We arrived in DC mid afternoon on Saturday. We were about a block from our hotel when I spotted this:
For a second I thought about bailing on the race and go flying instead, but I didn’t. Even though it looked like so much fun. When we walked into the hotel, it was funny to see so many people in the lobby with their bikes (major bike envy!) and tri gear. Got all our stuff in to the room and set off to find the mandatory pre-race meeting. Then we were allowed to check in and pick up our packets. As I got in line to get my race packet, I noticed 2 stacks of swim caps on the table at the end of my line – orange and pink. Oh no….the guy ahead of me was handed an orange cap, so that meant…pink for me…crap. As you know I am not a pink girl, but I suppose it was inevitable. Looking back, I should have seen that as a bad omen. There had been major thunderstorms leading into Saturday, so there were rumors of the swim being cancelled because of poor water conditions (although I would assume the Potomac River never really has good water conditions!). It wasn’t cancelled, but at about 6:45am Sunday morning, I was wishing it had. Next it was back to the room, grab the bikes and find the shuttle to drop the bikes off in transition for the night. It was strange loading our “babies” into the luggage compartment under a tour bus, but we crossed our fingers and hoped for a smooth ride. We arrived at the sight of transition, racked our bikes (oof! really tight quarters!) and walked over to take a quick peek at the river. It was very choppy, muddy and lots of debris rushing around. Hmmmm…..back on the bus to the hotel.
It was about 7:00pm and we decided to try to find something easy for dinner. After walking around the downtown for a bit, we spotted a Chop’t (salad place also in NYC) and got some food to go back to the hotel. As we get in to the elevator to go back up to the room this guy steps in right behind us. I look up in the mirrored wall of the elevator cab to see that is was….Matt Reed!
How cool is that? He smiled, but we didn’t say anything. I wanted to say, “good luck tomorrow!” but I didn’t want to bother him. The doors opened (he was on the same floor as us) and he sprinted (literally) down the hall. We quickly walked to our room and I immediately called Maija to let her know that we rode in the elevator with one of her “favs”. We ate, did a bit of math to estimate our race times and then it was time to sleep.
PRE-RACE SELF PORTRAIT
The alarm went off at 3:30and again at 3:45am (ouch.) My nerves and nutrition were much better then Mooseman morning, so I was able to eat a bagel, some yogurt and get in a good amount of water. Then it was downstairs to catch the 4:30am shuttle to transition. What was a 15 minute ride the previous night, was a 40+minute ride! Oh my! The driver finally stopped and everyone said we would walk the last mile to transition. Ugh! Pre-race set up and time for working out the potty breaks seemed to work out well. It was announced that the start was being delayed by about 10-15minutes due to heavy traffic getting to the race start. So I waited with Matt until it was time for him to get into the chute to walk down to the dock to the swim start. I cheered Matt as he started and then walked back up to get in line to wait for my start. I didn’t feel nervous as I watched the people before me jump in the water at the dock, bob around and then start swimming. Then it was my turn to get in the water. I slid in off the dock and thought, ok let’s get this over with. I started swimming and almost immediately my stomach began to feel ishy. I slowed to a dog paddle (sigh) and cursed at and pleaded with myself in my head. PLEASE…. lungs just breath and arms swim so I can move forward before I puke. Unfortunately, they did not listen. As I continued to dog paddle, I drank some water (gack!) and felt even worse. I contemplated stopping at each kayak I passed, but I kept paddling. I think I may have managed to actually swim about 3-5 minutes of 21_mins. I just want OUT OF THE WATER!! Why must my body refuse to do what my brain is telling it to do?? I know I can do this! What’s my deal here?!? I finally made in to the ramp out of the water and walked to transition. Grrrr!!!!
I got on my bike preparing to put the lousy swim behind me. Easier said than done as I was coughing up crap for what felt like was the first half of the ride. Disgusting! My legs got going after the first couple miles, but my stomach was still not feeling too reliable. The second half of the ride felt pretty good. I was wishing I could do another lap to redeem myself. The course had a few inclines (nothing I would call hills) and was mostly long stretches with 2 turn arounds. It could have been so much fun. I think I was most disappointed in my bike time. I should have been able to kick some butt out there. I secretly wanted to hit 19-20mph. Not meant to be this time, I guess. The run was what it usually is for me…it just is. Although, until I looked at my results, I thought I was a little faster than normal…nope! Ah well…the best part was that I was pain free during and after the run. Well, relatively speaking that is, it was virtually nothing. Perhaps the free ART session at the expo on Sat night did some good!
