Total time: 1:46:02
Swim: 20:04 (2:30/100 yd. Good swim for me, but still an area that has huge potential for improvement)
T1: 2:50 (I really need to work on my transition)
Bike: 56:56 (16.9 MPH average - 55th overall on bike. Yay!)
T2: 2:10 (I blame the long run with bike from dismount line to the farthest rack, but again need to work on transition)
Run: 24:03 (9:37 min/mile pace. Not bad especially when compared to my lousy run at IG Columbia, plus I felt great during the run)
121st overall (out of 901)
35th in age group (out of 202)
The long version: (Don't say I didn't warn you...it's long)
I was inspired to sign up for this race when Stephen and I stayed at the Rocky Gap Resort for our anniversary. It rained the entire weekend that we were there, but it didn't diminish the beauty of the area. I looked out over the lake and thought "I'd really like to swim in that lake." So sitting in the hotel room back in March, I signed up for the IronGirl Rocky Gap race.
Upon getting to the area, we drove directly to packet pickup. Our hotel was only about 10 minutes from the packet pickup so we went there to check in before heading to the race site to rack my bike. The girls were excited about the hotel's pool so we let them play in the pool for about an hour. There was a pre-race meeting at 5 pm. We left the hotel at 4. It was enough time for me to rack my bike, drive the bike course and get back in time for the pre-race meeting.
Driving the bike course was good and bad. I always like to see the course before the race, however I got really intimidated by the hills. There seemed to be many challenging climbs and it was relentless...constantly up and down. I walked into the pre-race meeting with my first bout of nerves after seeing the course. The first person I saw was Heidi. We chatted and she told me that the bike course was perfect for me. She also said that the course was easier than Columbia. I still wasn't convinced. Here is the elevation for the bike course: It's an out and back so that's why it's a mirror image:
Race morning! I hate getting up early except on race morning. It's the only time that I jump out of bed instead of groaning and rolling over. The girls got up relatively easily and we were off to the race site. I took my stuff over to transition but realized that I had forgotten several things. So I had to go back to the car and get them. I also forgot to pump my tires so I grabbed my pump. I felt completely out of sorts at this point. Transition set up has always been easy for me...why was I struggling so much to remember basic things?
After getting everything set up and my tires pumped, I went to get marked. I saw Elliott who was my lucky charm at the IronGirl Columbia race. So I got in line for her to mark me. We hugged and she wished me luck. She recommended no wetsuit even though it was announced to be wetsuit legal. The water temps were reported to be 76.5 which sounded really warm to me. I was still on the fence about wetsuit/no wetsuit. It always takes me so long to get out of my wetsuit. I wasn't sure that I would gain enough advantage during the swim to make up for the additional time I would take in transition.
I walked back to the car and realized that Stephen and the girls were not there anymore. We had said to meet back at the car but I figured one of the girls probably had to go to the bathroom or something. I stood there for a few minutes but realized that I had to go to the bathroom. With an armload of stuff...bike pump, wetsuit, TriSlide, goggles, swim cap and watch...I wasn't sure what to do. So I left the bike pump next to the car, put on the watch and carried everything else. I waited in the porta potty line and realized that my swim cap was gone. I must have dropped it somewhere! I immediately panicked. I got out of line and tried to re-trace my steps but found no pink cap anywhere on the ground. I went back into the transition area and tried to find Elliott thinking that since she was a volunteer, she would know who I needed to talk to. She wasn't there anymore but I looked over and saw a pink swim cap laying on one of the bins in the volunteer area. I figured it was mine but didn't want to just take it without letting someone know. I found a volunteer and explained my situation. He said that someone had turned the cap in to them and it was probably mine. I literally jumped for joy and thanked him profusely.
Crisis averted, I now had another crisis in the making. I still needed to use the bathroom and the porta potty line was triple the size it had been previously. But I got in line and prayed for it to move quickly. Thankfully it did and there were no further crises.
I walked down to the beach area since they were about to start the race and I wanted to see the pros. I finally found Stephen and the girls. I finally started to calm down once the race started. I was enjoying watching the initial waves come out of the swim and run into the transition area. I saw Heidi and cheered for her but she was very focused and I don't think she heard me.
Finally it was my turn. I put on my recovered swim cap and headed down to the edge of the water.
As I rounded the final turn buoy and headed for the swim out arch, I tried to pick up the pace a little bit. I normally only have one speed when swimming, but I purposely pushed the pace on the finish. As I got out of the water and started running to transition, I checked my watch. It said 20 minutes. Wait, what??? I was planning on finishing the swim in 25 minutes. As I ran into transition, I noted that I didn't see Stephen and I figured it was because I finished a full 5 minutes ahead of when I thought I would! Wow...a good start to the day!
