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| Me and Shelly at the Lake to Lake Triathlon. I pretty much look like I just rolled out of bed. |
It’s a good thing I’m doing this blog because I’m honestly
beginning to lose track of how many races I’ve done. A few weeks ago, I ran into Shelly J. at a
race and she asked what number I was on. Granted, I was a little groggy (see
the picture to see what I mean) but I had to stop and think for a long, long
time before answering “25?” with that questioning tone that teenage girls use.
I’ve done four races recently that I haven’t written about
yet. That means it’s time for a mega recap. This post is long! So, grab
yourself a snack, get settled, and let’s get started.
Race #24 - Summer Solstice Swim
Date: June 20
Type: Open Water Swim
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| Swim Shwag. Say that five times fast. |
Distance: Supposedly 1.2 miles but there’s just no way
because it only took me a little more than 30 minutes and I’ve barely been
swimming these day so… yeah… no
Shwag: Another one of those backpack things and some free
food stuff that I have long since eaten.
This race was awesome, not because I love swimming in a
bacteria filled reservoir, but because it was just one event in a really
amazing day. I started the day with a short, low-key two hour run with my trail
running buds. (Yep, I just used two hour run and “short” in the same sentence.
That’s what happens when you’re training for a race that’s going to take you
close to ten hours to complete.) It was
a beautiful morning and, as we cruised around the trails in South Boulder, I
had a few moments of tranquility, of being 100% in the moment, of just being...
completely content. That, in and of itself, is a great day. But that was only
the beginning.
After grabbing some grub, taking my dog, Elmer, for a romp,
and then getting cleaned up, it was off to the Union Reservoir to celebrate the
Summer Solstice and our good friend, Jen Szabo. For her birthday, which just
happens to fall a few days after the Solstice, Jen had organized a SUP outing for
a few of us and the city of Longmont had organized the Kinetics Festival. There
were all sorts of crazy stuff going on like bands, a big wheel rally, kinetic
boat races, 20 of us on standup paddle boards, and an evening open water swim
race.
A lot of people had verbally committed to the race but few
had actually registered in advance. After a few hours of fun on the water,
people’s enthusiasm was waning and I was afraid I was going to be the only one
out there, while everyone else dug into the ice cream cake we brought for Jen.
Luckily, I was in charge of the ice cream cake and, like only a recovering
Catholic can, I used it to guilt trip my fellow swimmers into joining me in the
water.
To my utter delight, I ended up having four fine people join
me for the fun: Russ, Becky, Liz F., and Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn gets an extra special
shout-out because she had already done the BAM Bare Bones swim that morning and
wasn’t feeling too hot but rallied at the last minute and had a great swim.
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| Happy Swimmers! (Minus Liz F.) |
The swim itself was pretty uneventful and, thanks to the
short course, it went by a lot faster than I thought it would. Since I haven’t
been swimming much, my only goal was to finish and to try to enjoy myself as
much as possible. I’m happy to say that I accomplished both of my goals.
Swimming in the warmth of the evening sun was ridiculously wonderful. The water
was pretty wide open (i.e. I didn’t get kicked in the face!) and so I took my
time out there, alternating between freestyle and backstroke, and just sort of
floating around and taking it all in.
In every picture I’ve seen that involves me exiting the swim
at a triathlon, I have an expression on my face that looks like I just got beat
up by a group of kindergartners – it’s a mix shock, terror, disbelief,
astonishment, joy at surviving, etc., etc . Not so at the summer open! Here are the pics they snapped of me at the end.
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| Post-Swim Smiles |
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| I'd really like to know who I'm high-fiving. |
These pictures are such an anomaly that
I want to buy them. However, there’s no option for a digital copy and what am I
going to do, Use them for my Christmas card? If I had on a red or green cap, maybe.
While this may have been one of my slowest open water swims
ever, it was one of my most awesome, and a great way to end the day. Oh, and
after the SUPing and the swim, we ate ice cream cake and then went to Chub
Burger in Longmont because why not cram two weekends’ worth of fun into a
single day?
As for the pictures below, well, we couldn't resist.
Race #25 – Loveland Lake to Lake Sprint Triathlon
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| Shwag |
Date: June 27
Type: Triathlon!!!!
