2008 Summer Festival Triathlon Race Report

I did the Summer Festival Triathlon in Washington, NC last weekend. This was a great race venue! The water was calm and a perfect 80 degrees. The bike course was flat. The run course was flat and shady. The air temperature was just 70 degrees. You really can’t ask for better race conditions! Finish Strong produced the event – they did a super job putting on a well organized, fun and safe race.

The race was originally scheduled for June 14th, but wildfires east of the race site covered the area with dense smoke making race conditions unsafe. So they postponed the race to June 21st. Fortunately, I was able to still attend. I think they lost alot of people, because there were only about 80 athletes there today. Sad for them – because I really loved this race!

Official Splits

Swim 750 m   21:14  (I'm pretty sure this was measured way long!)
T1               0:41   
Bike 15 miles  43:40
T2                0:54
Run 5k          26:03
Overall:      1:32:29.9 

Place: 3rd female overall. 2nd Age Group.

HR DATA: swim – 156 av, 170 end; bike – 162 avg, 151 end; run – 166 avg;

Pre Race

I left home at 3 am and arrived at the race site at 5:30 am. It took me 15 minutes to prep my bike. The parking was about 1/2 mile from the race site, so I packed up my gear into a backpack and rode my bike to the site. The wing tip of my aero helmet kept hitting my backpack, so it was hard to look straight ahead. I had to sort of cock my head to one side. Awkward to say the least. I arrived at the race site at 6am. Race start time was 7am.

I went to packet pickup and recognized the woman at the table as Debbie, who checks people in at the Finish Strong Time Trial races. She’s always so upbeat and friendly. She handed me my packet and said “You are number 69”. Okay, that’s weird because at the last time trial, I got number 69 also. And, well, 69 is a strange number, if you know what I mean! I told her she had to give me number 69 at all FS races from now on – HAHA!

I went over to body marking (that’s one of my favorite parts of racing) and chip pickup, then headed to the transition area. It was the smallest transition area I had ever seen. I had forgotten to bring my top secret object to mark my spot, but it didn’t matter. There were only 5 racks so it wouldn’t be difficult to find my bike during the transitions. The racks were not the usual metal pipe racks – they were black boxey things with slots for bike wheels. I didn’t like them at first, only because they were different. In the end, I think I like them better…you don’t have to figure out how to balance your bike by it’s seat nose or brake levers or handlebars or whatever. You just slip your wheel into the slot.

The Swim

There were only three swim waves: young males, older males, and then all females. That was an unusual and pleasant circumstance for me because it meant that I would be able to race side by side with all ages of females.

I recognized the name of one top female on the participant list: Suzie H. It was easy to spot her while waiting for our swim wave to start because she wore a cycling team uniform. I positioned myself behind her with the plan to try and draft off her as long as possible. When the horn went off, we both started swimming simultaneously, but when I sighted a few strokes later, she was nowhere to be seen. So much for my drafting plan!

I felt I did extremely well in the swim. I stayed straight on course the entire time. I experimented with sighting less often. I first counted how many strokes I take when just sighting according to habit: it was four. So, I tried sighting every eight strokes. I was still going straight, but for some reason, eight felt physically harder. Maybe my muscles relax when I sight, so it feels like teeny little rest for my body. Anyway, I ended up going to six strokes and that felt doable. I will have to work on this in training.

The swim ended at a little beach with shallow water. I got to do dolphin swimming at the end, which is always fun for me. I’m pretty sure the swim course was measured way long. I felt I put in a strong swim, yet my time of 21 minutes is awful. The best female swim time this race was 16:48, and typically you see 12 minute top swim splits in a sprint race.

The Bike

I wanted to average 21 mph on the bike. It was a flat course, so I thought I could do it. Fairly soon into the bike course, I passed a guy with 45 on his leg. He looked pretty buff. I think I’ll call him “Buffman” for the purposes of this report. Soon after, Buffman passed me back. Then I passed him again. Ahh…the familiar cat and mouse game.

I was pushing hard the entire time, and my quads were burning and I was breathing hard. About half way into the 15 mile course, I was behind Buffman and was trying hard to catch him. I don’t know if he sped up, or I slowed down, but it was getting harder to play cat and mouse.

