race report – FyreHaar

Race Report – Napa Tri

The last three races I signed up for did not go to plan.

Sonoma Women’s Tri turned into a Duathlon because there wasn’t enough water for a swim. The Lake Tahoe Triathlon was postponed due to fire. Odyssey Swim Run? Woke up sick and DNS’d for the first time ever.

I signed up for the Napa Tri because I wanted to do a proper triathlon this year. Not a super short one (looking at you Tahoe), not a duathlon (glad I didn’t go with Marin the day before), a regular old standard Sprint Distance Swim-Bike-Run.

I got to do that. I had a great day. I did a course recon a few weeks ago with a club mate. I have been training fairly consistently. My swim is, for being one forty minute session a week, going great. My run is the best it’s been since 2015 and improving. My biking is good and I’ve made big strides in getting comfortable on my tri-bike so I can take advantage of all that amazing aero-ness I paid for.

My goal for the day was to race every leg. The new move I’m making in training is to go out hard and not worry if I’m going to blow up, just hit it and see how long I can hold on.

I lined up at the front of the swim. Am I a front pack swimmer? Hell no. Am I gonna give up places to people who haven’t earned them. Also hell no. The usual mess of people who can swim but have zero technical open water skills happened. Got my line cut across, one person managed to swim under me, which was a first, got some feet to the face – nothing serious. I tried to catch some feet mid way through but that athlete was not sighting well and I always trust my own line.

The big news is that I was swimming the whole time. Not letting my mind wander and coasting. I was in it. Staying with my stroke, focusing on getting a good catch, opening up and using my lats, keeping my elbow high and my body rotating. Head down. Swimming from the first to the last.

Dizzy as hell getting out. Ran most of the way up the boat ramp. T1 was, for me, not my finest moment. Shaking, hadn’t practiced a quick wetsuit removal. Running on a gravel parking lot in cycle shoes to a bathroom break.

The bike was so good. Course recon is always the move. The ride out of the park to the road is horrendous. The first half mile on the road is a bit crunchy and the next eleven miles are lovely. Smooth pavement, low traffic. It’s a continually rolling and curving course. There are no flats or straights for easy miles. There weren’t any very technical moments and I spent more than half the ride in aero.

It did start raining on the ride which I had not planned on. It didn’t get bad enough to slick the roads or muck up my glasses and it kept the temperature down. I do very well in cooler temps and I’m sure I gained some time on people who both took the time to put on jackets and then had the jackets catching the wind. There were some lovely headwinds that had me pushing the gear harder than I expected on some downhills. Thems the breaks and everyone had to do it.

Like the swim – I rode the whole ride. Head in the game all day. Checking on effort. Didn’t look at the watch, just asked my body if I was pushing too hard. Kept after it and pushed it to the end. Got into aero early and often. Hit the downhills spinning in a big gear to take the free speed and refresh the legs. It’s always a good day when I’m moved to yell out “Fuck yeah!” at some point.

Again, not my favorite transition. You’ll never catch me slipping at the rack though. Bike up, shoe change and gone.

The only metric for the run is cadence. 190 was the goal. Like breathing. Gonna take calories in the bottle next time. I wasn’t thirsty because it was cold. A nice hit of flavor would have been wonderful.

Stayed in the run the whole way. Cadence strong and quick. Completely happy to be where I was and to be doing what I was doing. Taking in all the energy from the other racers on course who were just as happy as I was. This is the one part of the race I could have pushed harder. It would have been a big ask after the bike and it wasn’t that day. I didn’t need to go to the well in that way. I was happy, I was present. I also ran my best 5k of the year off of a hard bike, on a hilly course, not feeling like I was pushing particularly hard at all, so there is that.

I made sixth in my age group and I am damn proud of that. A great day at the races and I’m stoked to move into the winter. Got big plans for next year.

Onward!

Race Report! – Discovery Bay Tri

Last fall I decided that part of turning forty and being single would be getting custom triathlon coaching! I’ve been doing that for a while, which is it’s own thing, and this was my first race with actual “Coach’s Orders!”

I’ve done the Discovery Bay Sprint tri as my first race of the season the last three years. It’s a grassroots race, field is capped at 300 for both Sprint and Olympic Distances, and I get there early enough to park about 30 yards from transition.

I was oddly nervous this year. I actually got into open water before the start of my racing season, which was the day before. I had a sort of rough go of it, nutrition was off, and that was in my head so I had extra swim anxiety on top my pre-existing swim anxiety.

