Brian's Next Blog Attempt

Once again I've delayed the posting of a race report for far too long.  Here's my attempt at a quick entry:

While the weather was great for most of our trip, this was not the case on race day.  The remnants of Hurricane Ike just happened to pass through DC the day of our race.  According to a sign we saw on the way back after the race, the temperature was 99 degrees with what I'm sure was 100% humidity.  It was HORRIBLE.  We got to transition at around 5:30 in the morning and 15 minutes later I texted Ryan (who was still up partying after his race the day before):

It's quarter to 6.  The sun is not up.  I am not yet working out.  I am sweating from the heat/humidity. :(

So I was worried I was in for a rough day.  I got transition setup pretty quickly, went on a warmup run, then met the team for our pre-race picture and final coach's speech. 

I then went back to transition, grabbed my swim gear and headed to the bathroom.  As usual, the line was HUGE and my wave start was fairly early, so I didn't think I'd be able to make it to the portapotty and still make it to my wave start.  At my last two races I learned how to pee in my wetsuit during the swim warmup.  Unfortunately here, we got corraled in a pen and were only allowed in the water just before our wave start.  Based on past experience, I knew I wouldn't be able to relax enough to go in those precious few moments between my entry in the water and the starting gun, so I decided drastic measures were necessary.  I decided to put on my wetsuit and practice peeing in it outside of the water.  This turned out to be fairly easy to do, though while I was standing there with urine slowly dripping out onto my foot, a guy came up to me on the other side of the fence and asked me to move so he could jump over.  I let him in and briefly considered flinging a little on him, but decided it would be best not to anger my competition so early in the race.

As I stood waiting, I suddenly heard the most screeching, horrific rendition of the nation anthem that I've ever heard.  Only later did I learn that it was being played on an electric violin by a guy in a wetsuit who then jumped in the water and did the race.  I thought that was pretty cool once I found out what it was!  I'm just glad I don't have to listen to it again.

Finally the race started and off I went.  We were supposed to swim towards under the second arch of the nearest bridge.  Somehow I got off course and ended up swimming towards the first arch.  I eventually realized it and corrected, but not until I was pretty close to it.  Having goggles that I couldn't really see out of didn't help me sight properly.  The warm was a pretty warm 77 degrees--just one degree short of being a non-wetsuit legal race.  As I was really worrying about overheating on the swim, so I followed some advice I got and took of my cap.  During the swim, I also stopped a few times to get fresh cooler water in my wetsuit.  As I came in, I got off course a few more times and at one point had to totally stop and take off my goggles to see where I was going.  I know--I need new goggles.  It's not like they are all scratched up or anything, it's just that they are so rough inside that no amount of defogger can prevent them from becoming nearly opaque. Despite all this, I did manage to finish the swim in 31 minutes, which was my swim PR by 2 minutes. (Okay--now I just noticed my official time was 33:08, which is still a PR, but only by 29 seconds.)

Thanks to the well labeled transition area, I found my bike with no problem and managed to do something I'd never practiced before--I did a shot of Hammer Gel while in transition.  I made it out on the course without a problem.  The bike course was really nice and probably 90% shaded.  I was still worried about overheating, so I didn't push too hard, but I never felt the heat at all during the bike.  About 20 minutes into the bike, right as some guy was passing me, something went wacky.  All the sudden my bike bottle went flying and there was the noise of something caught in my spokes.  I have no idea what happened--I thought at the time I had gotten a branch stuck in my spokes.  I realized this was a critical situation that needed to be fixed, so I pulled over to check the problem.  As it turns out, my speed sensor had gotten into my spokes and gotten knocked off.  The wire that used to go up the arm of the speed sensor was still there and getting whapped around by the spokes.  After fixing this, I waited for a break in the stream of competitors and turned around to go back for my water bottle.  (Note that I didn't entirely do this just to avoid a littering penalty--there was no bottle exchange on the course, so if I didn't have this bottle, I knew I would be in trouble.)  The rest of the ride was uneventful.  I didn't feel like I pushed too hard and I got in another couple of Hammer Gels.

