This was a race weekend, with a half on Saturday (see kkocan's report) and a sprint on Sunday. Saturday was sunny and hot, Sunday was not hot and very wet; it’s hard to believe how drastically the conditions changed from one day to the next. Apparently a number of people really suffered in the heat on Saturday. Since it’s an early race, people haven’t had the opportunity to train for hot conditions. It reached 82 or 83 for air temperature, plus there was the heat off the black asphalt.

Saturday we watched a good part of the half to learn some lessons and cheer people on (we couldn’t stay for the whole race because of another obligation elsewhere that afternoon, but we staked out on a hill with an improvised cowbell to help people motivate for the climb). As for the lessons, aside from the obvious ones about knowing your transition procedures, here are a few:
1. Know the swim course: One of the elite guys in the first wave passed the buoy (where he was supposed to head back to shore) and just kept swimming. I think the kayaker could have been more alert about herding the guy and keeping him from going so far astray in the first place, but it was a reminder to pay attention to the buoys and not let navigation go by the wayside.
2. Ride your bike before the race. Not for warmup or anything to do with you, but to make sure everything about your bike is there and functional. One woman did not have her pedals and had to grab her running shoes and go with platforms that were scrounged from somewhere. A rare combination with an aero helmet.
3. Leave your bike in an easy gear. The bike start was gently uphill and easily half of the people I saw were struggling to get going in high gears. I finally realized getting ready for the sprint that this was probably just from having had the wheel off. When you put the wheel back on, shift it back down before you consider that job finished.

Onto the sprint. Saturday night as we returned to the lake, a few sprinkles were falling. We woke up to a roar coming from somewhere and tried to convince ourselves that it was the very loud fridge in the camp cabin, but it was the rain. Maybe this was good; maybe it would clear out by race time (a late 10 am!). One wrinkle here was that we had to pack up and be out of the cabin before heading to the race. We had weekend/cabin stuff plus all the race stuff.

We packed the car in rain; we did packet/chip pickup and body marking in rain; we set up our transition areas in rain. The rain tapered off while I was suiting up and actually stopped shortly before the start.

With water temps at 61 or 62, it was an easy decision to go with a wetsuit; I also used a neoprene cap. I wasn’t sure whether the combination would make me feel strangled, but it felt fine when I got in before the start to soak the suit, blow some bubbles, and swim a few strokes, so I went with it. I started in the 4th wave, which was pretty big. I stayed far to the outside to avoid the melee. I’m generally a confident swimmer, so it wasn’t going to bother me if I swam a bit farther than necessary if it meant having my own space at the beginning. The water was calm as could be, and although it was murky, later on I could actually see the occasional pair of feet through the haze. They had one of those tall inflatable windsock people with waving arms at the finish, so it was really easy to just aim for him to get back in. As I was just starting to wade to get out, a friend was cheering for me so I hustled a bit harder. As I ran toward transition, it was great to see the people lining the way and clapping and encouraging us. I was 40th female in the swim; I could do a better time there but I certainly didn’t wear myself out.

I had realized at some point during the swim that I had forgotten to turn on my Garmin (Forerunner [FR] 301) before the swim so it could gather satellites. So I hit the power button first as I got into transition. I saw that drops of rain had begun falling again, but I’d basically been planning for that, so I finished getting ready and headed out. I definitely need more transition practice (knew that going in, but it just wasn’t going to happen before this race), and the rain adds a new dimension. I had a shower curtain under and on top of my stuff, which helped a bit, but I think the answer to the wet transition is simply a Rubbermaid bin. My FR had found satellites very quickly and I was off, in my easy gear. T1 was just over 4 minutes, which is long by most people’s standards, but the only other T1 I’ve ever done was something like 7 minutes, in nice weather. I can’t imagine what I was doing for all that time!

