Total Posts: 37
2.0 Years Ago

Vineman 70.3 2008: (also at http://sarahtriadventure.blogspot.com)

I went into the race feeling pretty positive. I had a lot of fun the day before - met Loren and Christine at packet pick up, and Christine and I headed back to my house and chilled for awhile. Then Jocelyn showed up. It was a big ol' blogger/girl party!

Race morning we all headed out. Our wave didn't start until 8:15 so we had plenty of time to get there, get situated, all without the worry of having to rush. The air was cool and layered with fog. Perfect racing weather! As Jocelyn put it, "perfect weather for a PR!"

I smiled when she said that. I certainly was aiming to do my best. Even if it wouldn't be sub 5, I was aiming for something just under 5:10 - my previous best at Big Kahuna last year.

Before I knew it, we were in the water and counting down. 10...9...8...BAM! The gun when off. I thought of Bree and Eileen always talking about grabbing feet. I thought "ha, I'm so fast, I'm going to rock this swim!"

Well...I didn't really rock it. 34:33 for the swim. One of these days, I will get it down to 32:00. I KNOW IT! Still, I kept trying to find a rhythm and seemed to have a hard time doing so. I'm really looking forward to spending more time in the pool and working on having a smoother, longer stroke. I eventually started to catch some people from my wave and felt better about that. Then we were done!

T1 - wetsuit off, no problem! I saw Jocelyn across from me and she was already getting ready to head out. I wished her well and got back down to business. As I ran out with my bike, I looked at my watch - just about 3:00. WTF? IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE THAT LONG! WHY DOES IT TAKE ME SO LONG?!?

Bike - Off I went. I wore my HR monitor so I could keep myself in check. Knowing these roads like I do, it's easy for me to want to just GO. Westside Road NEEDS to be repaved before next year. I saw SO many water bottles and crap all over the road because of all the stupid potholes! I just put my head down, smiled and went. I felt so happy to be on the bike, so strong, and it helped that I just kept passing more and more people. In the first 30 minutes I figured I had caught most of the women who had beaten me in the swim...and I just kept passing folks. It was such a confidence booster.

Before I knew it, we were off Westide and onto Dry Creek. At this point we were about 20 miles in and I felt great. Pretty soon, I heard two female voices up ahead chattering and laughing. I looked up and there were fellow bloggers Courtenay and Kelly!! They smiled at me and cheered for me - what a nice surprise! The only people who had passed me were a handful of fast men who had started in the last two waves after me. I kept repeating my affirmations to myself throughout the entire ride - "I radiate confidence and relaxation."

At about 35 miles in, a woman with '25' on her calf passed me - the first one! However, after Chalk Hill, I came up on her again - from Chalk Hill to the finish, we leap-frogged. Keeping in line with Courtenay's attitude from her last race, I had wished most women I passed 'good luck' or "way to go!" Even if they didn't say anything back, it made me feel good. This woman and I had been smiling at each other, kind of cracking up that we kept passing each other. Finally she said "what's your name?" We exchanged names (she was Vanessa) and wished each other well on the run. I had a good feeling she'd kick my ass. She did. :)

Coming closer to the bike finish, I began to worry. Was I really going to finish in 2:45? How could that be? Last year I had a road bike and no racing wheels. HOW ON EARTH COULD I BE A MINUTE SLOWER?

The negativity began to creep in. I wondered how on earth I could possibly be SLOWER on this course. Finally I caught myself and said "SARAH! IT DOESN'T MATTER! FORGET AND FOCUS!" I repeated another affirmation, telling myself "I believe in my training and fitness."

I was doing all I could do, without leaving it all out there on the bike course. I knew that I had raced that bike to leave a little for the run. That's the name of this game and I was playing it. So...onward.

[I later found out from my super-fast friend John Murphy (who, btw, got 4th in the SUPER competitive age group of Men 40-44 - GO JOHN!!) that his bike time was about 5 minutes slower this year too - there was a headwind for about the last 20 miles that I somehow neglected to notice...I felt MUCH better after learning this!]

