Mass State Tri 2010

Location:  Winchendon, MA
Distance:  Sprint (1/3mi s, 12.5mi b, 5k r)*see below, (Olympic also)
Time:  8am (I was in the 2nd wave)
Weather:  mid70s? and sunny
Participants:  273 (322 for the Olympic)

Not hearing my alarm on race day?  Woops.  Must've been because I wasn't that excited,  normally I have trouble sleeping!  That or I was really tired and my alarm was going off at 4:40 ;)

pre-race

Luckily I did wake up, albeit to my ride buzzing my apartment.  All my stuff was packed, so I put in my contacts, pulled on my outfit, threw ice in my water bottles and ran downstairs.  The only thing I forgot?  My camera.   Ooops.   We still got to the race site somewhere after 6:30 with plenty of to check in and get setup before the 8am start.   Phew!   

 woah, serious!

I think it's that oh-my-gosh-it's-about-to-start face

Swim
The swim started in the water (we could still touch), in between two buoys.  I knew there were going to be alot of fast swimmers in my wave, so I wasn't too alarmed when I saw alot of pink caps get ahead of me pretty quickly.   While the course didn't seem that long, I was never able to settle down and get into a groove.  I think this is probably reflected in my time of 10:33.  Not bad, but room for improvement :)

 out of the water

Bike
I decided to tri (ha) a few new things during the bike since I wasn't worried about final times.  Ultimately they should help cut down on my transition times, but I wanted to see if there was a pay-off in terms of comfort.  The first was to go sock-less, as putting on socks over wet feet isn't a walk in the park ;)   Baby powder and body glide helped me slide right in and I didn't have any problems with blisters.   I just need to figure out what to do about the stank to my bike shoes now...    I also didn't use my bike gloves and barely noticed it during the ride.

The course for the sprint was one 12.4mi loop, olympic distance racers did two loops.  Knowing that I wasn't going to run, my plan was to see how I was feeling and possible go for the olympic bike to make up for the missed run.  It took me awhile to feel good on the bike, as I was still trying to catch my breath from the swim.  There was one significant, mile-long hill ~mile4.5.  After my first (slow) trip up, I contemplated calling it quits after one loop.  But the only way to improve my climbs is to do more of them, so I set off for a second loop.  There were a few sections of road that were a bit rough, and a good portion was open to traffic, but overall not a bad course.

at the top of the hill,

wondering why they put the photographer here...

Having taken in fuel and recovered from the swim, I felt better and was determined to try and match my time from the first loop.  Still slow on the big descent, I felt good and finished the second loop 2 minutes faster than the first!  Total time for the 24.4 miles was just under 1hr 25min, which averaged out to 17mph.  Luckily there are some good downhills to make up for the climb ;)  Not too bad, but again, room for improvement!

Run
Well, here's where I called it quits.  After racking my bike I turned in my chip and tried to rehydrate.  I did hear that there's quite a bit of shade on the run, which was definitely appreciated as the temperatures had already begun to soar.  While the sprint course was relatively flat, the olympic course had a few mole hills which I can only imagine feel like mountains :)

Luckily I knew a handful of others doing the race, so I changed and headed to the finish line to get my cheer on.  It's always fun to see people so close to completing their goal, many of whom were doing it for the very first time.  After watching everyone come in, I finally felt like I could manage the post-race bbq and thoroughly enjoyed my pulled pork sandwich!   Max Performance definitely put on a well run race, and the combination of the sprint and olympic distances seemed pretty seamless.

Overall time:  DNF

I'm ok with it, as long as my foot's getting better.  T minus 1 week until my xray/podiatrist appointment.