I kept hearing the music from this movie out on the bike course…
The Good:
A new swim PR. In November I started swimming 4x/week, doubling my time in the water. I almost died from the boredom. It paid - took 5 minutes off my time and was out of Tempe Town Lake in 58:43. At the start Maggs and I jumped off the dock holding hands like total dorks. She swam smack into the bridge warming up, winning the dorkier award by a smidgen. It was chilly, and boys were mean to me and aggressively stole my draft until I gave up and swam it alone. It was a pleasant surprise to be told by a T1 volunteer that I was a top 10 amateur out of the water. He was likely lying, but don’t check the results and tell me, I don’t want to know.
The Bad:
The first loop was good. New scenery. Big saguaros like you see in spaghetti westerns. Wind, excitement, that scary disk noise coming from me.. I was thinking 1:45/loop would put me where I wanted to be. My HR was right where the coach said it should be. 1:45 exactly and I was back in town and saw both my parents. Then I had to turn around and go again.. which was fine, but the saguaros were not as exciting the second time around. The wind made me grumpy. My shorts were not cooperating. A bee tried to fly into my mouth. The tailwind on the ride home was nice, but the loop was 7 minutes slower. And don’t be fooled by that word “loop” we really just go out and back, over and over. Loop three was bad, and not in the Michael Jackson way. My HR was low. My shorts were still not cooperating. I was looking for a reason to do a 5+ hour ride and not finding one. My teammate Juli flew by a mile or two out of transition and looked so strong it was inspiring. We exchanged pleasantries in T2 while forgetting to put on our compression socks. She went on to win W35-39 because she is awesome. I finished in 5:29, a new personal worst, and told the nice volunteer they could have my bike forever.
The Ugly:
The run, my favorite part! Except there was this funny time warp going on. I was running 7 minute effort, but 8 minute miles were coming out. My heart rate was 20 beats too low. I have a plethora of excuses: my IT band insertion thingamajig, I ate too much on the bike, I ate too little on the bike, it was hot, I only ate 200 cals on the run, the world hates me, it was karma for running over that endangered endemic bird last week, I am a pansy.. pick which ever you like. It was the most difficult marathon of my life. Running past transition six times gave me six chances to use one of those excuses to quit. But my knee didn’t hurt, so I kept running. The marathon was 3:30.. another PW. I could make the report longer with more details - but instead I think I will sum it all up with: That course kicked my ass.
I finished in 10:03, right smack in the middle of my two previous IM times. BUT - it was good enough for 9th place among the women, making it my highest IM placing ever, which cheered me up almost as much as the giant burrito my dad had waiting..
I forgot a camera, so here’s what I’ve got:
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