Note to self: The shorter the race, the more important transitions become.
I rode my bike to work and then over to the race after. Katie brought Paige and Ken down to watch. It was fun but we probably got down there a little early. The sun was pretty hot at 5:00 pm. The race didn't start until 6:00.
Short races are a different world than IM it seems. Everybody was walking all over the place talking, running, and having a good time. At 5:00 AM before IM it's very quiet. Most people are just sitting there staring into the blackness or checking their bikes over and over again. There's a general feeling of dread in the air. People get into their wetsuits with 45 mintues to go before the race. Yesterday I noticed that with 20 minutes left nobody was ready to go.
I went into the transistion area and found a empty patch of ground and started to change. Water temp was 67 degrees. I thought that since people weren't in their wetsuits yet that maybe they weren't going to wear them. Then people started getting ready. As did I.
A quick picture of me getting ready.At 6:00 exactly the race started. I was shocked at how unprepared I felt immediately. At first I felt really good and then before the first turn I was kind of tired. I pushed on and saw what I thought was the final bouy but as usual there was another. I thought about the fact that Alcatraz is 3 times as long as this swim and I got a little worried. Then I felt like warmed up a bit. My arms were loose and my breathing was OK. I found that I wasn't resting at all. I was hoping for 15 minutes in the water. Actually I think I went a little faster than that but I can't tell because I forgot my watch and they didn't have a timing mat at the swim exit.
I really felt disoriented jogging up to transition so I walked. I remembered that Alcatraz in 3 weeks has a 3/4 mile run from water to bike and started getting worried again.
I pulled off my wetsuit. That seemed to take a while. I got my shoes on pretty quick along with my heart rate monitor (next time I'll just leave it on for the swim) but I had tons of problems putting my shirt on! I chose my 2008 Escape shirt because of the technical fabric (but also because I thought it would be cool at this event) but the polyester just got all sticky and I couldn't pull it over my shoulders. Finally ready to go I started jogging out of transition. I'm sure it took my 6-7 mintues but as I said, no watch.
I do know from my GPS that I started the run at 6:20 exactly. It's an out and back 2 lap course of about 2.4 miles but my GPS said 2.29 when I was done. 200 yards into the run my calves really cramped up bad. I ran through it but I must remember to eat, drink, and focus on electrolytes.
The rest of the run went OK. The shirt turned out to be a poor choice on the run because of the decals. The really absorbed the remaining sunlight and I got hot. There's no zipper like on a jersey so I was pretty uncomfortable. At the first turn I downed a dixie cup of water and poured another on my back. I did get a few people commenting on how cool my shirt was, so that was a little nice.
Everybody was at the turnaround back at the start so I got high fives from everyone. Second lap went pretty well, the cramping in my legs went away and I even had just a little left for a slight sprint home. Final average pace was 8:03 min/mile.
I was pretty happy with that until I looked at the results this morning. They only give a final finish time. At 38 minutes I finished 120 / 160. I'm hoping that my T time was what hurt me.
We all went out and had a fun pizza dinner afterwards.
