9/26/10 - Westchester Olympic Triathlon

Westchester Olympic
9/26/2010
Rye, NY

First of all, I must say that this was probably the best-organized, biggest race I have ever been to; they had a huge expo with lots of free samples of PowerBars, Muscle Milk, and various other sporty brands that I spend too much money on. In our race packets, we got awesome polyester sweatshirts instead of the typical white cotton t-shirt, and we also received Coleman flashlights (?). We drove to Rye the afternoon before the race to pick up the packets, so we got to play in the ocean on a beautiful beach, which was quite pleasant.

Swim: 24:54 (166th/910 men & women)
The swim was very chaotic; they started us in waves 3 minutes apart, men first (age categories, so youngest up through oldest), and then started the women after. So, the whole time I was swimming through old men, trying to avoid drinking too much saltwater (good sodium replacement, but terrible taste and dehydrator). The ocean plus wetsuit made me feel quite buoyant, which was nice, and the water wasn’t ridiculously wavy; the bay was pretty sheltered, so there were some waves, but it didn’t feel like full-out ocean. It was very hard to tell which buoys I was actually trying to head towards, though, and some of the support kayaks were the same color as the buoys, so that was confusing...

Bike: 1:14:04 (~13th/222 women, 203rd overall)
Ok, this bike was not like a normal triathlon; it felt like a full-out road race. Well, let me make that more clear – it felt like a crazy, mishandled road race, where 1000 riders encompassing all the categories rode together, but they started the A and Intro/D men together, then started the fast women behind all the men, and…you get the picture. I was a bit upset by this arrangement, because it meant that I spent the entire race trying to maneuver around triathletes who didn’t know how to corner or avoid dangerous situations (i.e. stay to the RIGHT of the road and look before you cut in front of people!).
I know cyclists always make fun of triathletes for not knowing bike handling, and usually I say that of course they don’t, because you don’t need crit skills to do a fast time trial…but here, I definitely wasted a lot of time trying to pass people who slowed to almost a halt while going around corners. It was kind of like a race-long “moving-through-the-pack” drill such as Coach Nicole would teach.
It was actually really funny passing men with aero-helmets/tri-bikes/disk wheels, because they would basically be riding on the yellow line with the assumption that no one would possible be going faster than they were. Then, this little girl would call out “on your left!” Haha. Great fun.
The course was pretty easy, pretty fast. I haven’t been riding as much as I did in the spring/summer and still am having bike adjustment/shifting problems, but I cranked it pretty hard and basically hammered the last 5 miles. I figured, since I’m terrible on the run no matter what, I may as well make up as much time as possible on the bike.




Run: 49:58 (8min/mile) (290th overall)
The run was surprisingly good for me! First time I’ve broken 50 minutes in a 10k since high school (which isn’t an impressive time by any means, but it still made me happy). I saw Scott when I was about 2 minutes into the run, and thought “Shoot, he’s 50 minutes ahead of me?!?” (well, the men started ~25 minutes in front of us, so it wouldn’t be THAT bad)…anyway, then about 5 minutes later the course made a loop and went back the way we came, so I felt relieved to know that he wasn’t that far in front of me.
No sign of Katie, Philipp, or Piotr during the race, so I hoped that meant that they were doing well (they were).
Usually, inspirational signs or people cheering a lot kind of annoy me (like, “No, I’m NOT almost there!” and “I’m in pain, leave me alone!”), but at this race it was great. The little kids competing to hand out gatorade and gels were very cute, the cheering made me feel in a good mood, and the guy who shouted to me “I hate this f*cking place” made me laugh.
So, I felt pretty good, pretty fast (must be those despised track speeds I’ve been adding to the end of all my slow runs  ), and managed to come in just under 50 minutes.

Overall: 2:32:39 (19th/222 women, 194th overall, 4th in age category)
My long-term goal for an Olympic (like, a real length one, without any short legs or weird distances) was to get down to 2:35. 2:45 would be a pretty average race for me, so I figured 2:35 would be fabulous (considering my run time never seems to improve no matter how much or how I train). Anyway, after this weekend, I need a new goal now!