I felt my legs and lungs were doing all they could, so I thought that all I can do to go faster is to get into a tighter aero position and go for free speed. I started chanting “tight, tight, tight” in my head while focusing on pulling my body into as small a profile as possible (knees, shoulders, head). When I get into that focused state of mind on the bike, I forget to look at the road ahead. I was approaching an intersection, and the volunteer called out to get my attention…there was a left turn that I almost missed! I had to hit my brakes HARD to make the turn.

Crap, that got me farther behind Buffman. A little while later I did the exact same thing: got into a focused “tight, tight, tight” state of mind, and then had to brake hard to make a turn that I almost missed! At that point, I decided to just look at Buffman’s derrier while focusing hard on my own riding. I decided not to worry about passing him, just not allow myself to fall behind any further. I kept up my “tight, tight, tight” chant, while looking ahead toward Buffman’s butt. I’d occasionally glance down at my computer to make sure the speed was right.

I did not catch Buffman, but I did maintain my distance. It bugged me that I couldn’t catch him. It shouldn’t, because after all, he’s a MALE! My average speed at the end said 20.8 mph. Not quite 21. That bothers me too.

One last note about the bike: For some reason, parts of the course felt really hard. I don’t know if there were some false flats, or if wind was a factor, or was it fatigue.

The Run

I ran out of T2 and crossed the timing mat. The volunteer asked me “Where’s your bib?”. I said “It’s tucked into my shorts”, and I pulled out my bib, while still running. Then she asked “What’s your number”. I shouted back “69”, as I continued down the chute toward the run course. This exchange annoyed the heck out of me, as I was trying to race and didn’t want to be bothered by questions! I’m sure she was just doing her job making sure each racer had their bib on for the run. The picture at right (click to enlarge) was taken a moment afterwards, and I look happy and smiling despite my annoyance! That’s a Gu in my mouth, BTW!

I started running at a good solid pace, trying to focus on good form and fast cadence. My heart rate was 165ish. I glanced down at my watch as I hit the lap timer and saw my time was at 1:06. I had put tape over my stopwatch at the race start to hide the time, so as not to get discouraged if I fell short of my desired pace. But the tape was gone – it must have fallen off at some point.

What the heck, I might as well keep track of my time now, so I changed the display to show lap time instead of overall time. At the fist mile marker, my run time was 9 minutes. I was disappointed, as I feel I should be able to run a pace of 8 in a flat sprint course. But I did not let my disappointment drag me down; Rather, I had an uplifting thought:

I cannot change what has already happened. I cannot change that 9 minutes. All I can do is change what comes next. I can push harder and try to run the last 2 miles faster.

So, that’s exactly what I did! My final run split was 26:02, which equals a pace of 8:22. So, I DID run faster. Yeah!

The run was an out and back course. That means you see athletes that are ahead of you as they are heading back in, while you are heading out. The most exciting part of this race for me was when I realized I was in third place overall female! Here’s how it played out: I saw Suzie H coming back in on the run course. I knew she was in first place because I hadn’t seen any other females on the bike or run. A little while later another female ran toward me. I knew she was in second place. A few minutes later I hit the turn around. That meant I was in third place overall female. OMG!!

As I ran back in to the finish, I got to see what females were chasing me. It was a few minutes before I saw the fourth place female. That meant I had a pretty solid lead and felt I could keep it. Still, I pushed hard just in case! At each corner, I glanced around to see who was coming up from behind. (click photo to see me glancing at one such corner.) When there was just a half mile to go, I didn’t see any females anywhere behind me. I considered slacking off – why push hard if I don’t have to?

WHAT, AM I CRAZY??? NO WAY!!! I had to keep up my hard effort and get the best time possible. It’s good habit for future races, and who knows, maybe there’s some female behind me doing a pace of 6 and could still catch me. So, I kept up my hard effort and finished strong.

As soon as I was done, I jogged to the lake for a cooling dip in the water. Ahhh – that felt so great. Every race should end with a dip in cool refreshing water! All in all, I had a great day!

Here I am near the very end of the run, looking very happy with my result! You might also want to read my post race thoughts, written right after the race.