ITU San Diego Race Report!

It's been a little over a week. That's not too bad of a turn around, right? :)

First of all, we had an awesome time in San Diego. The weather was perfect, we got to hang out with the DC Tri Club and make new friends, we did a bit of the touristy thing and went to the zoo. I have cousins in CA who were awesome enough to drive down the San Diego and play with us after my race. The whole thing was great. It must have been fun for me to have an entirely positive attitude, even after sunburns, a mountain and a wasp bite!

Erin and I got to SD late on Thursday night. The airport is so close to everything, it didn't take us long to get our car and get to our hotel (literally 5 minutes away). We crashed hard, but even managed to sleep in to an (almost) normal hour on Friday. Packet pick up and bike racking, as well as the expo were on Friday, so we headed over to the race site to get all that started.

Highlight #1: My bike had arrived in San Diego on a truck full of other DC bikes and was waiting for me at the race site. Sing it with me: HALLELUIAH!

Picked up my bike, which was no worse for the wear, and headed out for a little ride before heading to packet pick up and then taking it into transition. ITU packet pickup means a sweet shirt and lots of goodies in the bag. Woot! Also met a friend in line, a CA guy named Morgan. Once I was through the line and had racked my bike, we explored the expo and found the DC Tri tent where we ate free food and made new friends.

Highlight #2: The women's pro race was AWESOME to watch. The Tri Club all watched together, running around to see transition, the bike course and the run. The multi-loop course made it easy to see what was happening, and you were right next to these people as they ran by. Superheroes, arms length away from you. Apparently Erin even met Sarah Haskins the next day while I was racing. GRRARR!

I have lots of photos of the women's race, but I'll save most of them for another post. I'll just summarize by saying how awesome it was to see Laura Bennett qualify for the Olympic team.

After a quick jog around to see the run course a bit, Erin and I headed home to get ready for dinner and deal with the sunburn she had endured. I burnt my forehead and part of my hair (Now I know where I miss with my sunscreen...) but Erin roasted her arms and was pretty upset with herself for it. We then headed out to dinner with the DC Tri Club to a place called Luigi's at the Beach.

Highlight #3: Meeting awesome DC Tri Club people. I know they all live right here, but it's been hard for me to get to club events, so I really didn't know anyone going in. Now I know about 43! YAY!

Luigi's new we were coming, and gave us a patio to ourselves, but they had a hard time with our volume once we arrived...Anyway Erin and I were smart and got cash, so once we were finished we left our money and went home to go to bed. I can be a bit of a diva about my food and my sleep, especially on race weekend, so Erin averted disaster by getting me home early.

Saturday morning arrived at 3:45 am and I began the pre-race routine prescribed by my coach. Hot shower, and breakfast first. Note to self: make sure your hotel room has a microwave before buying the non-instant oatmeal at the local grocery store. Pouring hot water from the coffee maker in only sort of works for the regular oats... Once I got Erin up we headed over to the race site. There was a remote parking lot and a shuttle bus to the site, but the whole thing took very little time. Still, I had Erin drop me off at the race site and then go back for the parking etc. Our hotel was super convenient to the site. Most of the Tri Club actually stayed at the hotel on the race site, but it was too expensive for us, so I'm glad ours worked out so well. Anyway, I set up my transition area on a very tight bike rack and scoped out my competition who were all racked right next to me. I'm a little confused about how it all went down, but I think because the pros were there there was non-pro elite wave? I think the elites were racing in age group? Question marks? Either way, the girl next to me was wearing a team USA suit with her name on it, and she looked pretty darn elite to me. If she becomes famous one day I can say she loaned me her pump :)

After a warm up run I got my wetsuit and headed down to the beach. The venue was so amazing, btw. We were on Mission Bay, and the swim was in Ventura Cove. We had a beach start into calm, bay water. The water and the air were a little bit cold, but I tried to time it right and get a swim warm up in without having to stand around too long afterward before my wave started. I'm glad I did, too, because otherwise the long, stringy kelp-like seaweed hitting my arms and face would have been a big surprise! Erin found me in the sea of wetsuits on the beach just before I started, looking like a class-A race sherpa (complete with long sleeves to avoid more sunburn).

