It was an early start to our day, up at 3:10am for a 3:45am departure for Boulder. Had a good nights sleep so was happy about that. I had most of my stuff ready for the race so when I got up all I had to do was change clothes, heat up breakfast and load up the bike. Andy and I both were racing today as well as my friend Audra. We left the house on time to go pick up Audra who lives 5 min. away, only to find out when we got to her house she was nowhere to be found. After a few phonecall attempts and a ring on the doorbell, her husband emerges from the dark house to inform us that she overslept and she would have to drive herself up to the race....Not good for Audra but I guess it was good that we had arranged to pick her up otherwise I am pretty sure she would have missed the whole race!
We arrived in Boulder about 5:00am with plenty of time to get our body's marked with our race numbers and age and then we picked up our timing chip and racked our bikes. I ate my breakfast of brown rice/banana/blueberries just as we pulled into the Boulder Rez. My race was to start at 7:00am and I wanted to get something in at least 2 hours prior. I was feeling a little hungry about 6:00am so I had a macrobar, my favorite as they sit well in my stomach and don't give me side stitches.
The water was warm so I opted for my sleeveless wetsuit. It's great to swim in but almost impossible to get out of!! I need to get a new top before the next race. The swim was pretty uneventful, I started off on the front line and only a handful of people were in front of me. We swam for about 10 min. into the blinding sun so everyone was all over the place. Once we made the turn at the first bouy things got a little better, however, I was finding myself swimming thru the mass of swimmers from the earlier waves. There were 12 waves and the W-45-49 were in the 6th wave with half of the men 30-34. It sure didn't seem like a big wave so it was nice not getting the crap beat out of me like an Ironman swim when all 2000 swimmers take off at once.
I got out of the swim in :28 but had a heck of a time getting my wetsuit top off. I didn't feel like hustling too much out of transition but now that I know how the race ended up I should have tried to make the transitions just a tad quicker!
The bike was great, I felt pretty comfortable, even on the one mile long, 15% grade on "Old Stage Rd". I was able to get into a pretty good rythem and just continued to pass riders. The course was extremely crowded and I did yell at some girl who was drafting off of me...I kicked it into a higher gear and dropped her rather quickly. The ride took me 1:18:52 so I was quite pleased with that. My legs felt like they were wanting to cramp so I actually took 6 sport legs capsules on the bike: 3 at the start of the ride and an hour later took another 3. I had 2 gels on the bike and drank GU2O in my aero bottle....I added a little water at the first aid station and then just blew by the 2nd aid as I new I had plenty to get me back to the transition.
The run was going to be interesting. I have just started running without my orthodics and in new shoes as I am still having heel pain when running, it's been 7 months and not much has been helping. I have seen a couple of podiatrists and one PA and they all seem to have different diagnosis. Plantar Faciitis is probably what it is but I am going in for a CT scan on the heel next week to rule out a stress fracture. Running without the orthodics doesn't make the calves hurt as much as wearing them but the heel hurts more...so who knows. I plan to rest it a little this week and I have just started wearing a foot splint which stretches the calf out so I will give this a couple of weeks to see how it goes.
The run seemed easy for the first 3 miles, granted the heel was hurting and my calves were pretty tight so I didn't feel like I could really push it without getting myself into A LOT of pain. I was running at a conversational pace until the turn-around and then I did pick up the pace a little more. I was feeling pretty good, took in one gel at the half way mark and then had water at each of the 5 aid stations. I saw Andy near the turn-around and I figured he would catch me before I finished the race. Not so, he finished less than a minute behind me...however, he did start :25 min. after me! I could hear some gal breathing down my neck with less than a quarter mile to go, I couldn't read her age on her calf so I tried to stay with her but she just had more than I did at the end. I later found out that she beat me by :05 and was in my age group. After finding out that she was also a friend of Andy's and a world class runner years ago, I didn't feel so bad!
I ran exactly what I wanted and had a great time. I ended up 4th in my age group, not too shabby for someone who is running on the injured list.. Andy had a great race as well. He had some competiton swimming and riding within a minute of another guy...very close, however, Andy was able to out run the guy and so Andy took the 1st place trophy home with him.
We hung out at the awards and visited with quite a few of our friends that we hadn't seen in years, considering we haven't done a short course triathlon in many many years.
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