Sneak Attack!

Race#22: Boulder Stroke and Stride #1

Date: June 4

Type: Swim/Run

Distance: 750 meters/5k

Shwag: Post-race pizza and that lovely Res funk  

Lately I’ve been suffering a bit of race fatigue. I’ve been tired. I’ve been cranky. And the thought of waking up early and traveling somewhere to do something has been less than palatable. The hard part is that this is when I really need to start kicking it into gear. As my 50k draws closer, I know it’s going to get harder and harder to want to race. That added pressure hasn’t been helping.

I want to keep making progress on my races. But at the same time, I don’t want to burn myself out. It’s a conundrum. What should I do? Should I take time off? Should I just push through and then power out some races later this month? As I thought through my options, I had an epiphany: mid-week races!

I’ve done a number of mid-week races this year and they’ve all been a great way to get in a race and a good workout, all while blowing off a little work-week steam. A nice thing about mid-week races is that they’re all a little more low-key. They also tend to feed you dinner, which is always a bonus for me.

Today was the first official Stroke and Stride of the season. The Stroke and Stride is an open-water swim at the Boulder Reservoir, followed by a 5k run. Since afternoon thunderstorms are common out here, at least 50% of the stroke and strides turn into just a stride, which is a little lame. Amazingly, it looked as if the weather was going to cooperate today so I decided to pounce on the opportunity.

It took me some time to pack my bag and figure out logistics for the race. Until today, I hadn’t done an open-water swim since the Boulder 70.3, which was almost a year ago. Realizing this made me a little nervous. Not only have I not been in the open water, I haven’t really been swimming. The open water can be scary! What if it was really cold and I couldn’t breathe? What if my wetsuit was too tight? What if I got kicked in the face? Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies!

I know it might sound weird but I liked the fact that I was nervous. I was pushing myself out of my comfort zone on a Thursday night and I respect that about myself, the fact that I try not to let fear hold me back. Yep, you read that right. I just gave myself a compliment. That might also sound weird to some of you but it shouldn’t. Humans in general, but women especially, are too hard on themselves. Amy Schumer has a really funny, and true, skitabout this. We can’t take a compliment from someone else and we certainly can’t give one to ourselves. It’s ridiculous. Validation shouldn’t need to come from an outside source. When you do something awesome, own it, even if it’s just finally organizing your sock drawer (which I kind of really need to do.)   

After finally getting my bag packed, I headed out to the Res. There were some clouds looming on the horizon but overall the weather was still holding. I got myself signed in, grabbed a spot in the transition area and then started the arduous process of getting my wetsuit on. Every year in the off season, I forget what a miserable experience that is. I struggled and sweated and pulled and tugged and finally got that stupid thing on. I felt like a stuffed pig baking in the sun and that made me feel bad until I saw that everyone around me also had a look of misery on their faces. So I’m not the only one who got a little tubby over the winter? Phew.

After wrangling myself into my wetsuit, I only had about ten minutes before the start of the race so I trotted down to the water for a quick warm up. I was bracing for the shock of cold water but it felt fairly warm. I don’t know if that’s because a) it was warm b) I’ve gotten more used to cold water over the years or c) I got used to cold water because my hot water heater was out for a few days and, man, that’s a cold shower.

After a warm-up lap, my jitters were gone and I was ready for the race. The only thing that made me a little nervous were the clouds that were rolling in. In the interest of full disclosure, I was nervous they might cancel the race before it started and that would be an issue because I had peed in my wetsuit and I really need the long swim to rinse it all out. (Don’t judge. You know you all do it too.)

The race organizers saw the clouds too but instead of cancelling the race, they started us a little early. 

One minute I was standing in the water and the next thing I knew, I was in the midst of my first open-water swim of the season!

I don’t love the open water so I took this one easy. I stayed to the outside, avoided people, and went slow and steady. (Actually, that’s pretty much my strategy for every open-water swim.) The wind was picking up so the swim was a little rough in spots but overall, not bad at all. In the final stretch, I even tried to find some feet and practice drafting. I latched onto someone but it wasn’t long before I realized that there were NOT a straight swimmer and swam off on my own again.

Once I popped out of the water, it was time to see if I still knew how to get out of my wetsuit. While the process was a little awkward, overall it went pretty smoothly, especially compared to the guy next to me who finally gave up and sat down on the ground to get out of his.

The out-and-back run was pretty straight forward. I wanted to take it easy but that’s hard to do in a race. Even when I say, “I’m going to hold back and take this one slow,” I always end up pushing it at least a little. The problem at the Stroke and Strides is that I’m an okay swimmer and an okay runner, but there are a lot of people out there who are bad swimmers and good runners. In races like this, I beat the bad swim/good run folks out of the water and then they all blow by me on the run. This creates the illusion that I’m going slower than I actually am and instinctively makes me run faster than I want to.

But then, after a mile or so, I realized there weren’t a lot of other women on the course, and that no women had passed me. Hmm…

It’s not that I really cared too much about my placement. I certainly wasn’t going to put out the effort required to chase anyone down. But, if I was in a good spot, I was determined not to lose it. When I got to the halfway point, it appeared that there were about four or five women in front of me, and my friend Marjie was right behind me. Like, right behind me! I know Marjie is one tough cookie and I could also see it in her eyes that she wanted to catch me.  

Ah, crap. I’m going to have to hurt a little if I don’t want her to catch me.

I tried not to think about it as we headed toward home but I could hear her footsteps behind me for the entire 1.5 miles. At one point, I was sure she was going to pass me but I somehow held her off and we finished within seconds of each other. It was fun to have that little good-natured push and to have a friendly face to high-five at the finish line, all on a Thursday night.

During the run, more clouds had rolled in and literally, as soon as I crossed the finish line, I heard a clap of thunder. I quickly packed up my stuff, grabbed a slice of pizza, and got to my car just as it was starting to hail. All in all, I’d call that a pretty perfect race.