There was Alison, smiling at me.
"I missed you so much out there!" I yelled. Yes! One down! I thought.
Couldn't get my wetsuit off. Socks, garmin, shoes, fuck, this is taking forever. I ran out of transition, mounted just feet behind Alison, and wished her luck as I rode by. She was gone before I even hit paved road.
T1 time: 2:10
Time compared to Anne: 13 seconds faster, now down 1 minute, 9 seconds.
"I missed you so much out there!" I yelled. Yes! One down! I thought.
Couldn't get my wetsuit off. Socks, garmin, shoes, fuck, this is taking forever. I ran out of transition, mounted just feet behind Alison, and wished her luck as I rode by. She was gone before I even hit paved road.
T1 time: 2:10
Time compared to Anne: 13 seconds faster, now down 1 minute, 9 seconds.
The Bike
The course starts riding up a mile-long, slow hill. Passing people is easy at the beginning of the bike, since most people go so slow that it looks like they're about to tip over, but I didn't feel like I had my legs yet. Then, up ahead, there was a woman in all black, charging up the thing and passing people like they were standing still. Michelle! I rode as hard as I could and caught her right at the crest of the hill. "Don't you dare let me catch you braking, Michelle!" I yelled as I came up behind her.
Tchssssssss went her brakes. "What? Like that?!" she yelled over her shoulder. She cheered me on as I rode away. Damn, I thought, I was hoping I'd pass her later so she could catch up and pace me on the run.
I rode hard up the hills, but actually didn't ride as hard as I might have liked. I felt like my legs were running out of gas before my lungs were running out of air. (There were several hills reaching from 7-10% grades). Still, no women passed me on the bike. I attacked the hills and made sure to keep pedaling on the downhills. It seemed like every time I came into a turn I was stuck behind someone who couldn't corner to save their life and would have to come to a near dead halt to be able to get around them. Seconds wasted. I can't wait till I'm old and get to leave in the earlier waves. Every race I've done this summer I've had to push my way through shitty swimmers and crappy bikers from earlier waves through the whole race.
I was trucking along, checking out every woman and trying to find Anne. In race time she was only about a minute ahead of me, but in reality it was 3 more than that since she'd left in an earlier wave. I wasn't used to seeing her ass, I wouldn't know how to spot it. Good thing she's white and pasty as a ghost. I passed one pale girl, and almost yelled something, but as I went past her I saw there weren't enough freckles. This wasn't Anne. Finally, at about mile 13 I found her. I reeled her in, and as I passed her I yelled, "Get out of the way, Anne!" She cheered and I meant to yell something encouraging back, but she was already gone when I thought of something to say. To hear her tell it, she could see me for awhile afterwards, but that was a relatively flat stretch of road with no turns in it. I was gone.
Around mile 18 a couple of guys passed me with aero helmets and race wheels, and then when they were by me, they slowed down. It was one of those things where I had to actively slow down to get out of the draft zone. I surged and passed them back, dusting one of them, but the other came back again and slowed me down again. I laid off a minute, trying to figure out how to pass him. It would have taken a tremendous effort to get by him (and he would have made me work for it in 15-seconds bursts all the way to the end), but I had to consciously slow down to not go into the draft zone. I wound up lurking behind him for the rest of the ride, not having enough to make a move, but frustrated that I couldn't ride at my own pace. I fucking hate guys who do that, I hope he grows man boobs as karma. I rode the last 5 miles considerably easier that I wanted to, and lost over half a mile per hour off my average speed in the last 10 miles (which were predominantly downhill).
For the whole second half I thought I'd be passing Mary at any minute, but I never found her. Turns out she'd had a low-speed crash and still managed to hold me off. I shudder to think of what her bike split would have looked like if she hadn't fallen and dropped her chain.
Bike time: 1:09:23
Pace: 21.5 mph
Bike Rank: 67/458 overall, 14%, 4th woman overall
Time compared to Anne: 6 minutes, 16 seconds faster, now up by 5:07
T2
I ran through the sopping wet grass in my socks and my feet were waterlogged before I even crossed the mats. Don't they usually have carpet at these things?! As I ran past the racks I saw Mary, "Hey there, purdy girl!" I yelled. Damn, she's going to beat me by HOURS, I thought. She gave me a bemused dirty look.
I couldn't seem to get my shoes on. I grabbed my visor, race belt, and water bottle to put in place as I ran and looked around. Where the hell do I leave from?! I spun around for a couple of seconds trying to figure out which way to go, and then dashed out. Mom and Dad were standing at the exit and cheered for me. Mom looked happy to see I was still alive, and Dad tried to take a picture. They declined to tell me that I'd put on my number upside-down. As I crossed the mats I heard them calling out Mary's name over the PA system. I wouldn't see her again until the end as she would go on to run about 10 minutes into me.
