Eagleman 70.3 Race Report

I don't remember what wkd eagleman took place, but I will try to recreate the day's events in excrutiating detail for you, loyal slog-reader...

- in my two race pro career, this is the second-consecutive race where I am first out of the money
- I placed 9th, but was less than 4 min from 4th place (big improvement over columbia where I was SLAUGHTERED)


On race morning I awoke to an impressive breakfast spread laid out by my homestay parents Pat and Jenny... yessss this included EGGS for scrambling. A mil calories later I headed to the race venue with fellow homestayers Glenda and Kate, finished setting up transition and got to the start...

SWIM--5th--26:33

I entered T1 behind Mirinda and was pleased with my swim when I saw Laurel Wassner and Kelly Handel in T1 who both swam 1 min faster than me at Columbia. At this point in time, Coach Paulo almost had, in his words, a brain aneurism, when he saw my swim time. The women's swim times first appearing on ironmanlive included an extra 3 minutes since we started 3 min back of the men & that adjustment was not made in the posted time. If there's anything noteworthy about the swim--at some point I felt, uh tired and in some discomfort, BUT, I remembered succumbing to the SLOW DOWN DEMONS in the Dallas US Open last year, and told myself, let's not do that.

REAL-TIME INTERMISSION: on my walk home from the pool last night I came across hashers--self-professed members of a "drinking club with a running problem"--as they were on their Thursday night troll around the neighborhood. I overheard one shout to a passerby that it was a Michael Jackson Memorial Run. haha, LOVES

BIKE--2:31--9th

I hung around with the girls I came out of the water with for a while. FACT --Natascha is a powerhouse biker--geez. Around the 2 hr mark, a woman in black, later identified as Desiree Ficker, rode past me and Laurel and we picked up the pace to keep her in sight... so the last hr of riding was a pretty good effort. I tried to stay relaxed and relieve tension in my arms, back, shoulders to save energy for smiling on the run, obviously.

Let there be Blood -- look at pic where I'm running w/ my bike. My bike fit has been adjusted since eagleman and I currently ride bloody-knee free. For all those interested in fashion, do you remember Malia Obama's pink and orange Inauguration outfit? I do (reference the close-up pic of me running).


RUN--1:30:28--8th

The first couple miles were ROUGH... here come the complaints... the front of my left ankle and left quad hurt. I reflected on LAHP's now-HEALING foot and wanted to stop before I did damage. Those irritations subsided within a couple miles.

A few women passed me--one wrote in her race report that she saw her "victims" on the run course. I SHALL NOT BE A VICTIM! I was that day...

Racing close to home, there was a large DC Tri Club contingent, so I had plenty of cheers along the run course (but was generally unresponsive as I was focused on ... GETTING THE WORK DONE). :)

This is the only time I smiled on the run, I SWEAR. but look at this guy. LOOK AT HIM.  My pal with Echappe Equipment (www.racewheelrental.com), Andrew Shanks, hooked me up with a disc wheel for the flat and fast course!!!  :)  It was my first race riding a disc... very nice.

splits:

6:35 (prob started watch late)
6:56
6:56
6:53
7:03
7:04
6:55
6:50
6:51
6:52
7:06
7:02
6:39

Upon examination of my run splits, the ever-inquisitive LAHP asked if there was a hill when I ran the 7:0Xs. Eagleman is a FLAT COURSE. I replied in kind and asked to see HER run splits. Conversation over.

At mile 11 I was hurting and happy I put in a good effort. Eagleman was a step in the right direction. Big congrats to training pals Ryan and Kelzie who BOTH earned slots to clearwater!

NEXT: Philadelphia!

THE SLOG BATTLE/SHOWDOWN

I have all of these hugely newsworthy blogs to publish but am being hampered by Lindsey's high level of race report writers block. However, I must announce the following:

I've just been informed by Lindsey that she too is signing up for the Vineman 70.3, which means Sonoma County will be the site of the RookiePro 2009 slog fest. This will be the first race we've competed head to head, and if training camp is any indication of racing, this is going to be one painful day...

Who Cares? I DON'T

re: our slog posts, Lauren and I are now striving for quantity, rather than quality

Lauren gifted the following suit to me last year, but I'm generally too timid to EVER wear such a spectacle to the YMCA. I WORE IT TODAY (the employee break room overlooks the pool so even my front desk buddy KJ noticed and commented... goodness):

The following slog-worthy chat illustrates how we must LOOK OUT FOR OURSELVES AND TAKE OUR LIVES INTO OUR OWN HANDS:

Lauren: dude. i've been carrying around my MRI results with me for the past week in hopes I will run into someone who can read them. SOME people carry a purse with lipstick and emergency advil. I CARRY MY EMERGENCY MRI RESULTS

Lindsey: lol
when I went to deep creek lake [memorial day wkd, biking w/ friends] I brought my own kosher salt, cracked pepper, pan, spatula
and the full henckels knife set!

Lauren: HAHAHHA

LAUREN's IM CDA PERSONAL BIKE RACE REPORT

With work stress and disastrous next door neighbor stress, Matt and I both needed a break from the Bay Area. Purse makes fun of me because I always seem to need a vacation after two weeks of work. (this is really not true.) Due to my slower than light speed foot recovery, I had to pull out of the Boise 70.3, so last weekend Matt and I headed up to Couer d'Alene (CDA), Idaho for some rest and relaxation...yeah right. More like we headed up to CDA so Matt could race an Xterra and I could race all historical bike splits of the CDA ironman bike course. alone.