Distance: 800 meter swim (plus a ridiculously long run to
transition), 15 mile bike, 4 mile run
Shwag: Race shirt with a neat design but a terrible fit, yet
another water bottle, and yet another one of those backpack things. Plus… a
medal and a reusable shopping bag for snagging 2nd in my AG. Plus… they legitimately have a
great post-race breakfast. The race website says something like “best
post-triathlon breakfast ever!” After the Colorado Women’s Classic Cupcake
Fiasco, I was skeptical, but it really was an amazing breakfast. No pictures. I
was too busy eating.
I did this race because I hadn’t done a triathlon in over a
year and I figured I should give it a shot, you know, just to make sure I could
still do it. The good news is that it’s mostly just like riding a bike, except the
bike riding is sandwiched between some swimming and running.
I signed up about a week before the race and then decided I
should probably ride my tri bike at least once before the race. I got on on my
bike for a short lunch ride the Tuesday before the race. I hadn’t done the aero
thing in quite some time but seeing as I pretty much lived on my bike in 2013,
it would all come back to me, right? Wrong.
I only rode about 15 miles and it was super sketchy. At one
point, I went down a small hill in my aero bars and had an inner monologue freak
out the entire way. I’m a little embarrassed to say it, but when I got home and
looked at my Garmin thingiemabobber, I saw that my max speed was only 29 mph.
Tuesday. Race on Saturday. I had some work to do.
After my disappointing ride, I went into action mode and
immediately bought myself a cute new tri kit.
If I wasn’t going to look good out there, I was going to look good out
there, if you know what I mean. I also went out for another ride a few days
later and was relieved that, while I wasn’t back to my previous aerobar comfort
levels (i.e. basically being able to perform any activity in the aero position
while cruising along at a decent clip), I was way better than I had been on
Tuesday. That gave me hope that I could survive.
On race morning, I woke up at the painful time of 4:00 am
and made my way up to Loveland. I was flying solo for this race, which hasn’t
happened too often. In fact, I think I’ve only done a handful of races on my
own, and at most of those races, I’ve run into at least one other person that I
know. This race was no different. I saw
both Shelly J. and Dave K. at the race, which was great. But, they were both
there for the Olympic distance and I was just trying to make it through the
sprint.
I’m not going to give you the blow-by-blow details of the
race because that would just be boring as heck (and I still have two more races
to recap!) so here are a few highlights:
I had a fairly decent swim and didn’t wreck on the bike!
Those were both good things.
As I was coming in from the bike, I started to take my feet
out of my shoes in preparation for my flying dismount. Then I thought, “Hmm… should
I really try this? I haven’t done this in over a year. I maybe should have
practiced…” Then I thought, “What could
possibly go wrong?” This is what went
wrong: I got my left foot out successfully but then somehow managed to unclip
my shoe from my pedal. Luckily I didn’t drop my shoe but that meant I had to
ride across the parking lot with one foot clipped in, one bare foot directly on
the pedal , and one shoe in my hand. Meh. Could have been worse.
Then came the run. Aside from a duathlon I did in January, I
hadn’t done a single brick workout this year. The beginning was horrible, worse
than I remember, and it didn’t help that we had to run down a grassy hill.
After a few minutes, my legs started to feel like normal again and I made my
way around the lake at what felt like a pretty decent effort.
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| You want me up on the stage? Um... okay. |
I don’t wear a Garmin while running so I have no idea how
fast I was going. Since I came up on the 3 mile marker pretty quickly, I
assumed it was a little off and that I probably had about nine or ten more
minutes before I made it to the finish line. Therefore, imagine my surprise
when I crossed the finish line 14 minutes later.
I really thought I was just out of shape but it turns out
the run was 4.5 miles, not 4. While I want to be mad that the course was longer
than advertised, it probably made me run faster than I thought I could (or than
I wanted to) and that’s probably a good thing.
Also probably a good thing: it was a really small race and I
ended up taking second in my age group. I think I mostly beat out some women
who had never done a triathlon before so it’s really not a huge deal. And, as
you can tell from the look on my face, I felt a little uncomfortable with the
attention. But, I’m really glad that I got that cute new tri kit!
Race #26 – Superior Downhill Mile
Date: July 4
Type: Run
Distance: 1 mile
Shwag: Race shirt
Weeks ago, I signed up for the Avery Four on the 4th,
which has become sort of a tradition for me. Then someone told me about the
Superior Downhill Mile, which takes place at 7:00 am on the 4th of
July. The Avery race starts at 9:00. Two races in the same day... It was
doable. Was it, as my friend Russ called it “intriguingly stupid”? Probably.
