Somehow the last few weeks have slipped by and we’re 3 days away from my last half of the season:  SOMA Half Ironman in Tempe, AZ.  I made a very last-minute decision to pull the plug on Rev3 South Carolina as a result of getting sick the week of the race, too many cross country flights, and just needing to completely de-stress and decompress.  When I learned about this local half that has a good pro race, it just made sense.

But it’s time to finally report on Augusta! Better late than never…

Racing so close to Atlanta was a no-brainer.  I can’t describe how cool it is to race with so many friends on course and lining the streets.  It made a tough day so much more enjoyable.

I rolled into town with the Italian Stallion, Moreno, and it was nonstop entertainment as expected.  I got to see most of the crew from The Sport Factory for dinner, and I knew it was going to be a good weekend.

Before the swim start with Amanda and a couple token cute pro guys…

The Savannah River, while not the most pristine of waters I’ve swam in, certainly does have other redeeming qualities. Namely, a fast current!   So fast, in fact, that you can’t tread water and stay in one place.  Amanda, Caroline, and I were holding onto the dock before our start, and Amanda blurted out something far too inappropriate to repeat here, but it caused my pre-swim anxiety to disappear and I was laughing hysterically.  I was no longer even concerned about the gators. Yes, there are alligators in the Savannah River. Google it if you don’t believe me. (I can assure you that I did my research!!)

I wanted to stay with Heather and Amanda, but it wasn’t in the cards.  As a nice consolation prize, however, I did have the honor of pulling two girls the entire swim.  I was less annoyed that I was giving them a semi-free ride and more flattered that anyone would choose to draft off me in the water. It surely doesn’t happen too often, so I tried to enjoy the novelty of it.   Swim time: 24:56– a PR courtesy of an unnaturally fast current, thank you very much.

Augusta’s bike course is rolling.  Nothing crazy hilly, but not flat either.  I caught up to Tamara (she beat me out of transition …grrrr) and Caroline about 30min in and made the pass.   That put me in 4th.  However, I didn’t hold the position for long. Throughout the rest of the course, we played leap-frog every few miles, which was frustrating for me.  They are strong athletes but I can usually pull away once I make the pass. At one point I even yelled back to Caroline “Does it look like I have a flat?!” because I couldn’t pick it up like I wanted… which in hindsight, is kinda funny.

My bike power was not where it normally is. I wasn’t THAT far off, but I expected to bike that course sub-2:27/2:26.  I finished in 2:30:05, and Tamara was still about a minute ahead of me out of T2.

Here I started bookin’ it out of T2.  I knew Tamara was a good runner, but I also knew we were close.  I was in 5th position.

I knew that my coach, Matt Russ, and the rest of The Sport Factory crew would be setting up a tent somewhere on the course. When I saw them, I ran faster, my smile was bigger, and the energy was amazing. I cannot sufficiently describe how wonderful it felt to have their support. These are just a few of the cast of characters that were out in full force:

The Zimmer Girls were by far the MVPs of the cheering section. Check out that art work!

Matt was screaming at me to keep up my turnover– focus on FORM!  I wanted to make him proud. I wanted to catch the girl in front of me. I thought I was closing the gap, but I wasn’t sure.  Then, at mile 6, I caught her and passed. For the next 2 miles, Tamara ran literally on my shoulder.  I thought, “Please god let these next 7 miles go by quickly.” There is nothing more miserable than racing head-to-head with someone when you are hurting so bad!   It was hot– like NASTY HOT– and I felt like I was running with a mask on. The humidity was oppressive.  Carnage was all over the course, and I just tried to hold on, sucking down my Powergels and praying for sustenance.  At mile 8, Tamara found another gear and pulled ahead. I kept running with everything I had, but I simply couldn’t catch her.  My pace had slowed and I was so frustrated…  but managed to come back within 15sec of 4th place… but it wasn’t enough to catch her. Run time was 1:31:20 (6:59/mi) and 5th Overall.  Finish time: 4:30:12.