I went with my sleeveless wetsuit, by the way, instead of renting a long sleeve suit. I was very happy in it. The water temp was 64 or 65.

The little horn went off for my wave and we sprinted down the beach and into the bay, or into the seaweed I should say. The swim course was a large, backwards, upside down L with a left hand buoy turn followed by three right hand buoy turns. I honestly felt great in the water. My breathing was even, I was excited but not too amped up, and I never had that "omg I might not make it" feeling. My time ended up being slower than I thought, but my coach said not to sweat it because all courses and conditions are different. I thought maybe I was too comfy, maybe I should have pushed harder, but then again I came out of the water feeling good and not too spent, so maybe that's a good thing?

Theme for the season: MY TRANSITIONS NEED WORK. T1 was horrifically slow. I swear, I do not know what I do in there that takes so much time. Usually Erin is outside transition, watching me and kind of saying "Um, hurry it up Babe!" haha. But I got out onto the bike course and started mentally preparing myself for...dun dun duuuuunnn...the MOUNTAIN!!!

As a side note, the Mt. Solidad was not the only significant obstacle on the bike course. The road quality on the course was...well quite poor. They warned us to look out for potholes etc and they were not kidding. They were everywhere, and they were huge. I was weaving around the first few miles of the first loop like I was drunk. Once we got to the mountain, I just buckled down. Everyone around me was going slowly. Very. Slowly. So slowly you would be riding next to someone for many many minutes, just grunting it out together. It was a long, steep climb at at least 10-12% grade for more than a mile. Half way up was a dude in a pop tent yelling at us through a megaphone to hammer. He kept saying "Another Kilometer to climb at 18% grade! Hammer till it hurts and then hammer some more!" We all grumbled to eachother about wanting to kill him. And then we kept climbing. Those of us grinding up the hill passed several people off their bikes, walking. After the race one of my friends from the DC Tri Club said that she thought about walking, but she was going so slowly that if she tried to unclip and get off the bike she would just fall over.

I've never gone so slowly, for so long in a race before. Ever. I hope I never do again.

Finally at the top, just before the long, crazy descent, I turned to my neighbor and said "Let's do that again!" You know why? Because we were going to climb it again.

The descent had more potholes. Just what you want to encounter going over 30 mph. After winding around the rest of the first loop at a much more respectable race pace, I headed back towards the start of Mt. Solidad again for round 2. This time I knew what was ahead and how far I really had left to go. I may have screamed at the guy with the megaphone to "Shut the hell up!!" as I passed him the second time. More walkers this time up, but I actually felt better because I knew I didn't have to save my energy to go up again. I did wonder how my legs would feel on the run though, given the screaming they were doing on the bike course. I also don't remember ANYTHING from the scenery around the course. I had my eyes glued to the road, looking for the hole or crack that would end my race day or at least send me to the side to fix a flat.

Meanwhile a evil little creature, likely a wasp, managed to land on my stomach while I was riding. I have no idea how long he was there, but near the end of the bike I felt a horrific stinging sensation. I attacked the area with my hand and biked on. After a while I had totally forgotten about it. In fact I didn't remember the sting again until the next day when I found a HUGE, very itchy welt on my abdomen. That lil' sucker may have had a shocking and upsetting ride on my belly, but he managed to upset my sleep for several nights after so I hope he thinks he got his revenge.

Good thing I never saw him though. I can imagine seeing a wasp land on me and freaking out and crashing. Just like a shot, it's not the sting itself so much as the anticipation of the sting that is the worst part. I managed to avoid anything serious and finished the bike course (after being out there for much longer than 40k ever had a right to take).

T2? Slow again. I even was yelling to Erin about how insane the bike had been. She told me to cut it out and hurry up. Once on the two-loop run I took an inventory. I didn't feel anywhere near as bad as I thought I would. The first 5k loop went by without a hitch. At one of the aid stations a volunteer dropped the cup she was handing to the guy in front of me, so I drank half of mine and gave him the rest. I had a Gu. I felt good. Once the second loop started I decided it was time to pick it up, and I started really cranking the miles out. I was passing people and my form felt fantastic. The course was along the paved "boardwalk" and there was beach on one side of us and back patios on the other. People were on their decks drinking mimosas and I chatted them up a bit as I blazed past. I was on fire. At mile 5 I finally felt like maybe I was loosing steam, but I willed myself to keep the pace up and even managed a nice sprint to the finish line. My 10k time was a PR by far, although it was only my second official 10k.

