It was a fun day!! I have never done this race before. It is a
MERCER (Mideast Region Club Race Series) and attracts the gooe athletes from the area tri clubs and I have heard great things about it. It didn't fail my expectation!!

I always rely on my Timex watch alarm to wake me up. For the first time ever, I didn't hear 5:20am alarm! Luckily my internal clock has been trained well enough - I woke up at 5:25am. Phew. After eating my usual a piece of toast and banana, I headed out to the race site with a cup of green tea in my car. Went through all the usual steps without issues, and set up my transition area. Saw quite a few tri club friends and chatted (too much). By the time I got to the bathroom line, it was way too long and I gave up after standing there for 10+ minutes. Well, I am going for a swim warm up anyway . I haven't trained for any specific race and this race was for 'let's just see where I am at' so my attitude was really relaxed. I didn't even check where the 'bike out' and 'run out'. This came back to bite me later....

<Swim> 800m. We were the 2nd wave from the last. I wanted to swim a little harder than the last sprint (June, the one iDNF). I felt pretty good whole way though I lost some time doing some zigzags. I wanted to stay somebody's feet but kept on losing them. 14:39 (4/22)

<T1> I like transition. Next time I should skip socks. 2:06

<Bike> 13miles. I noticed my bike computer wasn't working during the setup. So I had no idea how fast/how many miles I was at. Just rode hard but not so hard to totally trash my legs for a run. Pass many and only a few women passed me (including Jane), which was exciting! Based on my quick math after seeing "5" and "10" on the road, I probably rode too hard for the first half and slowed down a bit for the second and I felt a little nausea (oh-no) toward the end. I was really happy to finish my ride in a lower 40' per my watch. 41:20 (5/22) (18.9mph) - the highest EVER in my life for a race!

<T2> Pretty quick to get ready. But I went to a wrong way to get out T2. I had to run some extra to come back to the other way to get out to run. Shoot. I might have wasted good 20sec.

<Run> Legs were heavy as usual. No mile marker to be seen. Knowing my usual 'throw up' coming up sooner or later, I took some water with a hope to get it over with, at the second water stop. Sure enough, a few minutes later, bam, I stopped on the road side to let it out. Well, I didn't have much in my stomach, so it was just heeves, and rather disturbing noise. (sorry for grossness). I only took about 12oz of Accelerade during a bike. Anyway, as expected, I felt great. A funny thing is, my legs felt wonderful after this. So is this something to do with lactate having built up in my blood or something? My legs felt light and I started passing people and
found a good rythm behind a male runner for a few miles. Probably about 1.5 mile to go, I decided to leave him behind and pick up a little. At about .5 mile to go, a women with '40' on her leg passed me, man, I wanted to keep up with her but couldn't. She finished about 12 sec before me and indeed she was in my AG. 32:24 (8:06pace) 3/22

<Result> 1:31:59 5/22 AG (edited to add this)

<After race/thought> It was great to see handful of people I know won AG/OA award! Charlotte, Jane, Alicia with other friends headed out to a local restaurant and had a good time. It was just a nice fun day all around!

I was just thrilled with my bike time (which was 5th - I am usually in the MOP). All the long slow ride as well as tempo
rides obviously are working! I haven't really trained for an oly
distance specifically (have done enough volume) but I guess I am doing one in 2 weeks. That will be a day after my DD9's multi sport debut! As for puking, I really don't know how to figure out what causes it. My swim HR was 155 which, according to general rule of thumb (swim LT = run LT-20), was above LT. And I am sure I was close to LT during the bike ride (my stupid Timex sometimes shows above 200 and today was another one of those times.) Well, I certainly don't want to slow down just to avoid this ordeal. For oly, I will have to eat/drink much more.... but I just can't recreate this 'nausea' during a training Maybe eat much larger b-fast. Gu right before a swim. Some solid right after getting on a bike. Is there something out there to 'get rid of lactate out of your blood quickly'? Who knows. 2 weeks is too short to figure out anyway.

With all that, still a great race for me .

Thanks for reading!



http://This message has been edited by Yoshiko (edited Jul-30-2007).