Troika Race Report!!

Who knew that the best summer ever could get even better???

HH and I bagged the Seattle swim on Friday pre-road-trip and went for coffee with Tatyana, slowly got our crap together (oh, and HH bought a new Tri Top and some socks at REI on the way out of town because...well, why would you do that more than 2 days before a race, right?) and had a leisurely drive over to Spokane. We stayed with some friends, Barb & Ingrid, whose home could kick any B&B's butt (and let's just say Barb could take Martha Stewart hands down in any cooking contest...effortlessly). They are amazing hosts and we started off the weekend on Friday night with a great outdoor sunset dinner and some wine on one of their patios. Then we slept 10 hours...yup, I slept till 9:00 a.m. for the second time in a month!!

On Saturday, Barb busted out the usual amazing breakfast on their other patio and then we went to the bike shop...because, of course, HH decided to get a bike computer and some aerobars on her bike for the race the next day. Yup, that's right...brand new equipment, untested...that girl nailed the Shotgun Half Iron from beginning to end. And, of course, the bike shop dude, Tomas, was more than happy to fit her (in her skirt and flip flops, of course) to some sweet new bars. We also went out to Medical Lake and had a great swim on the race course...then to the athlete meeting and the big 'ol group dinner in town. Minimal beer, we actually behaved responsibly.

By Saturday night (when HH tested her aerobars for, hm, it must've been 5 whole minutes in her flip flops--good to go, no worries), I was definitely twitching and getting excited...in between laughing at/with her, as usual.

On race day, I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and made myself go back to sleep for an hour...at 4:30, I was pretty much jumping on HH like a kid at Christmas and saying, "We get to race today! We get to race today!!" To which our rookie shotgun triathlete replied, "Can't this thing happen at 10:00?" She rallied, though, like a champ, and we were in the car headed to Medical Lake pronto as my phone started dinging with text messages from Tatyana that started with, "Ready to play hard?" Giddyup!

We beat all the shuttle busses to the lake, got good bike rack real estate next to Stacey in T1, and had plenty of time to visit the portos, set things up, and shoot some photos. It was only about 50 degrees and pretty brisk, so getting in the water was a welcome idea by 7:00 a.m.

SWIM: There were 2 waves...the first wave of yellow caps were the men and the second were pink caps of women and teams. It was a beach start (thus, had to pee standing on the beach, everyone was doing it) and I pushed my way up to the front as my stealth goal was to win my age group...busted right out and had immediate swim space with no combat...sweet. I busted out pretty fast and wondered if maybe it was TOO fast, but settled in pretty well and started picking off yellow caps by the second buoy. Love that. The water was perfect and calm and I had a great swim...31:51. I was the 4th woman out of the water and first in my age group, mission accomplished.

T1: Not the most efficient, but not too bad...I was out on the bike pretty quick.

Bike: First 10 miles: Brrr. It was shady and still cold...toes were numb. I warmed up by mile 20, but didn't feel the toes on my left foot till about mile 30. The bike course was beautiful...great scenery, rolling hills, no wind, some blazing descents...perfect. I kept seeing things like a really cool yard full of sunflowers and thinking that I hoped Heather and Tatyana noticed them (of course they did, we de-briefed later, they were all over the scenery, too). There were lots of big open spaces where I was riding totally solo and could sing when I felt like it...way fun. I made up a new nutrition schedule en route that I really liked...I'd done the usual fillet of PowerBars in my bento box and cut 2 bars into 5 pieces each. I drank Nuun and ate a fillet as soon as I was out of T1 and every 5 miles up to mile 40 and then went with the bottle of Perpetuem for the last 16 miles. Perfect. I really pushed this bike ride more than I have in any other race...I can honestly say that I really left it all out there and met the "slightly uncomfortable" goal. No wondering this time, "Could I have gone a little harder?" I was worried a couple of times (as I had been in the swim) that I might be a little closer to redline than I should be, but I was right on. I finally figured out how to "race" this distance! Psyched about the bike and killed my goal time: 2:58:12.

