Vineman 70.3

Well, I started this blog a few months ago with aspirations that I would update it on a routine basis.... well you can see the results, not too good? I guess I am just not a "writer" like some folks, while I think about various topics to blog about it seems the time gets away from me and I would rather do lots of other things than sit down and write, well that being said, I actually sat down- I guess I was more captive in the car as we were driving home from California and it seemed a good time to get my Vineman thoughts down. So at long last, an update :)

The day started early as the alarm or shall I say alarms, as there were 3 or 4, (I lost count) set at the brisk hour of 4 am. We all got up and quietly dressed in our race gear and went about our own individual pre-race routines. Bry took our bikes back downstairs to the car while I was getting ready and before long it was time to head up to the Russian River in Guerneville as this is where our day really began.

We made it up to the race start pretty quickly and actually rolled in at about 5:25 before the “official opening” of T1 so we were actually able to park on a side street up in the little town and make our way down to get body marked and set up in transition. As this race was fairly large (about 2100 racers) and because the river is quite narrow and shallow we were set off in waves by age groups with there being approximately 16 or 17 waves. Bry was set to go at 6:54 and my departure was at 7:34. Once down in transition I had plenty of time to get set up, take a few more bites of breakfast, send Bry off in his wave and wait in line for the port-o-potty.

I was feeling good and ready for racing and felt calm, not too nervous as I felt prepared and ready to go. It was especially nice knowing the water was warm~ 72 degrees, unlike Boise (55ish) and I was prepped for a strong swim.

The swim:
I headed down to the beach as early as my wave was allowed. Due to the out and back nature of the course we were unable to get much of a warm up except the 8 minutes in between waves. I quickly headed into the water once my wave was called and did as much warming up as possible taking time to get used to the water and stretching out my arms. We were told to expect the swim out to be a bit longer than the swim back due to the current so I told myself to push the first half super hard as I would have an added help on the way back in. Once the gun went off I started hard and settled into a strong pace hoping and looking for some feet to draft from however only found another gal who was matching me stroke for stroke. We swam along in that fashion for a bit until we finally separated, I never stopped pushing to find some feet but they never materialized…… oh well I guess I was on my own. Reached the turn buoy and re-doubled my efforts to push despite the fact I could sight some men from the wave in front of me walking, yes walking through the river several yards to the side of me-that’s how shallow parts of the course were~! Swam back down river and sighted on the bridge that was close to the finish chute and put an extra push to finish strong and ran out of the water finishing in just under 35 minutes!!!!! My best ½ Ironman swim ever and I was thrilled. Ran through the crowded transition and made my way on to the bike course.

The Bike:
Began the bike having to run up a small hill, as I couldn’t get clipped in at the bottom of the hill and figured I was faster running up it than risking a fall. (gravel in the transition). Took the first 5 miles pretty easy to get warmed up although pushed them a bit as I knew this was one of the least technical and smoothest parts of the entire ride. Mile 5- 19 were through beautiful wine country(actually the entire course was beautiful- not that I was looking around while racing-enjoyed the view when we pre-drove the course) however on crazy roads that were very rough and windy with about 50/50 time spent in aero position and the rest pushing hard through the pot holes. Once past mile 19/20 the curves mellowed out a bit but the winds seemed to pick up, I pushed really hard and I continued to hear coaches quote “anything under zone 3 is underperforming” I kept a close watch on my speed and cadence as well as heart rate and kept pushing along. Reached the last technical section of the ride up and over Chalk hill road and leap frogged back and forth with a gal in my age group exchanged hellos and finally after reaching the topped pushed ahead and put some distance between us. Spent the last few miles trying to make up a little time lost on the hills and technical section telling myself to rally and push on to get in to reach my goal time. Reached T2 and mentally prepared myself to run.

The Run:
In and out of T2 as quickly as possible although had a little brain fade as I started bagging all my bike gear, like you have to do with your swim gear, finally realized that wasn’t needed and grabbed my hat and Gels and got running. Wanted to run strong, and mentally had some time frames I was set to keep on pace with. The run course is a challenging one with a fair amount of hills. It was fun getting out on the run and watching the pro men and women running back in as they had started over an hour in front of me and were all running in on the out and back course. I always find it gives me good energy to congratulate them and encourage those I pass so I kept this going along throughout my run. It also was helpful to keep my mind from drifting into thinking about how I was feeling as I was watching for Bry on his way back in towards the finish. I saw him sooner than I expected while I was at about mile 3.5 and he was looking good and running strong. We crossed, yelled encouragement and continued on. Out towards the winery to run a loop and then back to the finish. I started feeling a bit sluggish about mile 7 and started doing crazy math in my head to figure out my pace and how much time I had left to make my goals, etc etc. The sort of math that makes you think to yourself “quit thinking, and just run silly” It was at this point I started pulling out strong words to help motivate myself. Picked the word DETERMINATION, and from there took those letters and basically found a word to repeat out of each letter of the word: D-Desire, E- Energy T (can't remember the word I had here) E-Enthusiam R-Race M-mentally strong, I- Inspire, N-Never give up A-Attitude Etc.. this seemed to help me through a mile or so and then it was time to push it in.. took the last 2 miles to really “make it hurt” and push for my goal. Finished hard down the stretch achieving a new PR.


Icing on the cake—Bryan, Kyle and MacBeth will all be traveling to Clearwater as they all received roll down spot during the awards ceremony ☺