Ashland Olympic Tri race report

I think it's pretty easy to tell that the longer a race is, the better off I am. Of course that is precisely why it is good for me to do the shorter stuff, because I don't like it and it forces me to work in ways that I'm not so good at. The only nice part is that the races are over a whole lot quicker.

After spending a nice "rest" week (still plenty of training, just less relatively speaking and a lot of extra sleep) and getting some open water swims in, I headed down to Boston on Saturday to stay with my coach before the race on Sunday. The main reason for this was so that we could evaluate my (crappy) run form and talk about some long-term goals.

I didn't really need video footage to know that my run form is not exactly perfect, but I was actually surprised that it's not quite as terrible as we originally thought. This is good and bad of course, good because it means that there is nothing too crazy going on, bad because now there is not some huge thing we can fix that will suddenly make me a minute a mile faster, which would surely be nice. So I'll just have to get faster the old fashioned way... But apparently I am a mid-foot striker, which is a very good thing and surely thanks to reading that in a lot of articles years ago and making sure that was the case. My biggest problem is that I tend to drop my right arm way too low, and that may be why one side sort of collapses and I have this lateral movement going on that makes me look ridiculous when I run.

If you haven't seen it and you don't believe me, a few years ago one of my high school teachers who also writes a sports column for the local paper decided to write about me after the first time I qualified for Kona. Everyone knows I hated to run in high school and was quite the chubby teenager. He was one of my favorite teachers and he used to come to all of our basketball games, and essentially the whole article was about how ridiculous I looked when trying to run up and down the basketball court. I don't think my style has changed much, I just have like 50 less pounds to drag around so it's at least a bit faster. Luckily I know how true it is, so I wasn't insulted by the article, although some people thought I should've been. Hey, maybe if he was wrong, but the man knows what he saw...

Anyway, hopefully I can get that little glitch fixed and maybe that will make me a tad faster. After that we mapped out some long-term goals for me. Originally he was talking about 5 years, but we stopped at 3 since things had gotten pretty darn good by that point. Too good if you ask me, but he's the coach so I'll listen. It'll be pretty sweet if he's right though.

After a nice pasta meal it was time to go to sleep, which is something I've gotten really good at lately. The alarm was set for 5:30 in order to get breakfast in. It was an 8am start, so that makes the early morning thing a bit more sane, not like the 3:30am I'll get for Placid. Oh look, it's raining outside. Will it ever end? We haven't had 24 hours of clear skies in about a month.

After a fairly short, rainy drive, we arrived in Ashland, MA. This race is put on by FIRM events. They put on races almost every single weekend and they tend to be fairly low-key events, which can be a nice change. I really didn't feel like I was racing. And I really didn't want to race when it just kept raining harder and harder while we were all setting up in transition. I actually heard a girl at the next rack tell her friends that she had already decided that she was only going to do the swim and then call it a day. That seemed a little too much. If you've never raced in the rain, you should know that thinking about racing in the rain is a whole lot worse than actually racing in the rain. Honestly, it's not so bad. And of course you don't overheat!

Eventually I got my stuff set up and put on my wetsuit, which was the perfect gear choice given the weather. I wondered if there was any rule against wearing it for the whole race, but then I thought about Lake Placid last summer and how it rained a lot harder that day, and for over 12 hours, so surely I could handle two and a half hours in the rain.

One thing I noticed when I arrived to transition was that there was no sign of any body of water. I had been warned about this, but was amazed at how far we had to go to get to the pond. It was a steep trail down to the water, probably at least a third of a mile. This might not have been so bad had it not been for the rain turning portions of the trail into a virtual mudslide. But as I discovered when I watched a few people go down, and finally I myself took a spill and slide when I was merely 10 yards from the water, if you're going to fall in the mud, a wetsuit is a great thing to be wearing.

Next up was a game I like to call: guess when the race might start? The laid-back approach means that the race starts whenever they want it to, and pretty much never the time it says on the race info. This might not be so important if not for the fact that I'm supposed to have a gel 15 minutes before the race start, but in this case it was really hard to tell when 15 minutes before the race start might be. I was in the third of three waves, and I think I only took my gel about 11 minutes before the start, but that's not a bad guess. The rain seemed to have let up a tad as the first two waves of men took off into what felt like a toasty warm pond compared to what I had been swimming in lately. 68 degrees. Nice. Then I heard, "Go!"

So off I went. The course was pretty easy to follow, especially since the water was dead calm. I stayed on the inside with nobody to draft while once again everyone seemed to be wide-right on this counter-clockwise course. For some reason I felt pretty good and was able to swim fairly hard (for me) the whole time. It went by incredibly fast and I was glad to hit the beach dead on my swim goal at 23:40 I think it was. I later learned that I had the fastest swim in my age group, which is unusual for me. Not long after that I discovered that I only had to beat 7 other people. Ok, well, take the small victories...