T2 time: 1:19
Time compared to Anne: 50 seconds faster, now up by 5:57
I couldn't seem to get my shoes on. I grabbed my visor, race belt, and water bottle to put in place as I ran and looked around. Where the hell do I leave from?! I spun around for a couple of seconds trying to figure out which way to go, and then dashed out. Mom and Dad were standing at the exit and cheered for me. Mom looked happy to see I was still alive, and Dad tried to take a picture. They declined to tell me that I'd put on my number upside-down. As I crossed the mats I heard them calling out Mary's name over the PA system. I wouldn't see her again until the end as she would go on to run about 10 minutes into me.
T2 time: 1:19
Time compared to Anne: 50 seconds faster, now up by 5:57
The Sad, Sad Story of the Run
It wasn't that I rode too hard. It wasn't that my legs were tired. It was the hills. I did not feel "in the zone" for one single second of that run. In fact, I felt like shit from beginning to end. There was the matter of that mile-long hill to climb out of transition where I started breathing like an asthmatic, and I just never recovered. I was wheezing and coughing the whole, entire time. The run was gnarley hilly, and about half way up each one my legs would just... give out. I felt like I was actually lifting weights, with that second-to-last rep feeling in my legs that just wouldn't pass, even as the hills laid off. I kept asking myself, What can I do right now to go faster? and my only answer was, Just don't walk. Whatever you do, don't walk.Women passed me, men passed me. I didn't even want to look. It was too demoralizing to be passed so easily by so many people while I plodded along at my pathetic whatever-I-was-running, wheezing like a fat girl in gym class. I pulled my visor down so that I wouldn't have to see the people coming back in the other direction, and I tried to give myself tunnel vision so I wouldn't notice the people passing me. Still, I noticed enough girls who looked under 30 to know that I wasn't going to place. You cannot imagine how much I hated my life for those 54 minutes and 54 seconds of it. I felt so sorry for myself, and there seemed to be nothing I could do to ease my suffering. And if I dug deep, intensifying my suffering wasn't getting me there any faster.
I hit the turn-around and started back in the other direction. It felt like I'd been climbing the whole first 5k's, so this MUST all be down hill. But there were so many hills on the way back too. Michelle passed in the other direction and cheered for me, then Alison went by and cheered for me. I didn't even react. I was busy dying. On the last hill, a steep motherfucker, I walked. It was probably only for about 5 seconds, but I still walked. And the blood flowed back into my legs, and for 5 seconds I felt better. Then I went back to running and feeling like I was inches from death. In retrospect, I don't think my decision to take my bento box off my bike was a good one. I burned between 1,500 and 2,000 calories this morning, and only had about 12 oz of Accelerade on the bike and about 8 oz on the run. I have never seen pee so dark as I saw in the restaurant bathroom a couple of hours later.
Accumulated pace. Even though the second half was more downhill, I still slowed down.
I ran down the 1-mile hill into transition, still wheezing, still being passed, and not giving a rat's ass about it. We had to run a full lap around transition, and at the 6-mile mark, everyone started sprinting. Pat Benatar's Hit Me with Your Best Shot (thanks to Damon for correcting my error) came on the PA, which was one of my war songs that I would listen to get myself psyched up before a "Beat Anne into the ground" workout and I tried to sprint, but soon it was clear that I'd puke if I tried. I didn't want to lose a minute just because I was tossing my cookies under a tree 1/10 of a mile from the finish. In fact, just the thought of accelerating smacked me with a wave of nausea. I actually slowed down in the final stretch. As I rounded the last corner and came in to the finish line, I was wondering if I was going to have to stop and yack before I got there. Mom and Dad were on the other side of the barrier smiling and waving. "I'm gonna puke!" I yelled.
Mom laughed. Mom's an easy laugher. "No, I'm serious!" I said, and slowed down more.
And I finished. Somehow, I did not puke.
Run time: 54:54
Pace: 8:51 min/mi (not as slow as it felt, considering the hills)
Run Rank: 284/458 Overall, 62%
Time compared to Anne: 2 minutes, 20 seconds slower
Overall time: 2:27:15
Rank: 139/458 Overall (30%), 5/23 Age Group (22%), 23/158 women (15%)
Time compared to Anne: 3 minutes, 38 seconds faster
Afterward
When I came out the other side I saw Mary, who had finished 10 minutes before and interrupted her conversation to have someone to commiserate with. She hugged me, even though I was all sweaty and gross, and it felt good to hug someone after what I'd been through, even though she was so sweaty and gross too. One by one Anne came in, then Michelle (who had had horrible stomach issues on the run), and then Alison. As we walked down to the water to soak our tired legs, we shared war stories. "I'm interested to see how I stacked up to your friend," I said. "Several months ago you told me I couldn't keep up with him and I got all pissed. I'm curious to see if it's true." In fact, I rode 15 seconds faster than he did. It's not much, but enough."I said that?!" said Anne. "I can't believe you passed me at mile 13." (she was the one that noticed the mile, not me) "I was hoping I could keep you off until at least the end. I couldn't even stay with you for a second. You don't ride like that when you ride with us."
