Philly Tri

(Sunday, June 28th … yes, I’m late)

Going in to this race I was fired up. I was exactly 3 weeks post Rev and I had finally stopped laughing at the bizarreness of the hills and coming to grips with the fact that I in fact rode my bike up those hills. After that an Olympic Tri seemed like pie (and it rhymes too). Plus, I was doing this race with a good friend (S) and she was handling logistics – all I had to do was be at her house the day before the race. She had arranged for our hotel and a ride for us. When I arrived we were both wearing the same 5 year old JCrew skirt – what are the odds? S and her friend K were doing their first oly race and I was psyched to be there with them. It kind of reminded me of the small handful of random science and math classes that I took over the year and actually understood – I would help friends learn the material as well and wind up acing the test. Talking S&K down and through the race didn’t leave me much time to worry about things myself and I sort of went on auto pilot right until the gun went off and it worked.

Anyway, we made it to packet pick up and then back to the hotel and dinner where another of their mutual friends freaked them out about the “hilly technical course.” Um yeah, it was a hard course but there were never going to come in first and they were always going to grind up those hills so why freak them out un-necessarily? Whatever. For a variety of lame reasons we didn’t get much sleep that night but got up and to the start rather un-eventfully.

One of my only gripes about the race is that Transition was at the bottom of a hill right next to the river and the trek in and out was long and tiring. But we made it down, got set up and body marked (I only advised S&K when asked but politely suggested that they might want to forego rinsing their feet off with water and then applying baby powder before putting on socks – I mean really, who comes up with these things?). We had to take a short bus ride to the swim start and S&K opted to porta potty before getting on the bus – I opted to do whatever had to be done to get myself in that river before my wave started. It was my first ever river swim and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that … it was fine though. The water was warmish and we were swimming with the current. I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as clean but there was nothing floating in it (that I saw) and compared to the Hudson it was narrow and calm so I wasn’t really worried. Although, I will say that without S&K to distract me I started getting nervous for the first time all day.

We waited around for a bit – monitored the earlier waves (this was a BIG RACE) to see what the current did to them and then we were called down to the dock …

The Swim
(27:05)

Clearly this was with the current. We slid off the dock and into the water and I positioned myself to the left (the outside of the turn line) and about ¾ of the way back. I breath mostly to my left and S breaths mostly to her right and strangely we were together breath for breath, stroke for stroke for several minutes. Eventually though I decided I was lolly gagging and was READY TO BE OUT OF THE WATER so I picked it up and we got separated (she would only finish 20 seconds behind me though – go S). I was happy with the swim but I still maintain that I can do better if I just get a bit out of my comfort zone. Someday.

T1
(3:45)

Not great but not bad either. I did not put baby powder on my feet;)

Bike
(1:40:53)

As promised, the course was hilly and technical. But the hills were shortish up and over in 3-5 minute fellas – no Rev type monsters. And there were flats. Where you could go more than 12mph. Seriously, I saw numbers like 18 and 20! It was a two loop course which I don’t really like but at least you know what to expect on the second loop … and for awhile I fully expected that if I picked it up just a little bit on the second loop I could come in under or at least really close to 1:30 and then I flew by K who had crashed (but was up walking around and talking to volunteers) - I yelled back to her to ask if she was ok and she said she was and I should go on. So I did but immediately wondered if that was the right move … I had more or less decided that she was in good hands and there wasn’t much I could do when I found myself at the bottom of a big hill in a high gear and shifted too fast and dropped my chain and COULD NOT get it back on – I had tried to get it back on without dismounting and got it jammed in their good. When I finally had things fixed I decided to walk the few yards to the bottom of the hill and start over. I also said good bye to 1:40. But at least K was okay (although her race was over).

On the next hill I found myself behind a young man whose shorts at ripped right up the center of his ass. Nice fella. He apologized to me for the view.

T2
(3:04)

Um, this was a big race with a big transition area.

Run
(1:01:19)

Early in the run I saw S’s husband and indicated that K had hurt her hand (seemed like the body part least likely to cause alarm – K had actually scraped up much more than her hand) and was probably not finishing the bike … fortunately a friend went to retrieve her from medical. The run was weird in that it was flat. I almost don’t know what to do without some terrain changes to keep me on my toes. So I ran and ran and it was hot and got hotter and my water proof watch had decided to fill with water so I had to really strain to see splits and overall time. By now I was feeling Rev in my legs and wile I would have loved to come in under an hour I was pleased with just over. I crossed the finish line and would have loved to jump into a tub of ice. Unfortunately there was not one available.

So I drank some water, ate some bread and waited for S who had stopped to be with K for a bit but then decided to finish her race. And she did finish strong.

So in all, it was a solid 3:16 performance and 12 minute PR. I don’t think I’ll do this specific race again because its big and technical and at the bottom of a big hill (seriously, walking up the hill to the car was probably the hardest part of the day! S&K had husbands to carry their crap but I was on my own!) but I know that without any mechanicals and without having done Rev 3 weeks prior I can continue to improve!

Up next … why you should never leave home without an emergency gu and a gps …