I just wasn’t as dialed in as I have been for some other races. I forgot my race belt (managed to borrow the exact same race belt that I have from a teammate, go OTC!) I was feeling just a bit lost all morning. I was ten minutes behind schedule when I got into line for the porta potty the last time. Now this isn’t late, it’s just that I was behind perfect and I knew it. The nerves were horrendous. I was practically crying. But there was about 5% of me looking at this saying “Wow, these are some really bad race day nerves!” and not participating in the breakdown.

I nattered at a random person as I walked down to the water and that helped. I saw another ETPA athlete and got some water off of them for the dry mouth that had developed. I was able to zip up my wetsuit with no help!!

SWIM 700 Yards 15:44 2:15/100 Overall Place 70/114

I jumped in with about three minutes before the first wave and six minutes before my race start. It was cold this year! about 58 was what I heard and I felt that all the way in my chest. Brain freeze and yay! more panic. I just held on to the dock and waited for the men’s wave to go.

They went and I took some strokes to get the sighting line right, check my goggle fit, make sure my goggles weren’t fogging up too much. Then it was go time. For all the nerves, I was fine when the horn sounded and we were off.

The word from Raeleigh was to find my edge. Well, I didn’t. I’ve had a mantra for swimming for a while and I lost it. I swam strongly but not as fast as I could have. I tried to kick up my pace once or twice but my chest started to get tight and I just backed right off. My head game was not all the way there and I knew it.

I stayed patient, I kept my strokes long and I kept swimming all the way to the end. No in swim panic, just steady effort.

And when I came out I saw that I hadn’t actually started my watch, so no data beside time. I staggered when I came out which probably cost me a couple of seconds to the timing mat, but that’s all part of the game and it counts.

(Last year was 17:10 – two years ago was 15:39, feeling pretty good about that!)

T2 – 4:39

I was shaky as hell. Heart racing, dizzy. Trying to jog all the way but also trying to got some semblance of control. Top half of the wetsuit off, cap and goggle off on the run up. Had to sit down to get my wetsuit off, feeling slow as anything and like always – top half for speed. 2018 T1 – 5:38.

Bike – 16 miles 58:08 86/114

On the bike I had a power target to meet, not too slow, not too fast. I had to do some watch wrangling to get my power displayed. No riding to feel today! I forgot to lube my bike shoes, so I got to practice really shoving my feet in. I did a big practice session a couple of weeks before for getting into/out of my shoes on the bike, I just forgot I’d be wet this time. Took some breaths and did the thing.

I sat down and tried to match my effort to my target power. It was tough because there were gusting winds, slight rises and depressions and changing road surface. My right hip started to complain about half way through and I was on the look out for having to call it a day. No idea what it was but it didn’t carry on to the run, so I’ll call it stiffness and carry on. After the race my average ride power was exactly in the zone I was aiming for and I rode in under an hour so I am well happy with it.

Last year was a 59:41, so again, improving!

T2 – 1:02

My pride and joy! Which I just whiffed. I couldn’t find my spot! I was just blanking and my towel had gotten thrown over my shoes and I was just dazed and confused for a couple of seconds.

I managed to get it parked and then it was just odd. My brain could not quite wrap around what I was doing. Still grabbed my stuff and got going, just not as fast as usual.

Run 5k (it was long, if Garmin is to be believed) 38:54 12:33 pace 95/114

The run was pretty nice! We had lovely weather all day, low 60s, clear, and dry. Some wind but nothing heinous. I got myself all together, heart rate monitor slipped but I got that sorted set off at my target heart rate.

It’s an out and back so I spent my time cheering on everyone who was coming towards me and everyone who was passing me. It was very, very relaxing to not have to decide whether I was going to chase any of the people who passed me. I had a target and I was going to hit it and that was my whole job.

,Some shin splints for the first mile or so but no serious issues, no blisters either. I gave a tiny kick at the end and that was that. Saw teammates, had a beer and then went for my cool down. Yep, I finished my race and then went running again.

All in all I had fun, I had a very controlled race, I was happy with having a race plan to race to and then racing to the plan. Discovery Bay gets a little better every year, they are very good about incorporating racer feedback. This year they moved a water stop so we hit it twice during the 5k instead of just once at the turnaround.

All things being equal, I’ll probably be out there next year!

-fh

Race Report – Discovery Bay Tri

Well, I set some goals, let’s see how I did.

Discovery Bay Tri – Sprint Saturday, April 22, 2017.