I finished in 1:39:15 and waited in the misting rain to cheer Matt across the finish line. He looked strong and fast!! He had a great race (aside from a few blisters). I am so proud of his performance! It feels so good to see him achieve the goals he has set for himself. He has put so much sweat equity into his hours of training this past winter. It is very gratifying to see it paying off for him.
After that we walked the few blocks to the hotel, did a super quick clean up and headed back down to the finish line with the camera to watch the pros race. We stood right beside their T2 transition area. I was so close I could have reached out and touched Andy Potts’ bike! It was really exciting to see them zipping by on the 8 bike laps and then the 4 run laps to the finish. The most amazing part to me was watching them come in to T2, jump off the bikes, sprint to their respective racks, bike gear off, run shoes on and GO!! It had a bit of an Indy 500 feeling without the cars!
After the men’s pro race was complete we walked the mile or so back to transition to pick up our gear and bikes. We got there in time to see the pro women finish the first swim lap, run up the ramp and dive back in to the water for a second lap. Fun to see that. By the time we got our stuff packed up. The women were coming out of the water, so we cheered for them in T1 and then walked back to the finish area in time to watch the last couple laps of their bike and the run. All I kept saying to Matt as these amazing women would speed past us each lap was, “WOW!” “Look at their backs!” “Look at their legs!” Talk about inspiration! And what I loved the most was that even though each woman was obviously extremely fit, lean and muscular, they didn’t look like clones of each other. Tall, short, broad backs, long legs, big quads…..and they were all out there kicking a$$! I loved it!
We spotted Matt Reed with his wife and kids watching the elite women’s race. As people stopped to ask him for his autograph or photo, he seemed happy to oblige. After the women’s race, we walked back to the hotel following behind him and his family. He was pushing the baby stroller while his wife kept an eye on the toddler/little boy. A few minutes later we heard his wife say to the little boy, “Hey! Who is that?” as she pointed to the guy walking down the street toward them. The little boy yells,” ANDY!!” and runs toward him. I have to say it was a bit surreal to observe this moment between the 2 Olympians and their families as we walked by. Don’t get to see that every day, right! Oh, by the way…yes they were both wearing compression socks and shorts. Nice.
The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and enjoying some of the sights together. It was so very nice. We went to the History of American History, WWII Memorial, and Washington Memorial. We had a delicious dinner at Legal Seafood and then some frozen yogurt to end a wonderful day. This morning was another beautiful day of weather. We went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and then packed up for the drive back to NJ. Even though my race wasn’t what I wanted, it was a great weekend. Matt set some new PR’s, we got to see the pros race and we spent time together relaxing in a wonderful city with beautiful weather.
I’m looking forward to the next 6 weeks of training for Tango and Timberman. I want to focus on my biking and running. The biking is just so much fun to me and I can’t wait to get faster. I have loved the interval workouts I have done with Maija (anticipating more of those) and I’m looking forward to putting in the miles along side of Matt for his Timberman half prep. I want to work on increasing my run speed, especially off the bike. My goal is a 9:00 pace for the Timberman sprint. My super secret goal is an 8:45….or 8:30! I see lots of track workouts in my future!
As for the swim….no more pink caps.
2 comments:
I love the pink cap pic! And great pics/stories from the pros.
You get to learn something from every race, sometimes you can learn more from the ones that don't go as well as you want. And great that the run was pain free!!!
Lots of fun workouts ahead!
Glad to here you were pain free. That swim thing messes you up. I was talking to guy recently who did his first tri. He got kicked in the chest so hard that he started to hyper ventilate. He said it was 3/4 of the way through the bike before he felt better and his run was way slower than he wanted.
Good job. Always remember if you really analyze color, pink is really the absence of pink because that is the color that wasn't absorbed.
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