I took the "Please-don't-let-me-fall-and-kill-myself" approach for T1 as I made my way up the slippery, muddy slope. I think that this part of the race should be tagged onto the run course. I managed to remain upright and managed a much quicker transition than Mooseman (minus that long run part) and set off on my bike.

I really didn't know how I was going to feel at this point. I was still feeling Mooseman in my legs for all of my workouts that week, so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go hard enough for such a short race. Not to mention the fact that I am terrible at trying to go really hard, which is why I prefer the longer stuff. The beginning of the bike was somewhat drizzly and the roads were quite wet, but the real rain seemed to be gone for the day. It was a fairly hilly, two-loop course and I just tried to get through it as fast as I could without making it hurt too bad. I passed a few people early on, but because this is a smaller race there were large sections where I was completely alone. So alone, in fact, that at times I wasn't sure if I was still actually on the race course. Luckily, I would always eventually come upon someone. We got to cross the start line of the Boston Marathon, which I actually had never seen before.

Without many people to pass and the fact that my bike computer wasn't working I had a hard time being able to tell how I was doing. I finished the first loop in just under 36 minutes which put me behind in hitting my goal time, but since there were a few times where I had to sit up and slow down and try and figure out where I needed to turn to stay on the course, I wasn't too concerned. I was just glad that the second time through I'd know exactly what I was in for and could do a better job of just worrying about riding hard and not worrying about where to go.

The second loop went by incredibly fast even though I didn't ride it as fast as I was supposed to. The rain had almost completely let up and I was able to get down all of my nutrition for once, which has been a bit of an issue for me lately. I couldn't believe it was time to run already. At the bike dismount, we turned off the road and were told we could continue to ride through this muddy part of the field before we got off. I had visions of my skinny tires sliding out from underneath me and me ending up on the ground in a muddy, bloody heap, so instead I opted to push my bike that last bit.

T2 was not so speedy for me. I couldn't feel my toes and was convinced they were curled up in some horrible way in my run shoes, so it took me a minute to decide that they were actually in there the way they were supposed to be. I grabbed my hat and was off. One other good thing about a rainy race is not having to bother with sunglasses...

The run starts with a long but gradual uphill. I actually felt pretty good at that point but I have no idea what my pace was because there were no mile markers. Mostly I was just concentrating on running with good form and keeping that right arm up. The blisters that formed on my heels last weekend were doing ok because I had smeared the insides of my racing flats with vasalene, which was a little messy but very effective. The course was quite hilly and tough, but again I just tried to hold form and run at least at what seemed like a decent pace. Again I found myself completely alone at times and wondering if this was actually the course, but I am pretty sure I always went where I was supposed to go.

I didn't do so well going up the hills as my legs still seemed kind of tired, but I was able to pick it up for the last stretch back down the hill I had started on. I crossed the line and was glad to be done, but I think I felt far too good to have gone anywhere near hard enough. Still, fourth female overall and happy under the circumstances. I'd still love to solve what I'll call the run riddle...

Of course, the day wasn't over yet. It never is. So off we went to run for another 45 minutes. I felt kind of bad passing some people who were still out there racing. But this was much less painful than the run after Mooseman last week, so I didn't really mind at all. My super-fast teammates took off while I ran my awesomely slow pace, but it was over pretty quick.

So another race was done. I realized that this was only my fourth olympic-distance race ever. Twice I had done the original Granite Ledges tri, which is basically what Mooseman has become, except it was held in September. And I did a tiny little race in Arizona two years ago that I actually managed to win, although I only had to beat like 15 other women. Still, in my three triathlon wins - one sprint, one oly, and one ironman - that olympic is the only one where I got an actual award for finishing first, so I definitely appreciate it! This time, for coming in second in my age group I got a medal and a Trisports water bottle. Nice.

I spent the first two hours upon my arrival home on the bike trainer, spinning out the legs for some recovery riding. I opted not to go out and face the cold and rain. Seriously, it's June, right? Then I had to make an appearance at a graduation party and later went to see The Hangover with my brother and two of my cousins. Highly recommended.

So what now? Well, it's time for two serious overload weeks of training. I've trained single weeks with this much volume before, but never two back-to-back. This week is a run focus week, which should be interesting. Although the run volume really isn't a whole lot different until the weekend, so I might not notice as much. Still not fully recovered from the race, but I better get back to normal quick because I have some serious workouts to do.