Run - I started the run uncertain of how I was going to feel. I had kept my HR in the low 160s for much of the bike. I had eaten well, though I had to back off near the end - because it was still so cool out I wasn't sweating as much as I thought I would, and I wasn't digesting as much as I thought I would either.

Coming out of T2 I saw Chris and realized he was the same guy who I had seen as I came in on the bike (and was like "who is that and how does he know me?"). It was awesome to see he'd come up here to cheer us on!

As I embarked on the first mile, I realized my FEET WERE ASLEEP!! Pins and needles - for 4 full miles!! Right out of the gate, Vanessa and about 2 other women from my AG passed me up. Hm, oh well. I just hoped I could hang on tight and race my race - I was shooting for about 1:48 at this point.

Inevitably, however, it came down to taking it one...mile...at...a...time. I would say "3 miles down, 10 to go. 4 miles down, 9 to go..." etc. My friend Jerry saw me right before La Crema and offered some helpful words" "Sarah, you're dragging your arms. Swing them and get some momentum going!" He's a fast runner, so I knew whatever he had to say I should follow. It seemed to help.

I tried to pick up the pace a little. It hurt. My HR was getting into the 170s and I questioned whether I should just let it stay there and push through this. But then I doubted myself. I knew that in an open 10K I could easily hold my HR there, but what about right now (with only about 10K to go)? My legs were jelly. No threats of cramps, but just losing strength with each passing minute.

I sighed. Just had to press on. In spite of being positive, I was convinced that even if I qualified for Clearwater, I was just DONE. I didn't want it. Burnt out, tired of half-ironmans for this year. But in that moment, I knew that I HAD to push through this because a) the pain wouldn't last forever and b) this was the last time I had to do this for now. I had to make it count.

Right around this time, Beth (another blogger from San Diego) passed me. The one and only woman from my AG to pass me on the run. I figured if only one woman had caught me, I was still running fairly strong and holding my own!

Seeing her sort of inspired me to hold onto things, suck it up and just get it done with. So I did. Nobody else passed me, I passed more people, ate more Gu, drank Coke/Gatorade/water, went through more lows and highs and decided that I had indeed met my goal: I did not blow up at miles 9, 10, 11 or 12.

Hooray!

Finally, as I turned the corner at the front of the high school, I saw Courtenay and Kelly again! THEY ROCKED!!!!!! They ran with me from the front parking lot, saying "GO GO GO" and I was saying "I F-ING HATE THIS FINISH! IT'S SO F-ING LONG!" and Courtenay just saying "GO!" Then I heard Kelly say "okay, I'm tired." and that cracked me up. I smiled and knew it was done. I just had a little further. In spite of hurting, I knew I would 'fake it 'til I made it' and look like I felt like a million bucks (because in a way, I did - I was DONE, DAMMIT!).

So I ran down the chute, smiling and being grateful for still beating my time from last year. Grateful for being able to do this sport. Grateful for my friends and family who support me. Grateful that I could push myself to finish strong. Grateful that I've experienced so much from this crazy-ass sport.

As I came through the finish line, I put my arms up like I was the champion of ME and yelled "YESSSSS!!!!"

It felt so good. The best surprise of the day was yet to come - my parents WERE THERE! They found me after all was said and done and had made it in time to watch me finish! It was the most awesome thing ever and I was *so* stoked that they had totally surprised me by being there. :D

I'm so proud of Jocelyn - she wanted sub 5 SO bad and she got it - she did 4:58!

I'm proud of Christine - it was her first half ever and she took second in her AG!

As for me - I wondered how I'd placed. I figured maybe top 10? I had seen so few women from my AG on the course, that I figured a handful were way out front, but I had to be somewhere close.

Apparently, however, I placed 18th - and as I looked over swim times of all the people who had beaten me - THOSE WOMEN WERE FAST! And not only fast swimmers, but fast bikers and runners, too!! It was rather surprising - often some of the fastest swimmers are not always quite so fast on the bike and I can usually catch them on the bike, then try to hold them off on the run. But so many of these women had swim times under 30:00!!! It was nuts.

To that end, I realized that I did what I could do. I did my best. I'm very proud of my performance, my effort and for still being 5 minutes faster than last year. And I've made up my mind: LA Triathlon, here I come! NO MORE HALFS FOR THIS YEAR!!!!!