Was it the right thing to do to celebrate the birth of this fine nation?
Definitely.
After learning about the Downhill Mile, I knew that I was
going to do it. With such an early start, followed by a whole other race, I
figured I might be on my own for this one but I was wrong, way wrong. Jen Szabo
quickly signed up for both races, then Russ, then Barb F., and then Doug W. So
instead of flying solo, I had a whole posse of fun and festive peeps racing
with me. What’s awesome is that these guys didn’t just show up for the race. They
brought the bling. Everyone was decked out in their most random patriotic gab,
which included pretty much every item of item of clothing and/or accessory you
can think of from flags to headbands to t-shirts to tutus to socks to
underwear. What can I say? We were one good looking group!
A mile is short, especially when you’re running downhill so
there’s not much to say about the race itself. Here’s most of what I can
remember:
They played a really, really, really long version of the
Star Spangled Banner before the race. I kind of don’t understand why it needed
to be so long. It was a recording, which means that they picked the recording,
and that’s the one that they wanted? Interesting.
I think they may have started the race by shooting off an
actual gun. It was crazy loud and a little scary.
After the gun shot, they blasted the Chariots of Fire song,
which is pretty funny when you have a random group of patriotically dressed
people running as fast as they can down a suburban street at 7:00 am.
Downhill running is awesome. Despite having less-than-fresh
legs, I still PRed by over 30 seconds.
I think we all PRed, which made for one happy group of star
spangled runners. We spent just a few minutes happily chatting at the finish
line before making our way back up to our cars to head out to the next race.
(Note to self: Park at the finish line next year, not at the start.)
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| Race Shirt(s) |
Race #27 – Avery Four on the 4th
Date: July 4th
Type: Run
Distance: 4k
Shwag: Race shirt
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| Ready to run at the new Avery! |
When we arrived at Avery, there were already tons of people
there, including some people who had been at the downhill mile. (According to
the Boulder Road Runners, sixteen of us were tough enough to do both
races.)
Avery recently moved to new, bigger digs out in Gunbarrel,
which meant that they were able to expand the race this year. It felt much
bigger than it had in years past, which was a bummer in some ways. But, while I
missed the intimate feeling of the old venue, there were a lot more people that
I knew this time around and it was fun to race with so many friends. And while
the course was a little strange – you did a few loops around and office park
and some cul-de-sacs – it was nicer than the old office park course.
That said, because the winners of the race win a ton-o-beer,
it’s generally a fairly competitive race. That meant that the lead runners were
lapping the rest of us. While that wasn’t a huge issue for us normal people, it
might have been a little annoying for the fast people. But, thankfully, that’s
not a problem I’ll ever have to deal with?
I think we all stiffened up a bit in the car on the way to
race #2 and I probably should have warmed up a bit before the race started.
But, honestly, I really didn’t want to run more than I had to. I want to say
that the stiffness faded once I stared running but it totally didn’t. Luckily
Sarah B. was nice enough to run with me, which kept me from slacking off too
badly, although I’m sure I was holding her back quite a bit. The race only took
us a little more than 20 minutes but my legs were so tired that it felt like
forever. But, with the beer tent in sight, I was able to sprint to the finish
line.
After the race, we partook in the post-race breakfast and
all you can drink beer. In years past, they’ve served the most amazing
breakfast burritos but, like a few other things, that tradition got lost in the
move and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bum me out. While there are many
themes that run through this blog – friendship, determination, pushing my
boundaries, trying my hardest – post-race food is, by far, the most prevalent.
Don’t get me wrong – it was still a really good breakfast. It just wasn’t THE
breakfast, and I mourned that I little bit by drowning my sorrows in another beer
at 10:00 am.
One exciting note about the race is that my friend Bob M.
took 3rd in his age group and won two six packs of beer! It was great to have a
huge group there to cheer for him when they called his name. We were so loud
that the announcer said, “someone’s popular!” Yep, he definitely is.
After the awards ceremony, a few of us crazies got on our
bikes and rode back into Boulder. I was home and napping before noon, so I
could head out for more fun in the evening. What a great way to celebrate the
U.S. of A!
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| Now that's a good looking group! |
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