We had a great time. No really, even me, who hates long
races, had a great time. But our
attitude going in was to just complete the dang thing. NO RACING.
Some people told me that this would be hard for me to do but it actually
wasn’t at all. Instead, it felt like I
was doing a big (really big) training weekend with Marty and friends. When you
don’t push the bike on hills, the hills aren’t that bad. When you run 8:30’s – 9:00’s on the run, it’s
not that hard. Sure, you get tired, but you aren’t wiped out. It’s the only way
I was going to do this race and for sure the only reason I had a good time doing
it.
We left Thursday late morning and met up with the Hughston’s
in Charleston, WV for the night.
The next day was a 2 hour drive to the race
site where we checked in and started unloading all of our crap into the cabin
we rented at the state park. The cabin
was great, except for it being up a large hill that we had to climb after every
race to get back home as we couldn’t drive down and park at the race site.
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| Checking in! |
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| Lots 'o crap |
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| I wear my helmet inside because it's just safer that way. |
Supersprint (race #1)
The water was cold. 61 degrees – everyone thought it was
cold (not just me). I got into warmup
because I wanted to make sure I could handle it before just running into the
water. I hyperventilated and my face
hurt, but I did it. All of the races are
rolling starts where you go with 2 other people and the Super sprint people kept
to their assigned race numbers to start in order (the next 3 races, not so much
– it’s not that big of a deal). The swim
on this Super sprint was longer than advertised and when you get close to the
exit the temp drops even more which is not awesome. I kept it under control and jogged into
transition to do the short bike in the rain.
The bike was up the hill to our cabin and back down and then a
1 mile run. I couldn’t believe how hard people were hammering! I didn’t hammer
at all. I put it in the easiest gear and just spun up the hill. And then
proceeded to run an 8:38 mile. Very comfy.
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| Before the start of the super sprint |
After the race we packed up all of our now soaking wet stuff
and road back up the hill to the cabin.
We had brought extra hair dryers to try and dry out our clothes (you
have to wear the same Triple-T jersey every race) as well as dry our bike shoes. I
had brought two pairs of shorts and running shoes and we had lots of newspaper
but everything was just wet all weekend.
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| Dinner, Friday night |
Olympic #1 (race #2)
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| The crew from NC |
Marty promised to do the remainder of the races with me and
it was awesome. He really is the best! Carrie also went with us and Marty backstroked much
of the swim so we could draft off of him.
It is very easy to sight off of someone backstroking and I have requested
he do this in all of my upcoming races to which I think he said, ‘ah no.’ Oh
well. All of the remainder of the swims
were slightly short (to no one’s dismay!) -- and then come the transitions. All of
our transitions were EGREGIOUSLY slow.
Saying we took our time is an enormous understatement. We sat down, we
toweled off, we put on lots of clothes, we chatted – none of us were in any
sort of hurry. The bike was great! Easy gear the whole way, spinning up the
hills, with beautiful country side around us. We kept the run super comfy and it flew by.
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| Lots of talking on this run. Like most of our runs together. |
If we had to stop and pee, we did.
If we had to wait on someone to fix a shoe, we did. We finished with low heart rates and smiles
all around.
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| Crossing the finish line on race #2 |
Then we all got massages,
rode back up the hill, ate and relaxed until race #3.
Olympic #2 (race #3)
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| Ready for race #3 |
This is a different format – bike, swim, run. Carrie and
Whit stayed together the whole time, just a bit behind us so we never actually
saw them. We went just a tad bit harder than the morning session on the bike
which was a different course and 3 miles longer. There was one nasty grade out there and lots
of other rollers. Back in transition
(which was 4.5 minutes!!), we dilly-dallied and waited for Whit and Carrie
before we all complained and grumbled about getting back into the freezing cold
water (yes, we put on wetsuits, no chance any of us were foregoing those) I
sighted off of my backstroking Marty and we exited all discombobulated and
dizzy. I have never just walked from a
swim exit into transition but I did here. The four of us did the entire run together which was
awesome.
This was a tough turn around. After biking (yet again) up
the hill back to our cabin, it was now pushing 7pm but we still needed to eat,
unpack, repack, and get all of our crap together for a half iron distance race.
