2011 Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Race Report
The stars were not aligned going into this race. I got sick on Tuesday and spent the rest of the week resting and recuperating (and trying everything possible to get well). By Saturday, I was still a bit sick, but pretty sure I was going to do the race. I knew it wouldn't be my best race ever, but I felt well enough to at least go through the motions.
Sunday morning, I was still coughing but I decided I was mostly well so off I went. The night before I had gotten everything ready and Roger put the rack and bike on my car with my tires all pumped and ready to go. I had taken my bike for a quick spin around the block (5 minutes as opposed to my usual 20 minute warm up ride) and everything was working well.
Sunday morning I arrived at the race site and realized that my front tire was completely flat. Because I ride tubulars on my race wheels, I don't carry a spare for short races. There's just no point. So of course, I had no spare. I called home (Roger and Emmaline were coming out later closer to the race start) and told Roger to bring my normal training wheel to swap. However, we soon realized he wasn't going to make it before transition was going to close. Shortly thereafter, Michelle Lapuente, who I know, but not well came and racked next to me. I told her about my dilemma and she had a spare. Woo!
I ran my wheel over to the Jack and Adams guys and explained my situation so they could help me change it while I got the rest of my stuff together in transition. Time was ticking away but I got all my things together, then went back and picked up my wheel. They told me to be careful on the corners because there wasn't a fresh coat of glue on there and I wouldn't want my tire rolling off my wheel. I ran the tire back to my bike and headed out for the port-a-potty line (which was immense) where Roger and Emmaline found me.
Because I had been sick and because my tire was potentially sketchy, I decided it was another training day for me. That's the second race this year demoted to training day. Ah well. It's nice to have the pressure off myself. It was super duper windy (20-30 mph gusts) so it was potentially looking to be a mentally tough day anyway.
Swim
While waiting for our swim wave to go off I saw a lot of people struggling with the chop from the wind. There were white caps on Lake Pflugerville! Then, one of the volunteers ushering us into the water said, "Be careful out there! Turn around, don't drown!" Several people looked really nervous about this. I was feeling good, though. I saw the direction of the wind and the waves and knew which side I needed to breathe on in each direction. (I usually bilaterally breathe, but I can make myself breathe to one side or the other if need be for wave direction.)
The swim began and I looked around for a pair of feet to jump on. I tried several, but people were having trouble with the chop and were stopping and looking around and struggling. So I just plowed ahead, breathing to my right every time so as not to get a mouth full of water.
The swim went by quickly and the chop wasn't anything I hadn't dealt with before. Actually, the hardest part of the swim was picking my way through all the struggling people in the waves ahead of me. It was crazy how many people were breaststroking, sidestroking or backstroking. Later Roger told me he didn't know if he'd seen that many people quit on the swim.
T1
I exited the water and I was pretty sure I only saw two people in my age group get out ahead of me so that felt good. Since I hadn't pushed super hard on the swim (training day and all) I felt pretty good in transition. I grabbed my bike and headed out.
Bike
As expected, the bike was super windy. However, I've come to accept that training and racing here in Texas involves lot of wind. I've decided to make peace with the wind and do what I can with the tailwinds I'm given and think of the headwinds and crosswinds as training parters that make me stronger.
And WOW! What a difference my attitude towards the wind made for me. I just biked along at a strong and steady pace - not killing myself and not going crazy. Just enjoying the day and the bike and the sun. I felt free and happy despite a couple of grumbling grouchy people that passed me that made comments about the evil wind. Of course, some passed and made encouraging comments (and most passed without any) but I was happy to remain positive and just deal with what the day had dealt me.
I had a Curve song going through my head, "Nice and easy! Nice and easy does it!" It was the perfect mantra for my day.
T2
I was happy to have made it back to transition without something crazy happening to me wheel. I racked my bike and grabbed my run stuff.
Run
I headed out on the run feeling pretty good. I still had a lot left in my legs from not going crazy on the bike. In fact, during the race, I noted to myself that I've never seen my heart rate so low during a race. It was weird.
So I'm running and starting to feel a little tired and the first part of the run was all headwind which was hard to run through. I got to mile one and realized it was almost 11 minutes. But my heart rate was low and I was feeling okay so I picked it up for mile 2. Then I got the worst side stitch of my life. It was like someone was stabling me in the right side with a knife. It was awful and every time I breathed in, the pain came.
I tried everything I could to get rid of it, but it was there for almost the whole run. So I just tried to run faster to be done with it and was happy that I made up some time on mile 2 (with a little tailwind help). By mile 3, I was getting tired, but I knew I was almost done and the side stitch was still there and I needed to finish for it to go away.
Finally, about half a mile before the finish, the side stitch was gone. Whew. I enjoyed the last half mile and finished the race feeling pretty good.
Thankfully, I remembered to stop my watch and I had remembered to split each time because the timing company screwed up the results and there are no splits. Cute.
My time was similar to last year, but my bike was slower and my run was faster. Given my illness and the weather conditions (which, even if I was okay with it, still affects time) I'm pretty happy with. And last year I was 17 out of 32 in my age group. This year I was 13 out of 46. So I was higher up and out of a larger group of people.