I finished 11th in my age group (just out of the running for extra team points) out of 32 and 108 in women out of 331. My overall time was NOT a PR at 2:57:01 but that was likely because of a slow slow bike time (1:30). My takeaways from the race?

1. WORK ON MY FREAKING TRANSITIONS
2. Having conquered that mountain twice and then having been able to pull out a good run, my training has set me up to be pretty darn strong
3. Not totally wiping myself out on the swim and bike sets me up to run really well. This is a super-super good lesson to take into my half-ironman, especially given that last year I killed the bike but then totally bonked/tied up on the run. hmmm.
4. I race just fine without caffeine in my race-day nutrition and my heart thanks me afterward. 

Just like all lessons, it doesn't matter how many times someone else tells me these things, I have to experience them myself before it ever sinks in.

Overall I had hoped I would be faster and I had hoped to be top 10 in my age group. It was serious competition though, and I think that there were elites racing in my category, in which case I can forgive myself. I had a blast and I feel good about my fitness. I'm excited to do another Olympic distance race later this season, though (without a mountain...) to see how quickly I can go...






Post race celebration? The San Diego Zoo with my cousins Sarah and Mary, their fiance and boyfriend respectively, and Erin. Then dinner with Sarah's fiance's uncle at an authentic Mexican place. A weekend very well spent in SD.

Race Report TEASER

I'm still settling back in and haven't had time to write up a good race report (besides the one I sent to my coach, which isn't nearly as witty as what I'd like to write for you all!). Here are some teasers/spoilers though, to get you through:

- Bays on the West Coast have LOTS of seaweed
- There was, in fact, a mountain on the bike course. Which I successfully climbed. Twice.
- Wasp bites/stings suffered while cycling can continue to itch for several days. Especially when you're trying to sleep
- The DC Tri Club is a great bunch of folks!
- San Diego is pretty darn cool

That's all for now. Expect a novel in a few days :)

There's a mountain on the bike course...

Or that's what they're calling it. Mount Solidad or something. In La Jolla. I mean I heard there was a climb in La Jolla, but a MOUNTAIN!? WHAT??!? Did the rest of the DC Tri Club know this and not tell me? Mountains are not easy to come by around here for training. There is apparently also a steep, fast descent after said climb (that is how mountains work, after all) which is followed by a sharp left turn. It's almost like they're trying to kill us.

 I'm watching the pre-race webinar which includes an overview of the courses, and this is how I have come by this information. Another thing they've said to us? "Watch out for disgruntled drivers". Hahaha. Now that is something for which I've trained!

To be fair, it is likely I could have prepared myself with this knowledge further in advance, but I've been studying for, writing, worrying about, and obsessing over my PhD qualifying exams for the past few weeks (I passed!!!). I've also been fighting off a cold (I've had enough Zicam, fluids and Vitamin C that I should never get sick again for the rest of my life) and have been dealing with some very strange, middle school drama from some friends (or attempting to avoid the drama because my plate is way too full. As my mother always says, "Step away from the crazy"). So reviewing the course has been pushed to the wayside until this morning...

And there's a mountain. SURPRISE!!

I will not panic. I will make a molehill out of this mountain with my legs of steal and my lungs of gold (seriously they should be coated with the gold leaf of Zicam and Vitamin C). I may just pretend I don't know about this mountain until I am defeating it. Twice. Because my bike course is a two looper, hittin' that damn mountain on repeat. YAY!

I hope this repeated climb is not like lasik eye surgery. Once I got one eye finished, I really didn't want to let them do the other one because the first had been so scary.

NO! I WILL THINK POSITIVE, MOUNTAIN-SLAYING THOUGHTS!! (I am currently flexing my muscles in order to psych myself up. You are a beast, Huxster! You got this!)