Thanks to everybody for all the support. Especially to my local Wine Country Velo crew (and their families) who was out in full effect, to Courtenay and Kelly for coming out to cheer, to my parents for totally surprising me and making my finish that much sweeter, to Matt for putting up with me through all this, and to all of you people in the blog world who inspire me to push hard and never look back. It really makes this journey possible.

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Total Posts: 41
2.0 Years Ago

awesome job!

Paul

Total Posts: 8
2.0 Years Ago

Thanks for sharing your race report! Nice job.

I wish I could have had the chance to meet some other FJers, but if you read my race report you'll understand why I wasn't around much before or after.

Vineman 70.3 Race Report

1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run

I picked Vineman 70.3 as my first ½ Ironman after doing the Full Vineman Aquabike last summer. Vineman is a fantastic race organization, the races are well organized and supported, and the volunteers are fantastic. After having lived with Vineman 70.3 as my ultimate goal for the 2008 triathlon season since the end of the 2007 season, it feels strange to be writing this report.

When I entered the race last winter, I didn’t realize that my 8-year old son was going to be dealing with an ultimate competition of his own, the NorCal Swim League Championships. It was his first season on swim team, and he’s taken to it like a fish. My parents, the swim team veterans from my childhood, did Championships duty for Shane so that I could race Vineman. After watching Shane’s preliminary 25 free on Saturday morning, Kevin and I headed to Sonoma County with the older two boys.

We arrived at Windsor High School at 3:00pm for the athlete check-in and race expo. Most the athletes had already come and gone so the crowd was small. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the 5:00pm pre-race meeting. The USATriathlon official responsible for explaining the intricacies of the combination of USAT rules with Ironman rules made the talk as interesting as anyone could. He got a few snickers from the audience as he reminded us all that our friends think we’re crazy and it was a bit humbling to be told that most of the volunteers think we’re heroes.

After the pre-race meeting, we headed to Flavor in downtown Santa Rosa for dinner. It was a fantastic meal with lots of good prerace menu options. There were many other Vineman competitors dining there as well, we all had on yellow athlete wristbands making us easily identifiable. We arrived back at our budget hotel in Santa Rosa at 8:00pm, giving me enough time to sort out my swim/bike transition gear before hitting the sack at 9:00. I slept well and had no problem waking at 5:00am Sunday morning.

We were out of the hotel room before 6:00am, my mostly uneaten bowl of oatmeal in hand, and on the way the Johnson’s Beach in Guerneville. Even bringing it along for the car ride, I still couldn’t eat more than a few bites of my breakfast. We arrived in Guerneville with plenty of time for body marking and setting up T1. My swim wave start, women 35-39, was at 7:34am.

I got in the water as soon as my wave was allowed, did a small warm-up and positioned myself at the front line of the start wave. The countdown seemed to last forever, but when we finally got the horn to go, I shot off the front with a small pack of fast swimmers, and we had plenty of room to swim until we started catching the wave in front of us. Even when I had to start weaving around the slower swimmers from the previous wave, it was still smooth going. My swim was solid at 29:06, but it would have been good to be under 29 minutes.

I jogged into T1 and immediately got confused about the location of my bike. I even have a crazy looking yellow saddle that should have made it easy to locate. It seemed like forever, but I’m sure was only a few seconds before I got my bearings. I had the shakes while I was trying to pull off my wetsuit and get my helmet on. Faced with pulling my socks onto sandy feet, I realized I forgot an extra bottle of water to rinse off my feet. I was in T1 longer than I would have liked, 4:49, but eventually made it out of there and onto the road.

I decided to run my bike up the short climb out of T1 and was glad I did as I ran around a couple of riders struggling to get into their pedals. Kevin and the boys were there cheering me on my way. When my bike computer showed me the time and a bunch of zeros, I realized the sensor wasn’t working because my front wheel was on backwards. I thought briefly about stopping to fix it, but didn’t want to take the time. I worried a bit because I wanted to make sure I rode an average of 18 mph so that I would have some energy saved for the run, and without a computer I was relying only on how I felt.

