Rigby Lake Olympic Triathlon
May 29, 2010
Rigby, Idaho
Race Report: Rigby Triathlon 2010
So, I came back home to Jackson, Wyoming last week and had already signed myself up for an Olympic tri in Rigby, Idaho (about 2 hours away). Unfortunately, throughout the week my training definitely was hurt by being back in high altitude; in our valley, at 6200 feet above sea level, it’s quite difficult to get enough oxygen, at least for the first few weeks. Still, I was already registered, so I decided to race despite my misgivings.
I woke up at 4:15 and drove to the race course, rather devastated by the 42 degree weather with frequent cold rain showers. “Well, at least the water will feel warmer than the air!” was my optimistic thought. Haha.
The race directors, though in general they were exceedingly well organized, did not tell us the water temperature; they had said on their newbies swim-session Thursday that it “wasn’t even chilly!” and probably wouldn’t require a wetsuit. And perhaps it was warm, on sunny Thursday…However, the lake was nearly empty still (since our lingering winter hasn’t allowed enough snow to melt to fill it up), and the temperature was, I would guess, 45 DEGREES (at the very most, 50). I thought I grew up on cold water, since our river is made up of glacial snowmelt. Terrifyingly, this was the coldest water I have ever been in, without a doubt (colder, even, than the ice-baths we used to take after running).
Swim (22:22, 4th/13 Women, 6th/40 Overall) The kind of cool thing about Idaho, and sort of the whole Rocky Mountains/West, is that people are either extremely tough or extremely stubborn. It never occurred to the race directors to shorten or cancel the swim, so the race proceeded as planned. There was an Olympic and Sprint option, and the Olympic racers “swam” two loops of the course. The lake was so shallow that we could literally walk almost the whole time if we wanted – and for the first 100 meters or so, I did just that, slogging along faster than most of the swimmers and managing to get my heart rate up high enough to tolerate the cold. Then, I started swimming freestyle, grateful for my wetsuit, and passed a lot of people. I paced myself way faster than usual just to get the hell out of the water, and came out as the second woman.
T1 (3:08): Transition 1…that was painful, even more than usual. My hands and feet were numb, obviously, so I struggled to put on a long-sleeve jersey and kind of shoved some ski socks on my feet and gloves on my hands. I stood up...then sat back down, too disoriented to move for a little while. Leaning heavily on my bike, I trudged over to the bike mount.
Bike (1:15:12, 2nd/13 W, 12th/40 O) After around 30 seconds of trying to be coordinated enough to clip in, I finally got my feet into my pedals. Then came a moment of stupidity – I had forgotten to leave the bike in its big gear in front, and my fingers were way to numb to shift. I coasted along for a little while trying to shift, then finally reached over with my other hand and managed to hold the lever. Ok, finally off. After this slow start, I decided that I didn’t care about my run pace, so I actually went quite fast and hard for the whole ride; it was a flat, fast course, and all the pelting rainwater on the ground made it even faster (hydroplaning). Alas, I didn’t pass anyone, but that was because there was only one woman in front of me. I finished the bike just behind her, and shoved my blocks of flesh (normally called feet) into my Newtons (T2 0:50, 3rd/40).
Run (53:29, 4th/13 W, 9th/34 O) New running experience – numb feet, just like all the triathlons in my recent memory, but also numb lower legs and bright red (think: MIT jersey-matching) upper legs. At this point, I really had no goal, pleased that I had survived the previous two events. I just tried to stumble along at a reasonable speed. A guy passed me, glanced at my leg-number, and called out, “What, only 18??? You aren’t supposed to be this fast until your late twenties at least!” That made me feel good, so I tried to increase my stumbling speed to keep up with him. He dropped me after a while, but I caught him again before the end. Eventually, the end came, and I was thrilled not to be passed by any women on the run (not that I was running fast, but apparently no one else was in a great running state either).
So, second place in women, first place in under-19 (out of 1, haha). I was quite happy –I came in at 2:35:03, which is a new PR for me, although I think the bike course was a bit short. By the end, the air temperature had warmed up to 44 degrees It was an epic race, one that only lunatics would show up for.
From the very beginning it really seemed like each individual was racing not against each other, but more against the elements, which was very cool, because we beat them.
-Shaena
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