700 Yard Swim – 16 (15.4) Mile Bike – 5k Run

There were family logistics to consider so I didn’t sleep at home, which meant that I didn’t sleep. Not too much of a bother and I was up bright and early. Or really, when my alarm went off I lay in bed and visualized by race for twenty minutes.

Got to the race on time, got checked in and set up. Set up the technical error for later and chatted with fellow racers. There were quite a few first timers and this was a good race for them! Very small (about 160 registered), flat course, easy water. I handed our some spare equipment and advice, mostly to wait at the start of the swim and not go off too fast.

As it always does on race day, the time flew by. There are always first timers showing up fifteen minutes before the start like it’s a 5k and they can stroll up. I never know whether to laugh or feel sorry for them. I didn’t feel too nervous until I had to put on my wetsuit and then I started getting butterflies.

The Olympic Race went off at 8 (a very civilized start time) and I got into the water ten minutes later to warm up. I really warmed up, not just paddling around to get used to the temperature, which was a perfect 66 degrees, but really revving up my heart rate a couple of times. Getting out of breath with a few accelerations and then hanging out waiting for the start.

Swim – Goal 17:30 – Race Time – 15:29 – Woo Hoo!!!

We were swimming north, which is great because we never had to sight into the sun. I was nice and warm. I had confidence from my training and I went for it. Not too hard but definitely pushing my pace. I was aggressive at the start and going around the buoy. My sighting was good and I finally figured out how to keep my goggle from fogging up! I could actually see for the whole race and it was awesome.

T1 – Goal 6:00 – Race Time – 4:16. This seems good but let me tell you what happened.

I have a bit of pride around my transitions. So much pride that I kept my bike shoes on my pedals, even though I haven’t practiced getting into them while moving since last May. Yeah. Good T1 time that led to a complete stop 400 yards into the bike to put my damn shoes on. And it was a tiny transition area so even if I had run in the shoes it wouldn’t have cost me much time at all. I lost the forest for the trees right there but I was able to laugh at myself and learn from it.

Bike – Goal – 1:00:00 – 16 MPH – Race Time 57:06 – 17 MPH

Despite my technical snafu, my bike time was good. It felt amazing. I was able to laugh off my jackassery and get stuck in. The course was very well marked and volunteers were doing a great job. My handling was not confident as this was my first outdoor ride on my road bike this year. So there are a couple of minutes I could have shaved off with better technical execution.

My effort was steady and strong, with a good cadence. I never got tired. I spent a solid amount of time in the drops – which is something I’m working on improving. There was a woman in my age group who was right in front of me for half the bike. I passed her just after the halfway point but she passed me right back (and then slowed down to the same speed so she just wanted to be in front). We turned east with about four miles to go and I noticed two things. 1) We had a headwind and 2) she hadn’t been in her drops the whole race. I got in my drops, passed her and dropped her. I was going too hard at that point but damn if it didn’t feel good. She was a few seconds behind me coming in to T2 (Spoiler, she didn’t pass me on the run).

T2 – Goal – 2:00 – Race Time – 1:05

Still got it!

Run – Goal – 32:30 – 10:30/mile – Race Time – 33:40 – 10:52

Well – I’m ok with it. I raced hard. The run was pancake flat with no cover. It was a slog. About a half mile out from transition a newbie triathlete I had been chatting with passed me. I saw that she was in my age group. Ugh. I stuck to my pace. She was about 100 yards in front of me at the turnaround. I thought I could get her.

Last year my age group was six people and I really wanted a podium. I kicked it up just a tiny notch. She wasn’t coming back though. We were both passing people at the same rate. I was hurting. Then I saw her walk to take a drink from her bottle. She started to look tired.

There are two ways you can go at the end of a race. There is the “horses coming back to the barn” surge of speed and there is the “Whew, that’s over with” relaxation and slowing. There was a slight downhill and she didn’t speed up on it. I started pushing harder. Then a tiny up hill to a hairpin turn and the finish chute. I pushed up the hill and turned she was ten yards in front of me.

Well if there’s one thing I can do, it’s sprint forty yards for sixth place! I passed her right before the line and had to bend over to not fall down. I very properly negative split my run and ran so hard at the end I nearly threw up – so a standard day at the office for me.

Total Time – Goal – 1:57:30 – Race Time – 1:51:35

Overall 31/64 Division 9/25 Age Group – 6/11

It’s funny, last time this race was run, that time would have gotten me second in my age group – so I hit the time I wanted.

Super fun day. I would absolutely recommend this race, well organized, well run, would race again.

Onward!

-FH