The trip started off in a most excellent fashion, as Alaska Airlines managed to displace our 2 bike boxes for a slew of golf clubs. We finally picked up the bikes the next morning, and I am assuming this was due to my charming wit and personality when dealing with angry baggage guy. We headed down to Couer d'Alene after a lovely brunch at Safeway, where I read an article about how the CDA community is annoyed with cyclists pre-riding the course. This did not make me feel so good, especially when I read about how 2 cyclists had "broadsided" a Subaru Legacy a few years back. Unbiased journalism at its finest!

Matt helped me put my bike together and then took off for some place North to pre-ride his Xterra course while I was left with the daunting task of NOT getting lost while reading the bike course directions for CDA. My goal for this ride was to just finish the ride and contemplate the meaning of life as I remind myself how fortunate I am to be able to ride and swim right now. My super secret goal for this ride was to go under 5:30 and not let anyone pass me. Yes, I am "that" girl who races everyone on the road. This habit has become the thorn in my flesh, the daily cross that I bear, and the reason why I embrace the Computrainer which saves me from myself. I don't even let myself race the pacer on the Computrainer course for fear that my competitive angst will destroy me.

After a couple thousand wrong turns I finally found my way out on the course and was off! Thankfully a couple of cool women from somewhere within driving distance of the course were also out there and pointed me in the correct direction every time I managed to get lost. I was doing really well until about mile 95 when my dislike for gels and gooey bike food crap finally caught up to me. I attempted to call Purse for some virtual assistance, but apparently she was too busy at the beach to take my call.


Purse enjoying a post ride beach trip while catching up on some heavy reading.

The rest of the weekend was filled with me dusting off my sherpa skills for Matt and his Xterra race. After getting him to the race (or riding my bike there and getting in my own personal workout while he schlepped his own crap to the race) I pumped him up with my personal pre-race cheery thoughts and then set up to find the perfect spot to cheer him on (which ironically happened to be the lake where I did my personal open water swim in water that is colder than the Pacific Ocean and the road where I did my short test run and inadvertently ran into him). Despite my selfish training endeavors, I did manage to cheer him on and give him some key splits. The only problem with these Xterra races is that they always seem to be in the sticks. Per usual, I did not plan my nutrition accordingly and was stuck out in the middle of nowhere all day with only a jar of peanut butter and some chocolate powergel. Perhaps this is what Heaven looks like for Jodi and Purse.



Now we are back at home and I'm okay with the fact that work hasn't become less stressful and the neighbors haven't moved, if only because I am dreaming about my next vacation that I will have to take in 2 weeks to keep up with the trend.

Change of Plans

2 weeks ago I crashed with a car while cycling around Hains Point (HP)--I was looping East & West Potomac Park--the route is in yellow. Commonly known as a safe-haven for cyclists and runners, this is a convenient and traffic light-free place to ride before or after work.



I cycled along the Virginia facing side of HP in the left lane of a 2 lane (1 way) road and was cut-off by a car who tried to jump from the right lane and into a parking space on the other side of me. I was in his blind spot... braked, ran into his car and then made contact with the road. I was pretty much fine! As for the car, my right bicep busted his side view mirror into the nearby grass (OK... the Potomac)


the AFTERMATH which actually was NOT DRAMATIC AT ALL:

- the first people I called live at least 1,000 mile away

- MANY people stopped to help and make sure I was OK... a good samaritan cyclist I met that evening, Manny, took my bike home with him and returned it the next day. YESSSSSS SO NICE!

- Another cyclist, Matt ???, relayed the state of my crash wounds to Paulo via phone (since I had no idea if it was normal or bad or whatever) who then confirmed that I was NOT to race the ITU in Austin that wkd. In effort to find ECM (East Coast Matt) I will wear a sign on the back of my jersey on tomorrow's bike ride: "ARE YOU MATT?"

- my first thoughts were--what does this mean for training? Is my bike OK?!?

- I took an ambulance to the George Washington hospital to get x-rays of my right wrist

- I tried to impress the ER people by playing look how low I can get my heartrate


Best of all, my training partner (also the 1/2 marathon pacer for the tens of slog-readers out there), Ryan brought me a Chipotle dinner. Before he arrived I was getting quite hungry, I thought WHAT WOULD I DO/EAT IF RYAN WEREN'T COMING?!?!?

No damage to the FACE (head & neck are OK too)! Due to chilling of the dominant, right hand, I was forced to eat Chipotal (omg I did that by accident but how clever! merging chipotle AND hospital) at the speed of a normal person by using my left. Despite the adversity, I finished my burrito bowl.



X-rays confirmed that I had no broken bones... the Revolution Cycles in georgetown made sure my bike was good to go.... so thank you to everyone who took care of me!



NEXT DAY: As previously stated, I did not fly to Austin for the ITU, but instead, ventured to Deep Creek Lake, MD with TRIFRIENDS for a world-of-hurt wkd... yea I bounced back and was on the bike again by Sat. However, I am repeatedly asked "Do you get in fights?" when people notice the bruising.



While waiting at the Georgetown waterfront rendesvous, I smiled as I watched rowers Getting the Work Done.


On Saturday we rode the Savageman bike course (56 miles with 6k ft climbing):
Remainder of group: Travis and Laurel SERIOUSLY close to me
Chad--WIPED... pretty scenery to follow


Chad and Laurel trigger pointing--from the looks on their faces, Chad is using the tools correctly. 2 fools who dropped my ass on the Savageman ride. The next day they rode 97 miles (hence the term, fools... I say that w/ much love and respect)

THE GROUP (minus Kirsten who is the photog)!