T2: Wow, they set this up so streamlined and supported...I think I was under 30 seconds. (Now let's talk for a minute about HH's T2 time of something like 3-4 minutes...I had to ask, "jesus, what'd you do, read a magazine?" I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure the volunteers were telling her she had to get her ass out on the run course and clear out some bench space for the cyclists coming in behind her...too funny)

Run: I hit the portos right out of T2...had to pee for a long time on the bike, but waited till transition. As I headed out on the run, I was again a little worried that I may have pushed too hard on the bike and might not have left enough for the run...I could definitely feel it a little more than usual. But I figured wtf, I'm still learning how to race this and I'll know if I screwed up pretty soon. I set my intention to stay steady and inside my ability...and managed to keep that strategy for the whole run.

The run was out-and-back flat on a trail with some shade, but plenty of sun. Guess who forgot to put sunscreen on (I swear I forgot and didn't bag it on purpose), but fortunately, I didn't get fried. About 2 miles into the run, a chick went blazing by me and we briefly chatted about the fact that she should "just go with it" while she felt good and I laughed out loud when she said, "yeah, you know what they say...if it feels good, just wait, it'll pass!" The run was well-supported with great volunteers, sponges, etc...the only bummer was that they were giving out Heed and I can't friggin' stand that crap. However, I walked a little and drank some at every station religiously. By the turnaround, I'd only been dropped a few times and had counted about 10-12 women coming back toward me. I was feeling pretty competitive to hold my ground...I was also psyched to start looking for "my" people on the way back and saw Tatyana right away, looking strong like always. At about mile 8-9, Heather and I passed each other. She looked really strong, too, and of course, her smile was visible from a LONG way off, as always...so fun! And getting a brief kiss in the middle of the run course was (1) a first and (2) quite the energy boost (and fortunately, despite the fact this was Spokane, we were not assaulted by any offended locals in pick up trucks). I also saw Ann, Stacey, Deb, LaVonne...it way fun to keep high fiving along the route. By the time I hit the last couple of miles, though, I was feeling a little stomach-y and was thanking the universe that this was NOT an Ironman (and that there is no Ironman next month, too, btw). I was really getting DONE and didn't have much left...one more chick passed me, but she wasn't in my age group, and I had no interest (or capacity) for chasing...just finished it out respectably. I was, of course, crunching the numbers throughout and realized that I'd be able to smash my goal time, so I finished pretty beat, but sky high. I was psyched to hit the run under 2 hours. Nancy and Cheryl were at the finish and Nancy led me around like a mom to get some recovery food and my sweatshirt...very sweet.

Run time: 2:58:12.
(Run splits: 9:50--including porto stop, 8:40, 8:50, 8:46, 9:17, 9:21, 7:47 (huh? marker off, maybe), 9:12, 9:46, 8:39, 9:39, 8:43, and last 1.1 = 9:59)

Total time: 5:31:11!!!

I went 3rd in my age group and actually picked up a little hardware later!! Whoop!!!

I didn't have to wait very long until HH came in (Holy crap, 6:08!!). And let's just re-cap THAT story for a minute, shall we? Shotgun Half Iron Girl raced this thing with almost nothing she'd owned for more than a month (other than her sports bra and a pair of the crappiest bike shoes ever that should have been replaced)...her bike, running shoes, tri suit, aerobars, all new...oh, and a running hat of Cathy's she found in her Jeep about an hour before the race started. She also did 2 bricks in her month of training, learned to swim in open water, had no race plan, stopped to pee 6 (that's S-I-X) times during the race including once on the bike course...and basically napped in transition (when she wasn't putting conditioner in her hair post-swim, no I'm NOT kidding, cause a girl can't have tangles, you know). Did I mention she was not nervous one damn bit for this thing, either. All of THAT being said, she did a 6:08 (hmmm, exactly my PR prior to this race after I'd done 3 years of training). Pretty cool and couldn't happen to a nicer person!

Here's a shot of us de-briefing with one of our hosts, Barb, after the finish...

Here's a pre-race shot in T1...

Another pre-race shot with Stacey (in between her doses of Pepto Bismal...way to hang in there, Stace, rock on, sister!)
And another post-race shot of some happy happy girls!