I was pretty bummed about my run time.  I hit a run PR at NOLA 70.3 and wanted to keep moving in that direction (sub-1:27). However, looking at the results, only #1 and #2 girls had faster run times. We were all a bit off. Perspective, right?  I was not 100% that day. Stress plays a pretty big role in our performance (I know this, but I like to think I am exempt!), and the past couple months have been quite tumultuous to say the least.  I am grateful for what I was able to do on race day, and proud to finish “on stage” with some fast chicks.

In order of finish: Emma-Kate Lidbury, Amanda Lovato, Heather Jackson, Tamara Kozulina, and moi!

At awards, Amanda was taking up offers for photo opps with old men, while Heather and I watched from the sidelines. I leaned over and asked my fellow brunette if she happened to feel like the overweight, acne-ridden, not-so-attractive chick at the 7th grade dance. It was hilarious!!  He wouldn’t have even noticed us if he didn’t have to move AROUND us to get to her!  I don’t know if blondes have more fun, but they definitely get more photo requests from perverted old men triathletes!

Overall, seeing my friends, my coach, and feeling the most amazing race day support that I’ve ever had definitely made this race incredible.

Moreno and me post-race. Grazzie, Mo, for carting me around and being such a great amigo!

So now it’s time to do it all over again this Sunday for SOMA.  They are doing it up first-class and I’m so excited to be a part of this race.  The memory of the pain of Augusta hasn’t entirely faded yet (which would be ideal), but I’m looking forward to one last hard long course effort for 2011… in my beautiful new home state!

Thank you to my amazing coach, Matt Russ, for dealing with my crazy lifestyle, travel, less than ideal training at times, and last minute schedule changes… but more so for his constant support, guidance, and wisdom.

We’re not done yet!

Memphis in May Race Report . . . aka Tunica in May Race Report.

OK so I’m a little late to report on this gem of a race, but better late than never (same goes for crossing the finish line).

Back to the Dirty Dirty (South) it was for Memphis in May, which, incidentally, packed up shop and moved about 45min down the road to Tunica, Mississippi.  Why change a good name though?  Memphis in May has been around for a while. I finished 6th here (just out of the money) in 2009, and this year it was a 5150 race, so the competition showed up in numbers. Payout was top 10, and once again I was the bridesmaid (11th).  Thank god for having a full time job on days like this, right?

Cliff Notes Version: 11th overall, wicked competition, more wicked weather, delayed start, TT swim, slow swim time, fast bike (sub-1hr 40K), and OK but not great run (6:28 pace for a run that was about 1k long).   Fun weekend and some good lessons learned. Read on for more dirty details of the dirty dirty.

Pre-Race: Driving down to Tunica we were greeted by lots of lightening and thunderstorms. This is what put the DIRTY in Dirty Dirty. Messy, muddy, and wet everywhere.  Feelings of dread overcame me… It was already a late start (10am for the pros) which was kind of nice in a way but definitely didn’t feel like the early start to racing.   Always trying to be a glass-half-full-kind-of-girl, I optimistically hoped that this nasty lightening would at least mean a cancelled swim. After New Orleans, I figured I couldn’t get that lucky two times in a row, but a girl can dream.  We all got in the water to warm up, only to be yanked out immediately due to more lightening. About another hour goes by and they finally get us started around 11:20am. The weather was still crappy but at least the lightening subsided long enough to get the race started.

The swim start at Memphis is always a TT (time trial) start, with pros going off every 15(?) seconds or so.  I’m not a fan of this type of swim start, as I desperately need to find someone’s feet to latch onto.  Then again, nobody forced me to sign up for this race, so shut up and swim, right?

I have no idea why  I’m smiling so much in these pre-swim photos… I guess I was oblivious to the carnage that was about to ensue.  Ignorance is clearly bliss.

And I have no idea what this dude is doing behind my head…

Ready to go…

I think the last time I raced Memphis we just had to run in the water when it was our turn to go off. That was really awesome, because you got the SPOTLIGHT for your entry into the water, which is great if you look cool and don’t end up belly-flopping (you can imagine which category I’m in– not the cool one!).  Luckily this time they had a ramp-type thing which mitigated the opportunities to look like a complete ass in front of everyone.

Overall, a pretty crappy swim time (24min!). Again, a big disconnect between my open water and pool swimming. Grrrr….