Total time: 1:37:41
500 M swim: 10:15 - 2:03/M
T1 - 2:08
14 mile bike: 53:26 - 15.7 mph
T2 - 1:20
3 mile run: 30:30 - 10:10/mi
88 out of 298 women and 13 out of 46 in my age group
Sunday morning, I was still coughing but I decided I was mostly well so off I went. The night before I had gotten everything ready and Roger put the rack and bike on my car with my tires all pumped and ready to go. I had taken my bike for a quick spin around the block (5 minutes as opposed to my usual 20 minute warm up ride) and everything was working well.
Sunday morning I arrived at the race site and realized that my front tire was completely flat. Because I ride tubulars on my race wheels, I don't carry a spare for short races. There's just no point. So of course, I had no spare. I called home (Roger and Emmaline were coming out later closer to the race start) and told Roger to bring my normal training wheel to swap. However, we soon realized he wasn't going to make it before transition was going to close. Shortly thereafter, Michelle Lapuente, who I know, but not well came and racked next to me. I told her about my dilemma and she had a spare. Woo!
I ran my wheel over to the Jack and Adams guys and explained my situation so they could help me change it while I got the rest of my stuff together in transition. Time was ticking away but I got all my things together, then went back and picked up my wheel. They told me to be careful on the corners because there wasn't a fresh coat of glue on there and I wouldn't want my tire rolling off my wheel. I ran the tire back to my bike and headed out for the port-a-potty line (which was immense) where Roger and Emmaline found me.
Because I had been sick and because my tire was potentially sketchy, I decided it was another training day for me. That's the second race this year demoted to training day. Ah well. It's nice to have the pressure off myself. It was super duper windy (20-30 mph gusts) so it was potentially looking to be a mentally tough day anyway.
Swim
While waiting for our swim wave to go off I saw a lot of people struggling with the chop from the wind. There were white caps on Lake Pflugerville! Then, one of the volunteers ushering us into the water said, "Be careful out there! Turn around, don't drown!" Several people looked really nervous about this. I was feeling good, though. I saw the direction of the wind and the waves and knew which side I needed to breathe on in each direction. (I usually bilaterally breathe, but I can make myself breathe to one side or the other if need be for wave direction.)
The swim began and I looked around for a pair of feet to jump on. I tried several, but people were having trouble with the chop and were stopping and looking around and struggling. So I just plowed ahead, breathing to my right every time so as not to get a mouth full of water.
The swim went by quickly and the chop wasn't anything I hadn't dealt with before. Actually, the hardest part of the swim was picking my way through all the struggling people in the waves ahead of me. It was crazy how many people were breaststroking, sidestroking or backstroking. Later Roger told me he didn't know if he'd seen that many people quit on the swim.
T1
I exited the water and I was pretty sure I only saw two people in my age group get out ahead of me so that felt good. Since I hadn't pushed super hard on the swim (training day and all) I felt pretty good in transition. I grabbed my bike and headed out.
Bike
As expected, the bike was super windy. However, I've come to accept that training and racing here in Texas involves lot of wind. I've decided to make peace with the wind and do what I can with the tailwinds I'm given and think of the headwinds and crosswinds as training parters that make me stronger.
And WOW! What a difference my attitude towards the wind made for me. I just biked along at a strong and steady pace - not killing myself and not going crazy. Just enjoying the day and the bike and the sun. I felt free and happy despite a couple of grumbling grouchy people that passed me that made comments about the evil wind. Of course, some passed and made encouraging comments (and most passed without any) but I was happy to remain positive and just deal with what the day had dealt me.
I had a Curve song going through my head, "Nice and easy! Nice and easy does it!" It was the perfect mantra for my day.
T2
I was happy to have made it back to transition without something crazy happening to me wheel. I racked my bike and grabbed my run stuff.
Run
I headed out on the run feeling pretty good. I still had a lot left in my legs from not going crazy on the bike. In fact, during the race, I noted to myself that I've never seen my heart rate so low during a race. It was weird.
So I'm running and starting to feel a little tired and the first part of the run was all headwind which was hard to run through. I got to mile one and realized it was almost 11 minutes. But my heart rate was low and I was feeling okay so I picked it up for mile 2. Then I got the worst side stitch of my life. It was like someone was stabling me in the right side with a knife. It was awful and every time I breathed in, the pain came.
I tried everything I could to get rid of it, but it was there for almost the whole run. So I just tried to run faster to be done with it and was happy that I made up some time on mile 2 (with a little tailwind help). By mile 3, I was getting tired, but I knew I was almost done and the side stitch was still there and I needed to finish for it to go away.
Finally, about half a mile before the finish, the side stitch was gone. Whew. I enjoyed the last half mile and finished the race feeling pretty good.
Thankfully, I remembered to stop my watch and I had remembered to split each time because the timing company screwed up the results and there are no splits. Cute.
My time was similar to last year, but my bike was slower and my run was faster. Given my illness and the weather conditions (which, even if I was okay with it, still affects time) I'm pretty happy with. And last year I was 17 out of 32 in my age group. This year I was 13 out of 46. So I was higher up and out of a larger group of people.
Total time: 1:37:41
500 M swim: 10:15 - 2:03/M
T1 - 2:08
14 mile bike: 53:26 - 15.7 mph
T2 - 1:20
3 mile run: 30:30 - 10:10/mi
88 out of 298 women and 13 out of 46 in my age group
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