It was definitely raining, and rained the whole time on the bike. But the pavement was mostly good, the course was enjoyable, and I was feeling comfortable on my bike. I passed more times than I was passed, and my only real concession to the rain was to use a bit more caution at the turns. I didn’t feel like I was really working that hard, but I felt like I was moving pretty fast and I was really enjoying that part…I think that’s mainly because all of my riding involves a lot of much more substantial hills than you can find around the lake, and simply not having to climb very much is good for overall speed. The combination of bad weather and church time made for light traffic (there was, however, one particularly bad driver out). I was pleasantly surprised that the rain was just not a big factor. I started wet anyway, and my jacket was quickly wet (it had been ready for a wash anyway), as were my feet, but in the steady rain I don’t think there’s remotely comfortable gear to help that. I did have to specifically admonish myself to drink my sport drink, since I wasn’t really feeling thirsty, because I’d need it to keep my energy up later on. I turned back into the park for the last 4 miles or so, and eventually tried to back off my effort in preparation for the run. I got a huge charge out of all the spectators lined up cheering in the last 50 yards or so to the dismount—it’s one thing to be out there doing this crazy thing in the rain, but I really hand it to the spectators who may not be that into it but are out there getting wet and chilly to support friends, relatives, and strangers in their efforts. I was 19th female in the bike, which was a huge surprise…we are just not used to averages anything like 20 mph.

The transition area had really suffered in the meantime. There wasn’t much grass to begin with, and there was really just a lot of deep, moveable mud, which was very slick because of the high clay content. My own personal transition area wasn’t too bad for mud, but most things were wet by that time. My running shoes were dry in their shower curtain cocoon…not that this made much of a difference; they were as wet as everything else by the time I crossed the mats to the run course (having picked my way through a treacherously muddy chute). One thing I definitely haven’t practiced is a fast ‘transition’ with the FR, so I just used stop/start, which was fine except I didn’t get any useful pace info while running (I know a few mph to min/mile correlations, which I used, but I just wasn’t up for any math at that point). I’ll work on the thing with the FR; it certainly wasn’t worth messing with on Sunday. My T2 (2:40 something) definitely took too long. Part of my problem was that I wasn’t happy with how my bike worked with the rack.

The run was about a half mile uphill at the beginning. I have to start all my runs on the slower side or I get injured, so it didn’t bother me that I got passed fairly frequently here. I just alternated between concentrating on my form and watching other people in places where there was 2-way traffic. At one point during the run the rain really came down hard for a while. The puddles were definitely growing and most of us just splashed right on through. I passed at least 2 people who had passed me earlier. Soon enough, I could hear the announcer and knew I was close. There were more spectators around the finish, which again was great, and suddenly I was done. All that water for all that time had been suggesting things to my bladder, so there was one thing I needed to do right away. At some point I realized that I needed to stop my watch. The GPS track actually shows me running out into the water again right before the finish…if I had done that, only my time would have changed; my degree of soaking was the same. I was 59th female in the run, and I was happy with my pace (calculated after the fact). Anyway, I was getting cold so I went for a space blanket, and then contemplated my stuff in transition.

Doing the race in the rain was great. Dealing with post-race in the rain, which just wasn’t letting up, was the difficult part. Everything from transition was soaked and possibly muddy. The car was already packed with other stuff from the weekend, and we needed to stow a bunch of wet stuff in it somehow. It took two trips to and from where the car was parked to manage it. We did some pre-wringing and just made one area the wet area. Of course there was moisture everywhere because every time you open anything, it rains in. Then there was the challenge of getting dry and into dry clothes without making more of the car wet. Fortunately we had extra dry clothes and towels (you can never bring too many towels). And all those pieces of paper they give you in your packet are good for something…I sat on those in the car while drying off. We ran the heat and AC for warmth and drying, ate some of the food, and headed out. We stopped at a gas station for hot chocolate (aka sugar in a warm liquid format) and drove home in the continued rain. At home, most of the contents of the car went either into the washer or the extra bathroom. There’s a bit more to do in terms of “stuff recovery,” including dealing with post-rain-ride bikes, but we dealt with most of it….then went to the gym for the hot tub.

We were using this as part of the prep for a half in June. The weather could do almost anything there, so it was great to get this experience and realize that weather like that doesn’t have to affect the racing too much. That kind of rain with cooler temperatures and/or a longer race certainly would be more of an issue, but in any case we’re still much better off having had that experience.

As for my race performance: this was my first actual triathlon since I had to do aquabike at last year’s Olympic when I was still getting over a broken foot. I don’t have much to compare to for time. But I generally felt good doing it and I truly had fun. I was 34th female overall (of 192 who didn’t bail), which was a big surprise. I guess a big part of this comes down to who shows up (and who was doing both races that weekend!). The day’s rainfall was 3.35 inches, breaking the record of 1.56 from 1918. --M