travels, races, and other musings

I really intended that this would not be a long long long race report. But it turns out that when you race for 9.5 hours you end up with a lot to report. Pre-Race Roger dropped me off a few blocks from the race site and I walked over and got into a long line of people trying to get into transition. I didn't see anyone body marking so I wasn't sure what was up there. I figured I would set up and figure that out later. The line was very long and it took me about 20 minutes to get into transition. Once I got into transition, I set up all my stuff, grabbed my wetsuit and headed out to get in one last port-a-potty stop. Except that by the time I got out of there, I realized there were only a few minutes until my wave started. How did that happen? I wriggled into my wetsuit and got ready to head down to the water. Swim The swim start was very chaotic and it was hard to know what was going on. I couldn't tell who was on deck or who was getting in so I just went over and hu

Pre-Race Goals/Thoughts I'm really happy with my race this year at CapTexTri. 6 years ago, my very first triathlon was CapTexTri so in a way, it was fun to do it again since I haven't done it since then. Of course, back then, I did the super sprint version and this year I was doing the Olympic distance. I remember thinking the Olympic distance seemed CRAZY to me. Ha! At first, I wasn't really super thrilled about doing this race and had in fact, avoided it for the most part since then. It's expensive, it's hot, it's a congested course with tons of people. But I felt like I wanted something in my season before heading off to Vineman and it sort of fell at the right time so I signed up. Then a week before the race, I suddenly realized I was racing my first race of the season (and it wasn't a sprint) and I should probably think about preparing for it. I didn't really prepare much since it's not my goal race, though I did do shortened versions of my

I had no real goals when it came to this year's 3M. The last time I ran it was in 2007 and this year was a different course. I was thinking the course would be a little easier this year, but I didn't really know how fast I should aim for. I decided to try to pace it similar to my half in August in San Diego and see if I could get the 2:10 I missed out there.  The whole household had been sick during the peak of my training so I missed my longest run before the race. My longest run was 9.5 miles 3 weeks prior, then I missed a week and had a crummy 7.5 mile run the weekend before.  Pre-race was all smooth. I got a ride in with my friend Dan, which I was grateful for because it meant I didn't have to deal with stashing my key somewhere or pick up the car after the race.  I lined up with the 2:10 pacers, thinking I'd just stay with them and see how it went. We started and it took me about 5 minutes to get to the starting line, then I just started running.  I l