Super fun trip, with lots of good scenery, freebies, and companions, and not overly far away from MIT. I hope they keep this one in the NECTC next year.

-Shaena

9/11/10 - Quakerman "Olympic" Triathlon

Quakerman “Olympic” Triathlon
Quakertown, PA
9/11/10

Distance: This was a kind of odd distance, with a .6 mile swim, 39 mile bike, and 10k run. It seemed ideally suited for me, because it made the bike extra long compared to the run; since my bike is usually much better than my run, it seemed a recipe for success!

However, let me give an overview of the past three weeks: Three weeks ago, I went on a camping trip in Yellowstone National Park, a full 7 days without a bike (although it was a fairly active trip). When I got back, I rode ~30 miles two days in a row and then shipped my bike off to campus. 9 days later, I finally received it again, but then it was raining very hard so I couldn’t ride again until Thursday. Then, 7 miles in, my chain broke (so I “ran” back to campus in my bike shoes). Then I got in an 18-mile easy ride the day before the race. So, essentially, I didn’t ride for 3 weeks before this bike-centric tri. How depressing…

Three MIT students went to compete -- Philipp Schmitt, Scott Landers, and me. Anyway, Scott did a great job driving us the LONG way to Pennsylvania, mostly in the dark and at speeds that made me not want to look at the speedometer. I “navigated” with Google Maps on my phone, which mostly worked. We arrived just before midnight and went to sleep, grateful that at least this wasn’t a race we would have to wake up ridiculously early for.

Swim: .6++ miles/~21 minutes
The lake water was fairly warm, I’d say just below the legal wetsuit limit (mid-70’s), so the swim was quite pleasant. It was a bit crowded, though, and I may have accidentally groped a few people inappropriately – thank goodness for wetsuits!
I felt like I swam very well. Over the summer, I averaged a measly 1 hour per week in the pool, but the past 2 weeks I have gotten in a bit more and some real workouts; to my surprise and indignation, my times have improved by several seconds during my time not swimming (at least for fast 50s and up to 200 – haven’t tried anything above that). If only that would happen to my run…

Bike: 39.6 miles/~2:05 (19mph avg)
The bike course was very nice, with several long flat-ish sections and a few decent hills. I had some very bad shifting problems (my own fault – the other day, it was shifting weirdly so I messed with the derailleur things in the front, thinking that was the problem when in reality my chain just had a stiff link. My chain broke, I put it back together one link shorter, but I didn’t know how to change the derailleur settings back to the way they were), so I ended up in too hard of a gear for most of the race. My legs, which usually feel super strong, could definitely tell that I hadn’t ridden in 3 weeks. Still, I pushed through and managed a very good average time, though today some muscles are sore that I didn’t realize even existed. I kept going back and forth with a few people, strong men and tiny little women who would pass me on the uphill and say with a tone of superiority “Nice job, keep it up!” and who I would pass again a mile later when I powered down the flats.

Run: 10k/6.2 miles/~52 min
This was a very interesting run for me. Usually, I get to the run with still-strong legs but a very high and unpleasant heart rate and low blood sugar. This time, I started out with dead-feeling legs but barely breathed hard at all! That, I suppose, is the result of coming down to sea level after ~12 weeks at high altitude – a FABULOUS result, I might add. Almost makes the adjustment period when I go back worth it. Almost.
So I trotted along a rather hilly and completely-pavement (ouch) run course, weird inner-side-of-leg muscles threatening to cramp on the uphills due to my bike ride in too high of a gear. Drank some Gatorade at the aid stations, turned around, trotted back, felt glad to be almost done when some people were still on mile 1. I figured that with my current running state if I ran a 50, that would be fantastic, while if I ran a 55, that would be acceptable; I came in at 52 min, which made me happy enough. I actually have been running quite a bit (though still not nearly as much as when I used to run cross-country), but I have never been a fast runner and much prefer trails to roads, so speed isn’t really my objective.