"No," I said. "Of course not."
She stopped and she just looked at me. There was a glimmer of understanding in her eye. FINALLY! After all these long months of suffering through her heckling and haranguing every time I rode with the group she finally realized that, on the bike anyway, she may have been racing every training day, but I wasn't. And then, just for a second, I saw it. For just a moment she nearly fainted in the sheer blazing glory of my superhuman strength and awesome power. My overall win hadn't been too stellar. She'd swum and run faster than I did, but I think she might have gotten a tiny, itty bitty taste of that humble pie. She'd underestimated me, and the first commandment of Clairedom is that you do not underestimate a Claire!
I'd achieved my main race goals of 1) beating Anne, and 2) breaking 2:30, but as time went by I got madder and madder, and madder, and madder. I could have ridden harder. Only about a minute and 20 seconds separated me from the fastest female bike split of the day. It had been a very competitive field, but just as always, I'd fallen in the top 15% overall of the swim and bike, and plummeted to around 60% in the run. Whatever I may want to say here, I've said in other race reports 100 times, but FUCKIN'-A! I'm SO SICK of being such a shitty runner!
16 comments:
I'm assuming Anne was talking about my bike split for the Griskus Olympic, also known as a hill fest....now I'm almost tempted to throw down against her.
About the running, you are progressing and getting faster..but it does get de-moralizing, when you go from your strength to your weak leg, every time I get a few miles in to the bike and see a guy wizz by like I'm standing still, or get passed by old men on hills, I feel the same way.
Me too, girl. Fucking runners.
But it sounds like you had a kick-ass race (even if it didn't feel like that, because of the motherfucking run). And you have a fire under your ass for the next one, too.
Yea, fucking runners.
Fucking runners! Cheaters all of 'em!
I think it's cheating to run any faster than an 8:30 min/mile. Gives you too much of an advantage over the competition. Should be illegal.
CONGRATS on achieving your race goals!! That run out of transition is a bitch - I don't know how anyone can feel good on that run. Come back to Maine and do that course again without the dumass guy in front slowing you down and with your illegal pointy helmet. We'll do a TT and I'll have a car that drops me off periodically throughout the course ahead of you - you can reel me in and then I'll go to another point ahead. Screw the run, all those runners are dopers who don't know how to really ride a bike!
Nice job. Reading your report made me sad to have missed it but also a teeny bit glad I didn't have to run those hills again this year. This race has gotten really competitive and you did awesome!
Stupid runners. I remember the day when I got sick of sucking at swimming and sucking at biking, and realized that I liked running and I was better at that than the other two sports. Life has been more fun ever since that day.
From a mental perspective, though, having your best discipline be the last in the race meant I was passing people late in the race rather than being passed. I'm sure it's no fun to have those stupid runners passing you late.
Great job on your race, and congratulations on not puking at the end. Sorry to hear the guy was being a jerk about your pointy helmet. Are you going to be able to wear it in other races? That guy on the bike would have frustrated me to no end.
I love your competative nature, it makes for fabulous race reports. I wish I lived near you! I suck at swimming, but tri's are great for me because I start my race near dfl and enjoy passing people in the bike and run. If you ever want to take a road trip to train in the mtns of WV you let me know! And please keep up the excellent stories!--me and my furry bf love it :)
that race sure brought out the best and worse of you. nice job for a sucky runner.
You did great on that bike leg! Why not spend a wee bit more time focusing on that? I would kill for a bike split CLOSE to yours!
Congrats on making all of your goals. I think you're right about the learning how to suffer thing.
WAY to kick those goals all over the place! Crappy runners...bikers...swimmers...er, um...right its a triathlon. Well anyway that's what you get from someone who basically sucks at all three disciplines. Next time yell random things at them. And when they look at you give them a dirty look like: I didn't say anything! Don't look at me like that!!
God Damn Claire, is this post fucking long enough for a little OLY distance race? SHEESH! This post is probably longer than my IM RR will be. Fuck. I am too fucking sick to read the whole thing so I just read your times WHICH TOTAALY FUCKING ROCKED!!!!!! CONGRATS!!!!
Sounds like an epic race! Congrats on another strong performance. I'm really impressed with your tenacity.
And running is definitely for idiots. That's why it's my sport of choice.
OMG Great race report.
You are going to kick my ass in Cozumel. You are smoking fast for not feeling the mojo on the run. I could feel your pain. I had a race two weeks back that I did very well on the swim and bike and then choked on the run and was the wheezy chick.
Loved the dueling lobsters with the knifes.
Ok, just read the entire RR and it was a good one. I hope Mary got more pix of you guys. I swear, when I buy a new camera, my old one is yours. :) You need MORE pix.
About the race, you should be thrilled. You are amazing girlie. I just wish I could train with you and your buddies, tho I am so not even worthy.
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