Results : Chip Time 1:33:21
400 M Swim 10:53, Pace 2:43/m
t1 3:03
20 k bike 43:03 Pace 17.4 mph
3.45 mile run 34:23 Pace 10:07 M * ( My Garmin shows a 9:50 M pace)
The highlight of this race was meeting up for the dinner the night before with other Tri4Him members from Houston, DFW and Austin. This race had been been chosen as a regional challenge between the area groups, and we were competing for the coveted "Golden Shoe" trophy. We all met at the hotel restaraunt for a pre race dinner and fellowship on Saturday evening. It was great to catch up with the members of the Houston group we had met in Kemah, as well as get aquainted with some new friends too. It was amazing to see us fill the entire restaraunt, and the next morning to see so many Tri4Him kits out on the course. I'm truly blessed to be part of such a great team.
Race morning started early, but I felt more relaxed about the race than usual. We could literally roll out of bed to transition. We were able to go down and set up transition, then return to our hotel room for breakfast and to cool off in the A/C for a little while before the pre race meeting. The most important part of the meeting was Jack reminding everyone to stay hydrated and he cautioned us to be careful in the heat. Something I should have been more mindful of, especially since I had been battling some type of stomach bug since Thursday.
The swim was a wave start, but the starting buoy this time was beyond where I could touch the river bottom. I didn't want to add time to my swim by waiting near the shore, so I swam out to the front of the wave and treaded water until the horn sounded. The swim was set up as a square, each corner was a yellow turn bouy that were 100 meters apart. In between those was an orange one that was 50 meters from the corners. I was able to get into a pretty good rythm and being able to tell how far I was at each of the buoys helped spur me along. It felt like it didn't take any time at all to get to the halfway mark, and then I made the last turn, and swam parallel to the shore to the finish. As I was swimming towards the finish, I saw Cindy, from the Houston Tri4Him team, running up towards transition, which inspired to push a little harder to the finish. The water was hot, and I was sweating when I clambered out of the water, but I was happy to see I had shaved 1:10 off my previous OWS time.
We had to run up a long ramp to get back to transition, so I wasn't too shocked to see a longer transition time for T1. I did the usual, race skirt, shoes, sunglasses, helmet, and out. The bike course felt pretty flat, and I felt as though I pushed hard for most of it. We rode for the most part on the shoulder, and I noticed several people stopped to fix flat tires during the race. They had swept it the day before, but I guess overnight some broken glass had accumulated. I was glad to see George starting his bike ride as I was heading in. I always feel more at ease when I know he's exited the water safely. I had a hard time with the gel caps, they were melty and sticky, and felt like a gooey blob in my mouth. It certainly didn't help that as I was about to eat my last one I noticed a dead, stinking, armadillo on the roadside. I had two water bottles with me on my bike, one filled with water and one filled with Nuun. By the end of the bike portion, I had only consumed about 1/4 of the Nuun bottle. I wasn't feeling my best, and didn't stop to think that I should have been taking in much more fluid during this race. My husband marks his bottles and gives himself a 12 minute timer to remind himself drink to each mark. I definitely need to do this on my next race. And I'm ditching the gel caps. I'm going to try hydrating with Heed while I ride.( Maybe I"ll keep a few sport beans in my bag too. )
After I dismounted my bike and started to run into T2, I dropped my bike, twice. I really don't know how it happened, but it was probably a clue that I was starting to dehydrate and feeling unsteady. I remember feeling like the sun was just beating down on my when I was putting on my running shoes. Before I finished the first mile, one of my calves started to cramp up. I saw my running speed steadily decrease, my legs felt heavy and I was nauseous. By the time I came to the split where the sprint course turns and heads up the ramp to the first bridge, both of my calves were cramping. There was an aid station, and I sipped a bit of water before dumping it on my head to cool off. My brain just wasn't working, I should have stopped to drink some Gatorade at this point, and the calf cramps should have been a clue that I was dehydrated. But all I could think of was cooling off. I ran slowly up to the bridge and after I crossed it we were no longer running in the shade. I felt unbearably hot, and continued to slow down. Just then a guy passed me wearing a shirt that said "Quitting is not an option". I focused on that saying and followed that shirt for the rest of the race. I knew that this race wasn't going to be a PR, and so I focused on just maintaing a comfortable pace to finish the last 2 miles. It felt like an eternity, and all I could think about was heading up to shower in the air conditioned hotel room when I finished. We had to run up one more ramp so we could cross the bridge towards the finish line. The distance of this run was actually 3.45 miles instead of the usual 3.1, and for some reason that little bit of extra distance seemed to take so much longer. And looking at my splits, I had slowed to runing at an 11 minute pace for the final .45 mile. As I crossed the finish line, I could barely muster the energy to raise my arms, and certainly wasn't smiling.
I gratefully recieved my finisher medal, took in as much fluid as possible and headed up to the hotel for a cold shower. After I cooled down, I went back down to the race area to check in on George. He was just coming in to transition from the bike and beginning his run. I knew his time seemed way to slow for his usual bike pace, and found out later he had flatted on the course. I watched him cross the finish line about an hour later, and knew he had a tougher race than I did. It seemed as though much of my team had suffered during this race, it was just too hot.
I think I was pretty lucky that I didn't suffer from heat exhaustion during this race. I had tried to hydrate well in the days preceding the race, but my stomach issue had probably left me in a little bit of a deficiet as far as keeping fluids down. Being sick right before the race made me weaker, and once I got out to race in the heat, my thinking wasn't as clear as it should have been. I felt pretty awful by the end of the race. It's been an unusually hot summer, and I'm not planning on racing in August. Triathlon has been a fun hobby for me, and I'd like to keep it that way. I don't see any reason to suffer through another race in this type of heat. But, I'll still be training for my next race in October. Hopfully by then mother nature will have brought back some more reasonable temperatures.