Results: Disappointingly, the timers did not receive a chip time for me! I am not sure if it was because they gave me the wrong chip (at packet pick-up they switched my race number, saying the old one had problems – I guess the new one may have too), or because the chip was faulty. There were several others who complained about not being in the results, and apparently a few people who were in the results but never actually showed up for the race. In any case, I timed it roughly on my watch and told them what I thought my finish time was (between 3:21 and 3:22, with a 21-min swim, 2:05 bike, and 52 min run, then approx. 2 min T1 and 1 min T2). Unfortunately, they decided to enter me in at 3:23:00, which dropped my placing by a few collegiate women and took me out of 3rd place for the under-24 women (but I wouldn’t have gotten a prize anyway, since they scored collegiate separately).

I just hope that the time still counts and doesn’t drop me too far in the USA Triathlon Rankings; before this race, I was ranked #12 in my age category nationally, and I would quite like to keep it that way or improve. Hard to believe that I’m the same person who came in 2nd-to-last in the entire state in cross-country and couldn’t even run 3 miles just 5 years ago!

It was an enjoyable race and good distance, but very far away from Boston; maybe next year they will re-add Lobsterman to the NECTC schedule, because that was a wonderful and nearby race.

8/21/10 - Rexburg RUSH Triathlon

Rexburg RUSH Olympic
8/21/2010
Rexburg, ID

Weeks-before-race: Ok, so I did some pretty stupid “recovering” after my half-ironman four weeks before this race. Basically, I took one day off, then two days easy, and then learned that I needed to get my wisdom teeth out the next week. So, naturally, I decided that I would get plenty of rest and recovery after surgery and should therefore take the rest of the week at high volume. It felt fine at the time, as long as I kept the intensity low, but long-term was probably a stupid move.

Got my wisdom teeth out two weeks before the Rexburg tri and had a painful long weekend of “rest”. Then, to make up for lost training time, I took the next week pretty hard, especially with respect to running (not that I run a whole lot anymore, but I added in intervals for once).

The week of the race, I swam for the first time since the half iron (bad Shaena, your swim coach will be so sad by how much swimming fitness you have lost this summer!).

Night Before: This race is one of the few large ones in our area – there were around 100 people in the Olympic and twice that in the Sprint, which is VERY good turnout for Idaho/Wyoming. They had a classic Idahoan Potato-Bake dinner for us the night before. I saw several people from my hometown who had also come over for the race, including Olympic Triathlete Barb Linquist (she won the race, not surprisingly).

Now on to the tri, which was perfectly acceptable and not very eventful:

Swim: .9 miles/27 min
This was 5 quarters of a lake (i.e. the start was not the same as the finish). Went fine, as soon as I felt warmed up and remembered how to swim in a wetsuit. Water wasn’t too cold (for a cold part of the country, anyway).

Bike: 40k (24.8 mi)/1:18 – 20mph average!
Bike went well, although I hadn’t previewed the course so was very disheartened by the first ~10 miles, which included some large uphills and recently chip-sealed roads. Then I basically flew down the next 15 miles, averaging at least 22mph and passing a few people. That felt great. I passed a couple of strong young men who appeared to be confident in their races without trying too hard, and they seemed startled by me, saying “Wow, you’re tough!”

Run: 10k (+ a detour)/56 min :(
After such a great bike, I was hoping the run would go well. The temperature wasn’t too warm, which was great for me (since my max-temperature run in the past month or so is around 55 degrees). However, first I managed to miss a turn, adding at least a minute or two, and then I found out that they basically stuck a butte in the middle of the run. That wasn’t too fun, very steep and dirty, and most of the people were walking for a large portion of it. I got to the 5k turnaround in *gasp* 33 minutes. Hahaha, that’s bad even for me (I at least used to run 5ks in 22-23 minutes!). At least I negative-splitted the second half, by quite a lot.

For the finish line, we ran around 300m of the high school track and into a stadium. It was pretty cool. I came in in 2:45, which was good for me (since the two Olympics where I have done better than that both had too-short swim legs).

And: I won my age group! Yay, I must be so awesome!

Not. I was the only one in it. However, I did improve on the course record for 19 and under by a whopping 41 minutes.

Next up will be some NECTC races with the MIT Tri Club. So excited to race with other people again!!!