The bike was fantastic. I know the course well and remembered all the little tricky places. No lost water bottles for me or being caught out in the wrong gear. I was a little nervous about grabbing Power Bars and Gatorade while riding through the aid stations, but I had no problems. I called out what I was looking for and a volunteer would step up for the handoff.

I did have a scary moment at the second aid station, mile 29, when a guy came out of the penalty tent right in front of me and crashed. I looked over the front of my bike at disk wheel and white carbon fiber frame and thought for sure that I was going to go right over the top of him. I somehow managed to swerve around and keep on going, whew! It was very scary, and I remember thinking some people obviously belong in the penalty tent.

I am starting to really enjoy hill climbing and powered up Chalk Hill Road without a hitch, “Yeah Baby!” I felt like Superwoman when I reached the top and flew down the descent. Coming into Windsor, I saw a Sac Tri Club jersey a couple of riders ahead and decided to ride up and say. It was Ronnie; we shared the normal supportive chit chat and then separated to finish the last couple miles into T2. My bike time was 3:07:21, which works out to 18 mph for the 56 mile ride. Who needs a computer?!

When I scoped out T2 at Windsor High School on Saturday afternoon, I thought it seemed like a long run from the bike dismount line to the racks, but on race day it went quickly. I easily found my running shoes and hat, courtesy of another competitor’s yellow smiley face balloon. I took my socks off to get the residual sand from T1 out before running and then slipped them back on. I wanted to use the toilet, but didn’t want to wait in line, so I thought I would get the next one. T2 time 4:37.

I headed out onto the run course feeling strong. Although I wasn’t great in either transition area, all those bike/run transition workouts obviously helped my legs get used to the change in activity. I felt smooth and settled into my normal running pace, just over 10 minute miles. There was a steady flow of people running out with me, but not too many finishing yet. I mentally divided the run into one-mile increments to the next aid station. Each aid station I arrived at had a line for the toilet, and I still didn’t want to wait around. Finally at mile 4, the toilets were empty and no one was waiting. The only catch was pulling my sweaty tri shorts back up, ugh!

As I kept on running one mile at a time, I was glad for the trail run series I did this spring because I felt strong up all the short hills on the course. I got to the top of one hill and was amazed at the sight of the huge mass of runners going both directions on the road. I saw a couple of other local athletes on the course and cheered them on. A couple of the guys from Sac Tri Club passed me; their encouragement along the way was fantastic. I made it to the turn around at La Crema winery no problem and enjoyed the music being played at that aid station. I was starting to wonder why KC hadn’t caught me yet, when I felt a tap on my shoulder and there she was.

I was doing great on the run up to mile 9 when my body decided to stage a rebellion. I was very low energy and felt sick. I started doing run/walk intervals for about two miles and that really slowed down my pace. Finally at mile 11, I started feeling better and finished the run strong.

It felt amazing to run back toward the finish line. I’ve never had so many people cheering me on, and I felt a little overwhelmed when I realized I had done it. The announcer said my name as I ran down the finishing stretch, and I raised my arms to signify my own personal victory. My run time was 2:27:25 and total time was 6:13:19, my average heart rate over the entire race was 161. My best estimate goal going in was 6 ½ to 7 hours, and I was thrilled to be faster.

Kevin and the boys were there to meet me at the finish chute with even more good news. Shane had an amazing best time in the 25 butterfly prelims that morning and was the first seed for finals. I got my post race meal, and had a chance to talk with some of the other athletes. I took a very public cold shower at the baseball field, and then we headed back to the swim championships. We made it in time to see Shane swim the free relay, but missed his butterfly victory in the finals with another best time. What a fantastic weekend!

Total Posts: 639
2.0 Years Ago

I put my report under 2008 race reports.

See ya at the next big event. I am a big fan of the Big Kahuna in Santa Cruz. Finishes at the Boardwalk, which gives the family a chance to hang out and have fun while they wait.

JC1.5

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2.0 Years Ago

Come visit sometime!

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2.0 Years Ago

- Greg

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2.0 Years Ago

Total Posts: 639
2.0 Years Ago