It has been an awfully long time since I posted an update,
which goes to show how busy life has been this summer. For my sake, I’ll do a brief update about the
two race reports that I missed (Wildflower Olympic and Vineman 70.3) in the
near future, but Sunday was such an unexpectedly awesome day, that the
Challenge Rancho Cordova race report must come first!
When this race was first announced, I was excited for it, as
it is up near my brother’s house. I had
tentatively planned on racing it until Ironman announced they would add a 70.3 to the
Lake Tahoe race. Lake Tahoe is, and
always has been, my happy place, so it was a no brainer that I would sign up
for that race to close out my season.
Well, unfortunately that race was smoked out by the terrible King
Fire. I was bummed, but honestly was a
little relieved because my training had definitely not been on point leading
into the race. Work took a huge toll
with three trials back to back, and mentally I was just ready to check out of
training for a bit.
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| Me and my AWESOME mom after IM Lake Tahoe was called off. |
But I didn’t want to end my season without a race, so Challenge
Rancho Cordova was back on the radar. I
was excited about the course, but as temps in NorCal soared above 90* in the
weeks before the race with no signs of cooling down, I was definitely nervous. When I drove into Rancho Cordova for packet pick up/bike
drop off the day before the race, I was dripping just walking around the
transition areas. Everyone knows that I
would rather race in the freezing cold than in the heat, so conditions were NOT
ideal. But it allowed me to mentally
relax and give myself the freedom to just enjoy myself on the course. With my unmotivated training and stress of
the heat, I didn’t really expect much of myself on the course. I knew I’d finish, but definitely didn’t
expect to improve my times in any significant way.
It was a relaxed evening before the game, watching some
peewee football, drunken noodles for my pre-race meal (awesome carb loading –
not too heavy like pasta usually is for me), and some quality coloring time
while watching Chef with the family (if you haven’t seen it, it’s a must). I slept like a baby and was up and at ‘em around
4:15am.
It was easy getting out the door, and breakfast was on the
road (2 hardboiled eggs and 1.5 cups of applesauce). I parked at the finish area and took a
shuttle to the start. I much preferred
dealing with the shuttle before my body hated me than in the middle of the
afternoon! Shuttle service was quick and
easy and I got to T1 with plenty of time to make 2 potty stops, set up my
transition area, eat a banana and shimmy into my wetsuit.
My one complaint with race morning is that there was no morning clothes
bag or clothes drop. All of our T1
belongings would be shuttled to T2 during the race, which was great, but they
only gave us one bag where we were to put our wetsuit/goggles/swim
cap/etc. But unless you had a race Sherpa,
you had to stuff ALL your morning gear into the bag too! For me, it was a few water bottles,
sweatshirt, keys…way too much stuff for the tiny bag. I definitely lost a few minutes in transition
attempting to stuff everything in the bag :(
Swim – 36:11, 1:43/100yd.
Even though coach had swim workouts in my schedule, I just
hadn’t felt motivated to get in the pool, so I hadn’t swam since my leisurely
swim of the IMLT course two weeks prior. OOPS!!! But the water felt great, and I was excited to
take it easy for the swim. It was a deep
water start and soon all the orange capped 39 and under ladies were off. I felt great! And I actually swam in a straight line for
once!!! The swim was a counter clockwise
loop, and the rising sun made the return trip a little difficult, but I just
kept my stroke smooth and soon enough I was out of the water! I definitely could have kept swimming, I
enjoyed myself so much.
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| My last swim before race day - 2 weeks prior on the IMLT course after the race was cancelled. |
T1
Transitions were definitely my downfall in this race. I’m certain that I would have placed one spot
higher if I had actually moved my butt…argh!
Even though T1 was super small, we were only given one bag for our swim
gear AND all our morning stuff. In my
past 2 70.3’s I’ve been lucky enough to both have a morning clothes bag, and my
mom as a Sherpa! This time around, I was
on my own. Attempting to stuff my
wetsuit, T1 towel, morning sweatshirt, and shaker bottles from pre-race drinks
was quite the task. Definitely spent
over a minute trying to get everything in.
Marking that down as something to account for in the future.