Ok enough of all that. Today Erin and I fly out to San Diego! As stated in my previous post, my bike is already on its long journey to the race site. I believe it arrives this morning, long before I've even left for the airport. The truck carrying 55 DC bikes stopped in Denver and picked up another load before heading towards San Diego. I've been keeping in touch with the drivers via twitter (whom I assume are NOT tweeting and driving) which has been quite fun. If you tweet, you should follow them (@kanebicycles).  Anyway, we fly for many hours back in time and somehow arrive there this evening. Tomorrow we pick up my bike, check in to transition, packet pickup, do the expo thing AND watch the pro women's race. SO excited for that, btw. I am hoping to be able to keep the blogs coming while in San Diego because this is probably the most exciting and biggest race I've participated in. I mean come on, MACCA WILL BE THERE.

There is a service called Sportstats on facebook through which you should theoretically be able to actually track my progress throughout the race. It can send alerts to your facebook, phone, etc. I've tried signing up with my last name but it's not working, so once I have my bib number I will let everyone know how to get it working.

Alright, I am off to drink more coffee and contemplate how to fit my wetsuit into my luggage without creasing it too much. I am fully prepared to keep you more fully posted ;-)

San Diego or Bust: my bike is on its way!!

On Thursday of this week I am hopping a plane to San Diego (with my wife of course) to race at ITU San Diego. The main reason I was able to afford this race was that DC Tri Club is shipping our bikes for free with the awesome service detailed on this blog:

San Diego or Bust: “We Couldn’t Go if it Weren’t for this Service”: Welcome everyone! The San Diego or Bust drive across America has officially begun. Here’s what has happened thus far: 53 Washington...

See that picture of all the bikes in bubble wrap inside that huge truck? My baby is in there somewhere!!!! Ack!

Today is my rest day and the taper week has begun. I am feeling a bit under the weather so I hope I can fight off whatever bug I may have gotten before the weekend! I'm sleeping and drinking lots of fluids, don't worry. :)

Anyway, check out the blog and follow my bike across the country! Also, I will soon have athlete tracker information, which will mean you can actually track my progress during the race online or on your phone. Ooooo!

Stolen race pics!

Anyone want to buy the hi-res versions for me? :) They're probably some of the best race pics taken of me...and probably some of the most expensive...

tricycle studios - bib 277

 Oh and when I say they're the best, I'm only talking about these two. The other two are HIDEOUS! hahahaha

Rumpass in Bumpass Race Report! 1st Race of the Season!

So it's 10 am and I have already gotten in an hour and a half of studying today (My PhD qualifying exam is this week!) so I think I'll take a bit of a study break and work on my Rumpass in Bumpass 2012 Race Report! The first race and first race report of the 2012 season! Yaayy!!

The professional race photos are not up yet, but they are also not going to be free, so you're going to have to make do with the ones that Erin and I took. It was Erin's first time with my new, fancy camera and she did an admirable job. Understandably, it is difficult to take shots of a single, specific cyclist. You have to watch each one and decide whether or not that's your racer, then you have to get the camera ready and focused, all while the cyclist is barreling towards you at 22 mph. So the swim and run shots are a bit better. :) Thanks Erin!

Not only was this my first race of the season, but my cousin Anne was also racing the Rumpass for her very first triathlon! She had an awesome day out there, and I'm a very proud tri-momma/cousin.

 So our race weekend started with a long drive down to Bumpass, VA on Saturday. Turns out that place is seriously in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Wasn't the most amazing drive with traffic and then small, strange roads and although we had planned to be there before the end of the olympic distance race being held Saturday, we were quite a bit late. It all turned out fine though, as Anne, who is a member of Team Z, was still hanging out with her teammates in their post-race tent. She had seen most of the Saturday race and had gathered a lot of useful information about the course, transition, etc. We wandered around and checked out the area and the course. Lake Anna is really beautiful, once you get passed being in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. And I am qualified to make that judgement, btw, given that I grew up on a horse farm, off a dirt road in PA. Anyway, I'm straying from the story. We went down to the lake and waded into the water. The air temp was pretty nice Saturday, low 70s I guess? By 3 pm the water felt really nice too. We looked over the swim course, which was pretty neat. It started and ended at different places, with the exit leading almost directly into transition. No long run in bare feet! YAY! Anne and I then took a nice 40 minute bike ride on part of the course to get our blood moving and make sure our bikes had survived transport unscathed. We then proceeded to packet pick up (great shirt AND socks! featuring Wild Things...get it? Rumpass?) (Also, thanks to Anne for not letting us drive too far before remembering about packet pick up) and then headed an hour back NE to Fredericksburg where our lovely hotel was located.

