Heading into Syracuse 70.3 I was feeling pretty good. I had just watched Brian's inspiring come back after injury to win Rev3 Williamsburg. I was excited about taking on a challenging and different course. I would get to catch up with some Canadian friends as well. Training had been going great and I was ready to finally put together this half distance.
In the couple days leading up to the race my stomach was feeling a little iffy, but I just chalked it up to nerves and carried on. In retrospect, once it was feeling off, I could have been more careful about pre race eating/sleeping. Race morning was beautiful, the temps were going to be great, the water was calm and the wind was pretty low.
It was an in-water start and I lined up in the second row and in the middle. We all kind of jumped when the gun went off because there hadn't been the typical 10 sec warning, but we were off. I had an ok start. This sort of triangle formed and I was on the edge of it, which wasn't the best place to be. I tried to sort of break into the triangle and got elbowed in the face (my fault), and then decided to try and go around and that was somewhat effective. Then I ended up being the one with people on my feet and a break to the next group. I had just resigned myself to doing the work on the swim, when a woman came up next to me. Yes! She was moving at a good clip and I slid in behind her. So I was with a little group of 3 for the rest of the swim. I could feel that I was swimming fairly well, and I gotta say, my new Zoot prophet felt awesome. My shoulders didn't get tired and I felt very smooth in the water. On the way back in, my head felt a little fuzzy, and then all of a sudden I puked a little! I thought oh man that's weird but carried on. Getting out of the water, glanced at my watch and saw just under 30 min, sweet! It was going to be a good day. Running up into transition, I felt very sluggish and fuzzy. I figured the good effort on the swim and then all of a sudden going vertical was just going to be an adjustment. I took a little more time in T1 than usual, wanting to make sure I could calm down a little.
The first 2 miles of the bike were fast, and gave me a chance to calm myself a little after the swim. After those two miles, the climbing started, going right into a nice hill out of town. When we turned onto Sweet Rd to start the bulk of the climb, I went to shift and heard the chain fall off. Shoot! Thankfully, I couldn't have done it in a better place, I was literally right in front of the bike support guys. They ran over and immediately started working on it. The chain was stuck pretty badly in between the frame and crank and took a few minutes to get it unstuck. In the meantime, I got to watch a bunch of the women come by. This was frustrating for sure, but I hadn't lost hope. I did get slightly worried when one the bike techs said something about possibly having to get me on a different bike. Finally the chain came out and they did this cool Tour de France type thing where I got on and clipped in and they pushed me until I got going. Thank you awesome bike support guys for your quick work! I made a mental note to be careful shifting gears and carried on up the climb. I took the climb a bit conservatively (maybe too conservatively) knowing that it would get faster later on. The course is beautiful and the descents were fun. I didn't see another rider for a long time, and focused on nutrition, hydration, cadence and power. My nutrition wasn't going down as easily as it usually does. Warning, possibly TMI, I kept burping stuff up and my stomach felt full and gurgly. I took some extra salt in an effort to calm it but it wasn't going down like it usually does after extra salt. Finally about halfway through the bike I saw riders up ahead. Yay, people to chase! I started reeling them in and was having fun chasing people down. I was probably a little too scared of pushing it more on this bike course, I think getting out to ride more hilly routes will be beneficial going into Placid so I know how much I can push it. About 1/2 mile from T2 something weird was happening with my derailleur, I thought oh no just hang in there one more minute! Coming into T2 all of a sudden I was like, whoa I gotta pee, and was actually able to pee on the bike! I was so excited about this that I forgot to get out of my shoes and ran into T2 with one bike shoe on and one off... I gotta tell you, I looked super pro.
I could see a couple of the women and they were close, I thought ok hold it together and you can catch them. I grabbed my stuff and started running. My turnover was good and my legs felt good and not at all over worked from the bike. But my head was feeling fuzzy. I thought ok, start the nutrition, you've got caffeine and salt. My stomach was still feeling gross and the burping up of stuff hadn't stopped, so I popped some more salt and tried to focus on the woman in front of me. My pace was already much slower than I had anticipated, but with the grassy hill coming out of transition I decided to just go with it. There were some rolling smaller hills on the first part of the out and back (you did it twice) and then there was the beast of a hill at the end of each loop. I shortened my stride and kept telling myself, c'mon your legs feel fine, pick it up and keep going. I started to get this weird sensation where I would feel cold for a few minutes, then really hot and thirsty the next couple minutes. I tried more salt, with not much difference. It was frustrating and I'm not going to lie and say that my head space remained super positive. Coming back around for the second loop, I seriously considered dropping. I was already way back and was just not feeling any better. I have never really considered a DNF, it crosses my mind occasionally, but never as a serious option. I thought of the time I'd put in to get there, I thought of the people that support us, and I thought of the kids I was visiting on the way home. I wanted to set a good example, that no matter how bad you feel (unless you're going to get injured), you don't quit. After shuffling up the beast hill the second time, I came back down and saw my Canadian friend Andrea (who had an amazing race after crashing on the bike). She cheered so loudly for me, I was able to get it together a tiny bit. An amateur female had passed me and I was about to pass her back, I tried not to feel bad for myself that a couple of the amateurs were up on me. Instead, I thought well my race is obviously not really going anywhere, but maybe I can help her. I came by and said come on, let's bring this in together, you've got this. We ran in most of the rest of the way together, me getting even a little boost from being able to help someone else. Huge congrats to Andrea winning her AG after crashing on the bike, David for a strong race, Hana for gutting it out on a tough course, Heather for her awesome 4th place pro and the Welch brothers for strong races.
I'm asked sometimes "what is a good race for you?" I consider a good race, a race where I finish with nothing left, my legs full of lactic acid, my heart pounding, just completely exhausted. While I know there may have been other stuff going on, it was heart breaking for me to finish with relatively fresh legs. Yes my stomach and head weren't so fresh, but I still relish that super sore, ran yourself into the ground feeling. Fortunately, I still have 4 more big races this season to capture that feeling. I am especially excited for the next one, Lake Placid, because Brian and some friends are racing. All I can do now is go back to the drawing board and also know that the majority of my remaining season focuses on my strength: the Iron distance. Three out of four of the remaining races are courses I'm somewhat familiar with and have had good results on. I haven't raced Lake Placid before, but we will have a chance to go train on the course. Overall, things are looking good.
So lessons learned:
1. Don't run into peoples elbows in the swim
2. Look into chain stays and practice shifting on climbs
3. Even when excited that you can finally pee on bike, 200m before bike dismount is probably not the best place to practice
4. If feeling sick, suck it up and think about how awesome legs feel
5. If feeling sick, guzzling water and chocolate milk after race will probably result in puking all over yourself...
6. Enjoy the process and think about all the awesome races left in the season
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