Bike: 2:53:46, 19.37 mph
Once I’d finally managed to stuff my things into the bag, I
was off on the bike. Unfortunately, my
Garmin didn’t pick up the GPS signal, so I wasn’t getting mileage or my average
pace! Super frustrating, but it just
might have worked out for the best. I
knew that the beginning third of the course would be mostly uphill, but then I
would be treated to downhills and flats for the majority of the course. My brother and his fam live near mile 11ish
of the bike, and it was awesome seeing them cheering along the side of the
road.
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| My cheering section! SIL Audrey, Nephew Ethan, and Brother Geoff |
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| Two thumbs up for some bike love and perfect cycling weather! |
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| Audrey cheering me on! Thank you, family!!!! |
I was feeling pretty good at the
time, but seeing them definitely gave me quite an emotional boost heading into
the hills! The weather was perfect for
cycling, and I loved the hills that we rode through. I was a little frustrated that there were no
mile markers on the course since my watch wasn’t showing that info, but I just
kept putting in a steady effort. My main
goal of the race was to have a decent run since that was my biggest problem in
my past two races, so I didn’t want to push myself too hard. Overall, definitely enjoyed the bike, but the
last few miles into transition involved too many boring turns through empty
boring business centers. Then it was
time to test the legs…
T2
Another transition spent dilly dallying…seriously, could
have cut at least 2 minutes from here!
But at both Oceanside and Vineman, by mile 3 of the run, my claves felt
like they were going to explode. I’d
never experienced that during ANY of my brick runs and I didn’t quite know what
was causing it. So I decided to try
wearing my 110% Play Harder compression socks on the run to see if that would help. Definitely took way too long to put the socks
on in transition! (But I’ve already developed
my plan for next year and will be wearing compression sleeves under my wetsuit
from the start). And I made a potty stop
in transition. It was a blazing hot day,
and I figured it was best to start the run as comfortably as possible.
Run: 2:00:33, 9:12/mile
Finally I was off!! The
run course is totally flat (which is great), but totally exposed to the sun
(which is not great). I settled into a
rhythm pretty quickly and just started counting my steps like a metronome to
keep on going. I think that I counted to 100 about 50 times! Again, my GPS wasn’t synced
up so all I had was my “current pace” to go on.
Luckily there were aid stations each mile, so I was able to distract
myself by doing some math each mile. I was pleasantly surprised with the numbers I was seeing as I ran. The
sun was beating down as we ran through housing developments and I honestly
expected to have a worse run than ever because of the heat, but it wasn’t
nearly as bad as I expected!
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| So happy to be in the finish chute! |
At every
aid station I dumped a cup of ice into my sports bra, held a few cubes in my
hands, and drank a cup of water. By the
end of the race, my chest almost felt numb!
I’m fairly certain that this kept my core temp down to make the heat
manageable. Also, the compression socks
worked wonders on my calves, so all I had to worry about was putting one foot
in front of the other instead of worrying about my calves exploding! I was even able to chat with a few other
racers along the way. As I kept running
and realizing that my body was holding up, I did some calculations to see if I
would be able to finish the run in under 2 hours. As I hit the part of the course where it
split for the finish/lap two, I thought I’d be able to squeak in just under 2
hours. But one of the worst things on
the run course happened…there was an extra turn!!! Instead of a straight shot to the finish, we
had to go around a block of shops to get to the chute…major bummer! But I kept my legs moving and was still able
to PR my run by 4 minutes! That felt
like a huge accomplishment and set my very obvious goal for next year...finally breaking the 2 hour mark! It is amazing how different 13.1 miles feels at the end of a 56 mile bike ride!
After crossing the finish line, the most wonderful fountain
awaited the racers and I immediately stripped my shoes and socks off and just
stood in the fountain for what seemed like forever. It felt amazing!
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| Seriously, every race needs to have one of these! |
At the end of the day, I ended up setting a 7min 40 sec PR and
landed a 6th place finish in my age group with an official time of 5:37:56. After a few weeks where my training
motivation was lacking, this was an awesome way to end the season and renew my
love for triathlons (and it doesn't hurt that it's Kona week to fuel that fire). Now I get to take a
mini break before working towards a new marathon PR and hopefully a Boston
Qualifying time at the CIM marathon in December!!!
Happy Training!
