Lake to Lake 2009

Well I had a great race! Even better than I could have hoped for. Woke up at 4:00, made coffee, had breakfast, packed up and got to the race by a little after 5. I picked up my packet and got transition area situated by 5:30, and wasn't starting until 6:34, so I had a lot of time to kill. I had half a banana around 6:15 and was sipping on water all morning. I have kind of given up on warming up for Olympic distance tri's. I ran for about 10 minutes just to get my legs going. But taking my bike out of the transition area was not an appealing thought with a line stretching through the parking lot by 6 AM. However I wish I had swam more, that could make the start of the swim much more comfortable. I only did about a 4 minute warm-up in the lake.

The swim start was insane, as usual. Legs and arms were flying every where. I couldn't get in a good spot for a while. Last year I got good at drafting but I couldn't find a good pair of feet to follow today. I really felt like I was taking forever and not swimming well. Also my arms felt somewhat lead-like. So I was really surprised to see that I finished the swim in 26:07. I think the longer I do tris, the less I appreciate the swim portion.

I consider my T1 time one of my greatest accomplishments of the day. Thursday night I practiced taking off my wetsuit and just ended up flailing in my backyard for 3 minutes unable to get my legs out. Then I came across this slowtwitch.com post, and it helped tremendously! I used the advice of QRgirl and took off my wetsuit not too long after getting out of the water. I had greased up my ankles, shins, calves, and even behind my knees with some bodyglide, too.

The bike went well. The beginning is pretty slow. I was really out of breath for the first 3-5 minutes from the swim and run to the transition area. Then Glade Road is slightly uphill or a false flat most of the way, and there was a slight headwind. I just tried to keep my cadence up and not be discouraged by the slow speeds. 30 minutes into the ride I had my first gu and not too long after that came the hills! The 1st hill, up to Horsetooth Mtn Park, went fairly quickly. I was able to stay in the aero bars most of the way. The next hill is my least favorite but I tried to go fast up the first part and then carry that momentum. Also Chris, Rachel, and her friend, Erika, were cheering me on near the top and that was AWESOME. It was especially helpful since Chris is often my motivator to go faster up hill, anyway. After that it was smooth sailing back to Loveland. I had a slight tailwind and was going 26-28 mph most of the time on Taft Hill. Fun! A big advantage of all the running I've been doing is I wasn't as concerned as usual about how my legs would fair going into the run. Even if I don't do another half-ironman after this year, I should keep up the long distance running. Anyway, about 1:15 into the bike I had another gu and shifted down one or two gears to get my legs spinning more.

T2 was fairly uneventful, and my cheering squad had made it just in time to send me off in style. :) My legs didn't feel too great, of course, starting the run, but overall I was feeling decent. I had borrowed Christine's HRM again (I need to buy one!!) and used it a little bit. I decided to keep my HR in the 150's for the first 3 miles and then slowly ramp up after that. This plan worked pretty well, since I needed some rest at the start but had enough juice to push myself toward the end. I stopped to walk and drink some water twice, but probably walked less than 30 seconds each time. On the way out I kept my mind occupied by counting the number of women ahead of me. I came up with 25 at the turn-around, although 2 more passed me in the last 3 miles. Oh well. Running is not my strong point! The last mile is annoying because you wind around this park and are frustratingly close to the finish line the whole time. But, I finished faster than my goal at just under 2:51! Woohoo!!

Here are some stats (results from 2008 are in parentheses for comparison).
Swim: 28:15 (28:46)
T1: 1:10 (2:02)
Bike: 1:28:28, 20.2 mph! (1:31:56, 19.5 mph)
T2: 0:54 (1:04)
Run: 51:31, 8:18 pace - PR by almost 45 seconds! (55:07, 9:02 pace)
Total: 2:50:59 (2:58:58)
Place: 4/38! (12/38)

Avg. HR was 156 and peak was 174 (that's about 81% and 90% of my max, respectively).