Transition was slow although I can't figure out why I took so long. I sat down and dried my feet (yes this is part of why it was slow), put on my socks and bike shoes, quickly ate a Stinger waffle, took 2 big gulps of Gatorade, put on my helmet and took off. I had forgotten to put my bike goggles in my transition area, so I had to ride without them. Grr...again, why was I so out of sorts with my transition set up? I had a great rack spot...the first spot on the rack closest to the bike out and run out.
At the mount line, I pushed off and thought "well here we go". I was determined not to let my head beat me on the hills. If there were hard climbs, that's fine, but I wasn't going to mentally get freaked out. I did that enough yesterday.
The bike course was fun. There were only 2 hills that I struggled to keep my speed above 8 MPH. However, there were a lot of really fun downhills. I got my speed up to 35 MPH at one point and wasn't scared at all! I have definitely come a long way with my comfort on the downhills. Just like IronGirl Columbia, I passed packs of other bikers at a time. I definitely had to holler for some people to get over...there were so many women riding in the middle or the left side of the lane.
However, the most frustrating part of the ride was an encounter with a car. The road was closed to traffic except residents who lived on that road. So other than the USAT officials on motorcycles, I only saw 2 cars the whole time. The 2nd car was the problem. The driver refused to try to go around a slow biker. The biker was probably going 10 MPH and the car just took up the lane following her at her speed. I was going around 20 MPH at this point so I came up on the situation pretty quickly. I couldn't cross the yellow line and there wasn't room on the right side to try to pass on the right, since the car was really close to the biker's tire. I yelled for the driver to move to the middle of the road so I could pass. The driver didn't move so I slowed down to try to assess the situation. What to do? Ugh...gotta get around this guy or else I'll be going 10 MPH for the rest of the ride. Finally the car moved slightly to the right side of the lane. Knowing that this was absolutely the wrong thing to do, I passed the car on its left but avoided crossing the double yellow line. Thinking back, I really don't know how else I could have handled it. I will need to talk with some more experienced triathletes to see what they think.
The bike course was an out and back. At the turn around, I must have bumped something because my cadence meter was no longer working when I started heading back. Knowing what good cadence feels like, I wasn't too concerned about it. I switched my computer over to the mileage counter so that I could see how much farther I had to go. With 1 1/2 miles left, I switched over to my average speed. It was 17 MPH. I knew I had one more decent climb to go and hitting an overall 17 MPH average was going to be a challenge. So I focused on climbing as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately my average dropped to 16.9 and I couldn't get it back over 17 even though I was going 25 MPH on the final downhill. Oh well. That's still a good average for a challenging course. The last half mile I focused on just spinning my legs out so that I would have an easier transition to running.
The longest part of T2 was the run from the dismount line to the transition area. And my rack was the farthest away from the bike in point, so that definitely slowed me down. Actual transition was pretty quick. As I jogged out of transition, I threw on my visor and smiled. I still felt great!
Another item that I forgot to put in transition was my running watch. I was wearing a watch where I was tracking the overall event time, but it doesn't have GPS so it can't tell me my running pace. I felt a little bit uncomfortable not knowing if I was going too fast or too slow...but once I started running, I actually felt really free not constantly worrying about my pace. The run course had a few hills but nothing like the IronGirl Columbia course. And this course was only 2.5 miles, which mentally was really good for me. I went into it thinking it was a short run.
About 3/4 of a mile into the run, I was settling into a comfortable pace when I saw John Hughes from Spin90. He was volunteering and doing support on the run. He was in his Spin90 gear and on his bike so he was easy to spot. I waved to him and briefly told him that I was really happy with my performance on the bike. He told me good job and commented that I looked like I was holding a nice steady pace on the run.
I hit the turn-around and knew I only had a little more than a mile to go. I was feeling really, really good. When I passed John again, I was chatting with a woman running next to me. (I would probably run a lot faster if I didn't talk so much while I was running! But what fun is that?) John started riding along next to me and I felt myself subconsciously pick up the pace to match him. This was good! He rode next to me for a little bit and encouraged me to go get the pack of women that were a short distance ahead of me. He knows I like a challenge, so I steadily picked up the pace again. He had to turn back and I waved and thanked him. I focused my attention on the pack of women. One by one I went by them until there was only 1 woman left in front of me from that pack. As I crossed the finish line, I also passed her. It was a great feeling. I heard the announcer say my name and I raised my arms in victory. What a fun race!
Finally I was able to see Stephen and the girls. They had missed me at every point in the race because I was going so much faster than I had originally estimated. Stephen was disappointed that he didn't get any action shots from the race, but I loved that I was faster than he expected!
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