My main goal going into this race was to stay positive - to work on the mental part of racing. Ok, sure, I wanted a podium finish, and was pretty confident that I'd get one, but you never know who's going to turn up on race day. No matter how much you scope out the entry list in advance, the one who beats you is never the one you had your eye on. That's all part of it.
Buckman is Patanella at its best. I've only done one other race organized by him (the Pancake a couple years ago), but remembered it fondly for the fun and charisma of the race director. Pancake itself is a bit of a nightmare what with multiple bike out-and-backs doubling back on themselves, and more recently the addition of different distances on the same course. But here the race was simple with a lake swim (.5 miles) and single loop bike course (18 miles), and a 5k run. Plus, race results were online by the time I got home -- I love that.
By any standards I had a good race - and by that I mean I raced hard, and stayed positive the whole time, despite all kinds of small issues: I mistimed how long it would take to get my coffee in the cupholder before heading out onto the highway, and felt rushed on the road. My favorite goggles are currently locked to a rail with my swimsuit at the Y, and so I was using an old pair from who knows when. Then of course there was a "tropical storm" Hannah the night before. While all radar reports said it would blow through before race time, who knew what conditions it would leave behind. Race face, is what I told myself (remember, Michael Phelps set a world record with leaky goggles) and ignored it all. And I got to the start with time to spare, my goggles didn't leak, and while there were a lot of sticks in the road, so what.
As for the race itself...
I'm relatively happy with the swim. For one, I resisted the urge to pummel and elbow the swimmers who came up on me. That really is the only thing I enjoy about the triathlon swim, and it was hard to hold back, but I did. My time here was nothing to be proud of (16'02 for .5 mile, 40th out of the water, but seventh from my wave), but it could be (and recently has been) worse. When the gun went off, I went out hard and then just when I was starting to see stars I realized that I had been near the same pair of feet for a while, and so got behind them. This was a tri first for me -- my first successful swim using the draft - and it's different. For one thing, you can't sight for crap when you're right behind someone, so you have to rely that she's going in a straight line. And either she or I wasn't because I kept finding myself outside her bubbles. Every time I thought about trying to swim my own straight line, I'd fall behind fast. So I knew that she was a better swimmer than me even if she was wobbling, and I worked my ass off to stick with her.
The bike was fun - just plain fun. 50'54, which was good for 20.0 mph - 2nd woman and 13th overall. Ok, hard work too, because I was watching my heart rate and keeping it high so I wouldn't get complacent because I was passing lots of people. I doomed myself near the end by thinking to myself that the hills weren't as bad as the Pinchot hills from a couple weeks ago. Just then I came around a turn, the wind in my face, and wow, a huge long climb. I just dug into it, found a rhythm, and tried to reel in the other riders ahead -- I worked my ass off. I figured I'd spin it out on the other side. Nope. The other side was the turnoff and screaming downhill into transition. My quads were not so pleased.
I think that affected my run. I had a pretty fast transition (47 seconds), but my legs really felt like they weren't moving once out on the course. Hard to know, because the run splits were totally fubar (first mile 8'50 and second 5'31?), but still my time was 23'17 minutes for the 5k, 30th overall. That's a bit slow for me right now, even though it was pretty hilly. My guess is that that maybe it was a bit long, and/or that last hill on the bike really did a number on my legs. Either that or I need to race with Jeannine as my rabbit for every race I do. Well, I wouldn't mind that anyway.
Here's something funny. As I headed out of T2 a volunteer told me I was third woman. Awesome, especially since I knew because of the waves, I might actually be beating them (the other wave with women started six minutes before mine). About a quarter mile later, I'd only passed men, but a different volunteer told me I was second woman. Even better! About a mile into the run, another volunteer told me I was fourth woman, and by then I was kind of annoyed. Make up your mind already! Just after that I passed a guy with a ponytail and hoped that the volunteer who said "4th" had mistaken him for a chick, but he was pretty burly and had a beard and really hairy legs, so I wasn't counting on it. And probably "4th" was right - but I don't even know - the other initial women finishers were so many minutes ahead of me (1st woman was flying, and the others were in the earlier wave), everyone seemingly had stopped paying attention. So I had to wait for the paper results to have any idea of how I did. And... 2nd overall female (18th overall) and a big ass trophy. No seriously, it is huge.
Most importantly, I achieved my other race goal for this weekend, which was not to miss the turnoff on the way home so that I could go over the Verrazano. And I am proud to say, mission accomplished. I kept my head down, focused, not letting the other drivers distract me with their bizarre passing tactics, got the right exit, and then even headed the right way, and managed to pull up to my house just over one hour after leaving the race parking lot. It's always a good race when you spend more time racing than the time it takes to get home, I'd say.
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