The weekend after the Battle at Buckhorn (Labor Day weekend)
was spent in the mountains just west of Asheville with the Hughston’s. Super fun hanging with this family. Then
Logan and I had a quick turnaround the next week when we flew down to Florida
Thursday evening to visit my mom through Sunday. Also very fun. But these back to back travels
prompted me to say to Marty early last week, “I’m totally okay with bagging the
Wilmington trip.” Work has been busy; life has been busy; blah blah blah we’re
all busy, right?
One or both of us has done the Wilmington YMCA sprint
triathlon almost every year since we moved to North Carolina. It’s a popular
late season race which draws a good crowd and is usually pretty competitive. Marty raced last year while I sat it out and
spectated with Logan, so we switched this year.
We stayed with our friends at their beach shack and in the end it was
decided that I would just go over by myself as the 7:00 am start would mean a
very early morning for Marty & Logan. Particularly since we got there late
and Logan was up way, way past his normal bedtime.
The lines for check-in were long. I wasn’t rushed, but I
also didn’t have any extra dilly-dally time.
I got my transition set up and jogged the mile down to the swim start
for a warmup. I ran into Ali finally, and we got in for a swim warmup before lining
up and off we went.
I felt good on the swim (no wetsuit, much to my
chagrin). It seemed like I was holding a
strong pace although I did have some trouble sighting with my goggles getting
extremely fogged up. The swim is point
to point and the buoys are just guides – you can pick whatever line you want to
get to the exit. I could see a pack a
little ahead of me almost the entire time but was never able to bridge up. I climbed up the ladder and tried to run
quick to T1 – the run is long and painful on the feet but in years past I’ve
been able to make up a good chunk of time here and I believe I did again this
year.
I caught up to two girls in T1 and we started the bike
together. The one girl put a little distance on me and stayed
ahead the entire time. I was glad she was there as I didn’t feel particularly
great on the bike but she kept me focused on keeping her in sight. It seemed we kept passing all these young
girls in Speedo’s – so much for my good swim, I thought at the time. I’m not
usually this far back! Towards the end of the bike we passed what ended up
being the last Speedo girl as we all came in together and the crowd cheered us
as the first females. My bike ended up pretty good – there was a strong wind
out there but I averaged 23mph which is awesome for me. And as always, I forget
that in a sprint, you never actually feel good. If you feel good, you’re probably
doing it wrong.
 |
Marty surprised me and made it out for most of the race! |
I found out later that all the Speedo girls were part of
Queens University which is one of three colleges in the country that has an
NCAA triathlon team as an emerging sport. These girls are the real deal and
have a bit of scholarship money to compete in triathlons with a great coach and
facilities. This is so awesome that they
get this opportunity! Hopefully, we’ll see more colleges take advantage of this
although we all know how expensive this sport is and obviously is probably cost
prohibitive by many universities.
Anyways, I exited T2 in 3rd (I always take extra
time to put on socks, yeah, whatevs. I don’t like dealing with blisters the
next week). I passed 2nd fairly quick and 1st was about
10-15 yards up. I just wasn’t making up
any ground and was mentally losing it a bit.
Then I just tried to shut my brain off and run (although I admittedly
wasn’t running very fast, at least she wasn’t gaining any ground on me). On the
far back stretch it seemed like I was making up a teeny tiny bit and I gave
myself a pep talk about not being a wuss and don’t let your season end with you
not at least trying. I committed to finding another gear at the 2 mile mark and
passed her just after the last water station.
That last mile was tough! I really had to work to keep it together and
stay strong. I crossed the finish line 14 seconds ahead of second, who turned
out to be 18 (half my age! Ooof.)
 |
Leaving T2 in 3rd |
 |
Wow, that hurt! |
When talking to Ali on the cooldown I commented, “you know,
I don’t think I was actually great at
anything, but overall it worked out” to which she responded, “yeah, that’s kind
of the point of this sport.” Duh, hahaha. It's funny because I know I often
look at results and think, oh who had the fastest run split, or whatever split,
of which I had none, but I DID have the fastest triathlon split :)