Half Iron (race #4)
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| I'm smiling on the outside and crying on the inside thinking of getting back in that lake |
There is also a stand-alone half iron race with ours (the
Little Smokey Mountains half iron) so it was a bit more people in
transition. The race started at 7am and
it was effing cold. And we had to get back in that awful water but first we had to put on
our still wet wetsuits. Nobody was happy about this. But I did have Marty
right there the entire time, letting me draft and constantly checking to see
that I was still right behind him. We
strolled out of the water and into transition where we proceeded to take 6 min
(6 min!!!) to dry off and put all of our stuff on.
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| Smile now. Freeze in 2 minutes. |
It was cold. So so cold. We finally got
on our bikes and were both moaning and groaning and barely going
anywhere as people flew by us. Marty had
gotten a bunch of cold lake water in his ear and it was causing him to feel dizzy
and out of it. Then we stopped so he
could fix his watch. Then we moaned and groaned some more. Then we stopped so
we could both pee. I swear, if we kept this up, this bike was going to take us
5 hours! After the second hill we finally got our act together (probably about
30min in) and started to feel human and warmer.
The bike was gorgeous! It did have over 4,000 feet of climbing so it was
by no means easy. And for the record, on every bike, I really made a big effort
to not be on Marty’s wheel (despite us being a team. I’m still burned up a bit
about the race organization changing the team rules a few months before the
race, but I didn’t come here to cheat). We did have one more stop when one of
my bottles filled with nutrition popped off the back of my bike, but when I
found it the cap had also come off so no more caloric bottle for me. Luckily, I
still had water and tons of food so I knew I would be fine. There was a very long climb at mile 47 which
just seemed to go on forever, but then we had a nice downhill finish back into
transition.
Another long transition. It did include a selfie.
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| Selfie in T2! |
Then I ran out a bit ahead of Marty so I
could use the port-o-potty. I waited for him to get out of transition and then
I needed to fix my shoe. Good thing we
are still not in any hurry :)
We exited at just over 4 hours and honestly I knew breaking 6 hours was going to
be really tough. I know it seems like it
shouldn’t be but by this point my legs were fried and I don’t exactly have a
great track record of half marathons. And it was hilly – hillier than the other
races! How is that even possible. We jogged onward and kept it comfy; a pace I
felt like I could hold throughout. We saw Whit and Carrie out there and they
looked awesome. We passed 7 people the first lap and I still felt fine. The
hills kept getting harder but I was counting down the time (Less than hour! You
got this!). The course descends sharply
at the out and back portion of the course and I knew that climbing back up that
for the last time was going to be tough. I kept at it but very quickly started
feeling dizzy and BAD. Marty had gotten
a little ahead of me at this point so I shouted to him (and everyone around me)
“I have to walk!” I walked to the top of the hill where Marty waited with a
caffeinated gel. I incoherently tried to tell him that I didn’t want to take
the whole thing without water but he convinced me to take half. I was now
jogging again and it kicked in pretty quick and I was feeling much better. It
didn’t hurt that we were now going downhill.
At the next aid station I got in water and the rest of the gel, and
Marty picked up a cup of coke which he held for several minutes because he
didn’t want me taking all that at once. So he ran with a cup of coke for me for
a while! When he deemed enough time had gone by, he let
me drink the coke and soon I was feeling pretty good! The return (and now
final) trip back to transition was mostly downhill with just a few little
climbs. I realized we actually could break 6 hours if we tried to pick the pace
up and we ended up running a 7:45 for the last mile which was likely the fastest
mile of the 27.2 that we ran (yes, we ran over a marathon combined. Total
uncharted territory for me). We finished
in 5:58.
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| Best husband ever |
This race and weekend was A LOT of fun. Made so by the people we went with and my awesome husband who got me through it (with my training plan and literally during the race). A lot of people say that this weekend of races is harder than an Ironman but I can't really comment since I've never done an Ironman. I will say that I wasn't terribly sore the day after, just really, really tired. I think the approach I took makes it not so bad and definitely more enjoyable for me. I imagine if you go out and try to 'race' each race, there is probably a different story here.
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| Portsmouth Brewery with our awesome group. My abs hurt from laughing so much. |