On the way to the hotel I noticed that my bike was missing an end cap on the handlebar. Many of you know that this is against USAT rules. They call it the "Core Sample Rule." You fall, your handlebar takes a plug of skin and muscle out of you (or worse, internal organs!). Anyway, special shout out to the guys at Olde Town Bicycles in Fredericksburg for hooking me up with 3 extra endcaps, after store hours. And thanks to my mother for teaching me how to talk really sweetly to people on the phone. 

We checked in and then Erin and I made our way to Applebees for dinner. I've never done a pre-race meal at Applebees before and I was a bit nervous, but I found something really simple on the menu and went with that. The good thing was that Applebees had TVs and they put playoff hockey on the TV above our table. Erin had hockey, she was happy. I had food, I was happy. Post-dinner we headed back to the hotel and I helped Anne go through all of her stuff to be sure she didn't forget anything. She packed admirably (with several extras) so we were all able to head off to bed.

I slept like CRAP!

The race started at 10am, which is by far the latest start time I've seen. I think they wanted to start late to give us warmer weather, but as it turned out the high for the day was in the mid 80s! Anyway, we rose bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:15 am. My coach had emailed me a detailed outline of how I should proceed on race morning, and I have to admit that I didn't follow his plan exactly. First of all there was an hour commute to contend with. Second, he wanted me to spend way more time warming up than I would racing! I mean, I bet this is what the really good folks do, but I've never done all that before so I decided to break myself in nice and easy. Drank lots of water, took a hot shower before we left (at his suggestion...shower before working out??) and had my race day breakfast. I've changed it up a bit this season because believe it or not, bananas seem to give me heart burn. So I just had a small bowl of my 5 grain hot cereal (basically fancy oatmeal) with a little bit of Nutella mixed in and a few small pieces of banana (can't completely change it up), half a whole wheat bagel and some peanut butter. And a little coffee. And more water.

After an hour on the road (Thank you Erin for driving everywhere!! You are saving my back from a lifetime of misery!) we parked and I made the decision based on the time and on the amount of traffic on the roadway to skip the warm up bike ride my coach had suggested and just do a run and swim warm up. Got my timing chip, got body marked and set up my lovely transition area. Now, this was my first Setup Event and overall I have very few complaints about the organization of the Rumpass. It was a lovely race. But the bike racks are my first small complaint. I LOVED that they were actually tall enough for my bike seat to fit under and easily rack, but they lacked numbers. Instead, each section of the rack was assigned 6 numbers and you had to mark out your own territory. I was there early and didn't have a real problem, but the 6th person into our section had to move everyone's stuff around to fit in. On top of that, people weren't racking their bikes on the same side as their stuff and I imagine some people had a really tough time in transition because of that. I was spared and had relatively intelligent/experienced people around me but I know others weren't so lucky. ANYWAY!

After helping Anne set up her transition area, I headed out for my warm up run. Coach indicated he wanted me to run for 20-30 minutes. I decided to just do it be feel and check out parts of the course that I had heard people talking about before the race. There were two long gravel sections, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Turns out the gravel was very very large and deep, and therefore it actually moved under foot kind of like sand. Not very pleasant. I checked that section out and the run around the outside of a field and probably did a 15-20 minute warm up. With 30 minutes left till the start I headed down to the water and donned my wetsuit. The water was much chillier than it had been the day before, but it wasn't too bad once I got going. I was really glad I did the warm up and got back into the feeling of my wetsuit. It seemed to erase almost all of my pre-swim jitters. Anne and I were in the same swim wave, so we got to hang out for a bit and tread water together before our horn went off to start the race.


