Nathan's Triathlon, Olympic (Sept 27); Race Report

This was going to be my first Olympic and I even had a training plan. I planned to stick to that plan. And for the most part at the end of the week, my hours equaled or exceeded what the plan said to do. The problem was that I didn’t always do what the plan said. And I used mountain biking to fill my biking hours. We all know that mtn biking takes longer than road biking. Still, I went into the race feeling good about the swim (which I was really hoping was going to be wetsuit legal) and the bike. My run was going to poor as usual, but I was hoping, after the first .5 mi or so that I could start running between each aid station.

Bike was racked the night before so didn't have to worry about that. Set up my transition, freaked out about doing the swim then the whole race. Hung out with the other TTG's. I knew I could finish, but I have a personal competitive streak where I hate being passed by people. Minor goals were to stay within sight of Kathy on the swim (Robin if I was feeling super awesome), ave about 16 mph on the bike and finish the run before everyone left.

The swim course was determined to be 200-250m long which is why it has 1914 yds (1750m) in the distance rather than the advertised 1500m.

I did swim a bit off course (into the middle) but certainly not far enough for my swim pace to be as low as it was at the assumed 1500m swim. I started in the back and tried to stay outside. I managed to pass some silver caps (1 wave in front) and on the way back, caught up to and passed a couple green caps (2 waves in front). Only noticed a few yellow caps (1 wave behind) go by, but there could have been more since I only breathe to the right! Out of the water and super disappointed by my time (which is later remedied by the longer distance).

My transitions are always a little slow, I struggle with being a bit dizzy from the swim. Plus you always feel like you should run up the swim out because it is lined with people and then I get out of breath. I got my stuff changed and headed out on the bike only hear to someone yelling at me to "Go get 'em!," turns out Kathy was right behind me at the start of the bike...of course I never saw her again, but oh well. Goal #1 accomplished.

It was a weird course, there were a fair amount of nice straight areas to get aero and try to hammer away but there was a lot of turns, including 2 180's. I got yelled at by some guy for slowing down on a really tight 180. Guess I should work on cornering? I yelled at a guy on my 2nd lap because I initiated a pass, instead of dropping back he sped up, which meant it took me longer than 15s to pass. Then I look back and see him sitting on my rear wheel. So I told him to get off and stop drafting. He later passed me. Loser. :) I averaged 16.3 mph on the bike. Goal #2 accomplished.

T2 was awesome. If I read the results right, I made up nearly 30 spots in T2 among the women. I even took a detour to the bag I put by the fence to grab an extra water bottle since I drank it all on the bike.

This is where everything fell apart. I had been running more (a little), but I get bored with just long runs so I had been doing a lot of shorter intervals and then track workouts on Wed. So I've gotten ok at running at decent paces (for me) for short distances and then recovering. I tried to just run slow, but by time I hit the run it had to be 95 or so and 99% of the run was exposed. My goal going in was, after the first mile (get rid of the lead legs), to try and run/jog between the aid stations. Within .5 mi I was dying out there. My hamstring had cramped up on the bike (probably cuz I messed with my fit during the week) and I kept getting side stitches. I resorted to jogging 2 light poles, walking 1, walking the aid stations, walking where there was shade. My husband had time enough in my first lap to go climb A mountain. Yeah, I'm slow. People began to worry about me on my 2nd lap and were thinking of riding out on the course to find me.

Tried not to collapse, puke or cry. There was pizza at the post race food table - I felt sick looking at it.

I will blame it on the heat. Truth is that I'd like to to think I trained for this; and for the majority of the weeks I put in the total hours required for each sport, but I didn't "train," I went through the motion. My plan for Oct is to get through what I left of races/events based on existing fitness (thank god they are all sprints) and focus on my marathon training. I HAVE to run, I HAVE to stop making excuses. My 10K run took longer than a 24 mile bike. I was nearly 30 mins off my 'expected/goal' time for the run. When I signed up for this race I was thinking with some work I could go around 3 hours. As time went on, I modified that to 3:30. I was 24 mins over 3:30 - 3:30 should not have been hard to accomplish, that was expecting something to go wrong. After I got home I really started to doubt myself on whether my body couldn't take it on the 2nd run lap or if I was mentally shutting myself down. Maybe I didn't push hard enough and I just gave up. Maybe I didn't. This was, overall, a disappointing race for me. I'm pleased with my swim, ok with my bike and depressed with my run. And I think I can do a HIM next year?

Pictures: Nathan's Olympic