For some reason, I was a little obsessed with beating one of the girls on our PacGrove team who had done that race in 2:51.  This was a good 8 minutes faster than my PR, but I was hoping that my improvements on the swim and my experience having really good runs on my last 2 races would allow me a chance.  My goal was to start the run at 2:00, giving me 51 minutes to complete the 10K, well within my capabilities if I pushed.  I was amazed to check my watch and bike in and find that I'd just done a PR on the bike too!  I started the run at 1:50, giving me a full hour so I could take it easy on the run and easily beat Jen.  I was feeling confident and as coach rode up a quarter mile into my run, I told him my plan and how happy I was I could take it easy on the run.  He also told me that John was only a quarter mile in front of me, so I thought I had a chance of beating him, even though I knew he was faster on the run.  Then I finished my first mile in 8:38, which was close to my race pace and would have given me a finishing time of 53:38 (not that I could do such calculations in my head at the time, but I knew that pace would meet my goal pretty easily).  I took it a little slower the next mile, figuring I would save up for the last couple of miles.  I did this mile in 9:39.  Slower, yes, but I figured that was alright cause I would pick it up at the end. 

Then, disaster struck.  All the sudden, I became really hot and really tired.  Not only tired in that my legs didn't want to keep moving and were even developing cramps, but tired in that all I could think about was literally laying down in the grass and taking a nap.  (I should note that I didn't sleep AT ALL the night before and didn't sleep very well the night before either.)   After this, I was done.  I couldn't get myself back in the mental state to push through and make it happen.  I filled my hat with ice at the second aid station, but that actually seemed to hurt me and I slowed down more.  Eventually around mile 2.5, I started to walk.  I was getting some cramps around the bottom of my ribs, but I don't know if I was REALLY getting cramps or if I was just trying to find any reason I could to allow myself to walk.  For the next few miles, I did a run/walk (or perhaps a walk/run) and finished those miles in 11:06, 12:56, and 12:48.  Somewhere along there, coach rode up right in the middle of a walk and asked what was going on.  Only later did I find out he then rode up to everyone else and told them I was cramping and that they had a chance to beat me. :P

When I hit the mile 5 marker, I knew I had 14 minutes left in order to beat my PR and I knew at my current pace, that was going to be really close, so I knew I had to pick it up.  I ran that whole mile, finishing it in 10:09.  I think this picture is from that final mile and despite my thumbs up, I was NOT feeling good here.  I figured I had 4 more minutes to finish the last 0.2 miles, which was well within my capability.  Unfortunately as I saw 6.2 tick by on my GPS, I saw the finish and realized I was still quite a ways off, so I had to really push to try to make my PR and got my heartrate up to 92%.  I crossed the line in 2:59:11, which did give me a PR, but only by 18 seconds.  Not the 9 minutes I was hoping for nor the 15 minutes I thought I could do at the start of the run, but a PR nonetheless.

I knew my mom and Narda were around somewhere, so I thought about looking for them, but at this point I felt so bad that I found the nearest shaded area, sat down, and didn't move for the next 45 minutes.  Several times sitting there, I poured water on my head to cool down.  I really wanted some of the sports drink they were giving away, but couldn't get up to get any.  I thought about begging someone to bring me some, but in the end, I just sat there.

Eventually I got up, got some more water and sports drink and wandered over to the food tent where they had the most amazing spectacle I'd ever seen.  HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of boxes of Papa John's Pizzas!!  People were walking around carrying full boxes and there seemed to be a never-ending supply!  I grabbed some pizza, then thought an iced coffee sounded great in lieu of my normal chocolate milk.  On my way there, I sat in some shade to finish my pizza and ended up sitting next to Briggs from Breakaway Training, who is a friend of Katie's she told me to be on the lookout for.  I talked with him for a while, got my ice coffee, and then FINALLY found my mom.

Eventually everyone finished.  We did our normal run the last person in, then got in the street and took our own team finishing photo:

Overall, a great race.  I actually really liked the course, and though I felt disappointed I had missed my goal time by so much, I was still really happy I had set 3 new PRs on the course.

(Okay--that entry took went pretty quick, but still took well over an hour and ended up being much longer than I'd hoped.  If you're reading this message, then I haven't yet gone back to edit this to make it shorter, so you just got stuck reading the obscenely long version.)