Once we were underway I lost track of Anne pretty quickly. The water was not very clear, although I was often able to make out the legs of other swimmers. I did a pretty good job drafting off of someone until we caught up with the stragglers from the men's wave before us, at which point we all got pretty strung out. The swim was pretty pleasant though, and I never felt like I was going to puke from exertion. Part of me thinks that is a good thing, another part thinks maybe I should have pushed harder. Only had one little entanglement when I accidentally swam between two guys from the previous wave who were going shoulder to shoulder. Got a bit pummeled, but ended up ahead of them and free. The course had a long straightaway and ended in a different place than it began, with a run right into transition. I guess I got a little cocky when I got out, because as I entered transition I heard the announcer say that the first 5 women had just gotten on course and I thought that might mean I was in the top 10 out of the water. Erin later informed me that after 8 women she stopped counting so I was likely a bit further down. Plus there was another wave of women behind me. My swim time was 14:33 for 750 meters.


Then came T1. I am not sure what exactly I did to take up 2 minutes, but I sure did it! I know I struggled hard with my socks. I need to learn to bike without them and to put them on when my feet are more dry in T2. I didn't have too much trouble with my wetsuit, although I did fight with my helmet strap a bit. Once out of T1 there was a steep uphill run to the road and I was stuck behind a lady who ended up being my slingshot buddy for the ride (I passed her, she passed me, I passed her, she passed me...you get it). She wasn't in my age group, and I also had a pretty good feeling I could outrun her, but it was good motivation to try to keep up with her because she was clearly a cyclist and she was gunning it. She wasn't too pleased with me I don't think. Anyway, the bike course wasn't totally flat, but there weren't any huge climbs. There were some rollers and false flats, but also just a lot of plain flats. It was a relatively fast course and I averaged 19 mph over 11.5 miles. I didn't have many women pass me, or many men for that matter. A few came up behind on their super aero TT machines with disk wheels sounding more like I was getting passed by a car or even a small jet plane than a cyclist. I didn't see any women from my age group on the bike. I finished at 36:14. Last year I averaged 19.5 mph over 56 miles, so I think I should have been pushing harder. We did, however, had a pretty strong headwind for half of the course.

T2 went relatively smoothly. I didn't go down the wrong aisle, thanks to a particularly loud towel I draped over my bike rack. I did get the back of my shoe stuck in when I stomped my foot in and had to curse at it for a few seconds. Otherwise I got out unscathed and began what turned out to be an entirely off-road run. There was not one, single paved section. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like trail running, but that wasn't what we signed up for. The gravel was just as squishy as I remembered, and there was a long, second gravel section I hadn't been on before. Still, with the two out and backs there was plenty of time to scope out the competition and see who was ahead and behind you. I also got to see Anne on the run as I was coming back in towards the finish. (I have no pictures of me running from the front yet. Apparently I surprised Erin, who was at a corner trying to photograph Anne on the bike course). In the last mile of the run, a woman passed me and I saw she was in my age group. She was trucking and I just couldn't keep pace with her. As I saw her fading into the distance it occurred to me that she was probably in third now, but it was too late. I was pretty hot at that point and had been pouring water on myself. I pulled out a final kick for a sprint finish and was very happy for my finishers medal and my bottle of water. I finished in 1:19:32. I was 4th in my age group, and 22nd in women overall.

I felt pretty good after the race, not too worked over. I found Erin and we took a sign we made and the camera back out to the last turn of the run course to watch Anne and cheer to the final stretch. She came in looking great and smiled for the camera as we cheered her on.


Anne finished really well, especially for her very first triathlon. We hung out with her team some post race and just unwound from the excitement of race day. Overall it was a great day for a race. I still wish I had pushed harder, or had just a little bit more in the tank, but I might be being too hard on myself. Technically it was a sprint distance PR for me, but it's really hard to compare sprint distance races because the swim and bike lengths aren't consistent from race to race. But as always, I loved racing. Can't wait for the next one!!

A funny movie to tide you over!

How Clif bar sees the swim start:


My first race of the season is this weekend! Unfortunately, I am also studying for my PhD qualifying exam, so I am pretty darn busy. Should have a pre-race update coming very soon, but this video was too funny not to share immediately.