Lessons Learned: Pick races with better chances of cancelled swims (JOKING! Joking!!). Practice more OWS whenever possible.  SWIM AGGRESSIVELY!! This is where I think I have the biggest area of opportunity. I realize that I’m not going to be the next Amanda Beard anytime soon, but I have no problem biking/running aggressively. I tend to get pretty passive in open water.   Also, I must remember to KEEP MY HEAD IN THE GAME always! The weather may be crappy, the start may be delayed, but we are still there to RACE!

Bike: The TT start left me a bit in the dark as to where I was in the race, but since the majority of girls were short course specialists, I was pretty confident that I got dusted in the swim.  The good news is I had a 40k bike to try to catch up. The bad news was it was ONLY 40k… need more bike miles!   It was still raining and there was standing water on the roads, and while I love this sport dearly, I don’t love it enough to risk another head injury.  I decided to GUN IT on the straight sections, but was super conservative on every turn.  I’m not losing sleep over any time I lost w/ that decision.

I decided to just take in sports drink on the bike instead of gels this time.  I’ve used this particular drink before in training, but not much.  Why not try something new on race day?!  I had a few spit ups but no major vomiting… just keeps things exciting.  It turned out to be a good bike for me: 59:xx for the 40k, and I was happy to break the hour barrier. That’s always the goal for a 40k, and since this was a flat course, I knew I had a shot at it.   I finally passed a group of about 4 women around mile 20 and just tried to keep the pressure on.

Lessons learned: Duh- don’t do anything new nutrition-wise on race day. Perhaps increase the calories a bit more since it was a later start (tough to plan for those).  Continue to work on cornering more aggressively (at least where there aren’t puddles)- every turn can add up to seconds, and especially in short course, those seconds count!

Run: This was what I was most excited for, actually. There had been lightening on the bike and puddles on the road but now I was on my own two (rubber-encased) feet and ready to run. I was actually looking forward to this due to the previous 2 weeks’ training, where I had hit some new encouraging numbers on my run.  Plans can change on race day, though! It wasn’t the run I had hoped for, but I hung on and avg’d 6:28 for the 10k +1k (yes it was a tad shorter than 1k long). They are so generous in the South– more run for your money!  I was a bit disappointed but I did the best I could with what I had that day.

Lessons Learned: I hate to go back to the swim, but I really think that my swim wore me out more than it needed to (despite my less-than-blazing speed in the water…). I avg’d 6:37 off the bike in New Orleans for 13.1mi, and 6:28 for a 10k here?  No swim in New Orleans.   I am happy I hung on and didn’t fall apart completely, even when I knew I wasn’t having the race I had hoped for.  Our heads can help us or hurt us, and in an endurance event, we can’t seem to escape them.  Might as well put them to work for us.

And lastly, I was coming into the last quarter mile of the race and saw another woman in front of me. Spectators were telling me I could catch her. Keep in mind at this point I knew I was not likely finishing in the money (top 10) and I already knew my race was not one of my best.  But THIS is where I just went back to RACING.  At THIS point, all I cared about was pushing MYSELF as hard as I could to try to catch this woman. It wasn’t even about HER;  it was about ME.  What else pushes us when we’re training alone? Moments like this.

It was pouring, the grass was wet, mud was flying, and in that moment, I remembered why I loved this sport. It’s not always about where we finish, what we win, or what we lost.  I wanted to see if I could squeeze something more out of myself . . .  even (especially) when things weren’t going my way.

I ended up catching her RIGHT at the finish line, and then immediately went into projectile vomit mode. Not joking. It’s been a long time since I had one of those moments.  There’s vomit, and then there’s PROJECTILE vomit.  In a strange, disgusting way, it’s slightly gratifying.  (We are a strange breed, aren’t we?)

The conditions in this race were less than ideal, but then again, when are they ever ideal? My hat goes off to my fellow competitors, as we pulled the best out of each other on that given day. It was a bit of an adventure, and I’m so grateful that everyone finished without injury or crashing. A big thanks to Pip Taylor for being so sweet at the start when I was Debbie Downer about swimming in lightening, and to Jenny F. for putting up such a good fight at the end. I would’ve said more but I was too busy vomiting.

Thank you to my coach, Matt Russ of The Sport Factory, for his continued commitment to my development, and for being not only a great coach, but also a friend and a mentor.