Friday, July 21, 2006

Tri The Pee-Dee Race Report

Did you miss me and my endless blog of blabber? I decided to stay at the beach house for an extra two days. I didn't train too much but ate and drank to make up for it. It was a lot of fun but I'm ready to get back to real life and training.

I was gone from the farm for a week,and most of the animals survived. A few baby chicks got out and were eaten by a 'coon or other violent predator. The goat-sitter hates me because it took her over 3 hours to catch Maple to milk her one morning. My dairy goats are funny that way. They only want me to squeeze their teats.

The race was an adventure. I'm not sure what it is about the bike portions of the Tri races in South Carolina. This was the second I have done, the first was Cheraw. Both have some bad biking surfaces for tri- bikes. I brought Falcor because I know the low country is flat, I wanted to really fly with him. When we drove to the race site after packet pick-up, I thought it was a joke. The first mile out and back was a sand road. It was the beach !(I could build a sand castle in this shit) The lake was clear and beautiful, my sister was really excited about it. I think we raced on someone's private property. They had a beautiful, large white house. Most all of the races in NC have good bike courses. I'm not sure why it varies so much state to state.



My Mom, sister and I arrived around 7am. We decided to try riding down the sand road pre-race. It was difficult, especially if you hit the thick sand. Falcor acted real squirrelly in the sand. I was worried about Val in the sand with her new bike and clips. I knew I wouldn't be riding very fast for the first and last mile. My husband arrived after our pre-race sand ride. He's so sweet, he woke up at 4:30am and drove to SC to see me race. He's my biggest fan, I tell you!



Val bought me the new tri suit I was wearing for this race. I told her I didn't want a one piece because I think they are difficult to take off. When we stood in the line for the port-a-potty's, I started getting nervous. I hate getting into those portable pee and poop cubicles. I am always drawn into peering down into the port-a-potty hole of feces. Yes, yes, I know I shouldn't look. I just can't help myself. Then, I'll start dry heaving as I stare at the different colored and shaped turds, it's like a train wreck. I come out of the port-a-potty's with a red face and watery eyes from gagging. I got out of my pothole and Val was still in line.

"Did you pee or poop? You pooped that fast?" she inquired as she passed me.

"Hell ya! I can't waste anytime in that environment, the gagging wears me out."

I asked Val if it was hard to keep her zip-up one piece tri-suit from touching the poop germs on the port-a-potty floor. She told me to "Shut-up!" and we went to get ready for the swim.



Of all the events, the swim was the leg I feared the most while racing against my sister. She has always been a great swimmer. She swam in high school. My goal was to keep her in sight during the swim. I'd try to make up time on the bike.

The novice men and women started together. The men seemed pretty aggressive this race start. It's been the first time I was punched, kicked and swam on top of during a race start. Women just aren't as violent. I have been know to stop during the swim and say "sorry" when I smack someone.

Val and I ran into the water together but I decided not to be abused and let people pummel me. I dropped back and went to the inside left. About 200 yards into the race, the Mark Spitz novice men triathletes' that were caving my dome in the first 25 meters were now doing the breast stroke. "All that pounding I received for nothing," I thought as I passed them. After dodging them, I could spot Val ahead of me in her new purple tri suit.


I came out of the water one second behind Val with a swim split of 13:38 for 700 meters. You can see me running up that bank right on her skinny booty. I know she made me swim harder than I probably ever had during a race. She also made me have super fast transitions. T1 was 1:05.



I was out of the transition area on the bike before Val. She said she could see me for the first mile, down the sand dune alley. Once I made the turn to pavement and got into my aero bars, she lost me.


I felt really good on the bike course and I tried to keep my Cats-eye at 20mph during the race. Beside the sand road, the course was fast and flat, Falcor was really flying!

When I rode into the transition area, I was feeling happy and confident. Approaching the dismount line, I tried to un-clip but I was stuck. I tried again and nothing, I was locked in. I starting to get scared and was searching the crowd for my husband.

"Honey, Help Me, Help Me, I'm stuck in my clips." I yelled and nobody came.

Volunteers and spectators were yelling, "Dismount! Dismount! Stop! The transition area is over here!"

I was running out of sand dune road and was about to take down the flags for the run course. I yelled out to anyone, someone, everyone,
"HELP ME! I AM STUCK IN MY CLIPS! CAN SOMEONE GRAB MY BIKE TO HELP ME STOP?"

I felt like everything was happening in slow motion. Everyone was staring but not moving. I knew I was going to go down, I decided against taking out the run course flags at that moment. I braked, Falcor and I went falling to our right sides. I had my first crash during a race, in front of a lot of people. Once I did finally fall, a woman runs over and tries to help. Better late than never, I guess.

My feet were still stuck in the clips after the crash. The lady is asking what to do when my husband come sliding to my rescue like a short-stop ball player. I think he almost shoved the poor woman to the side. It all happened real fast during those moments. He unstrapped my foot out of my shoe, yanks the bike up, hits me in the head with the handle bars and tells me to hurry. I run into T2 with one shoe on and one shoe off. The right side of my body was coated in sand because I was so sweaty when I fell. The temperature was 97 in Florence on Saturday. My knee burned but I had my best transition time ever, T2- 0:43 I found out later that sand had gotten wedged in my clips and locked my pedals to my clips.

My bike and humiliating crash(Poor Falcor, he wanted to disown me for tarnishing his reputation) time: 49:38

By the time I got to the run, I was roasting and feeling a little battered. It was three loops on the sand around the lake. It helped that I could pace myself by running laps but my run time was still poor. I never feel fast in the heat, I feel like my face is on fire, my blood is boiling and I'll blow a valve. My track workouts don't seem to be helping. Run time : 25:45

My final time- 1:30:48
Val's final time- 1:35:11

We came in first and second novice! How cool is that? We couldn't ask for a better race. We won these caps! They are the nice mesh material, they have 1st and 2nd sewn into the sides.


My sister is good though, the bike and transitions saved me. She doesn't have as much time to train as I do but if she finds a babysitter, she'll kick my ass!

13 Comments:

At 8:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You guys rock!
Great race report, I've been waiting everyday for you to post LOL!
Well done, and how cool is it you two coming in 1st & 2nd :)
I "goat sat" once back in my dairy days and it was horrible. The herd did not like the change of "hands" and a few gave me a very hard time of it.
Wasn't funny then but it is now :)

 
At 9:45 AM, Blogger E-Speed said...

great job to you and your sis! Hope Falcor survived the crash without injury! That must have been scary!

Great photos!

 
At 3:51 PM, Blogger Bolder said...

i think this is just a FANTASTIC sister story. sersly, i think it is so great to see to fit sisters doing a tri together.

apparently, i'm not the only doing True Confessions of a Triathlete in their posts lately.

i think with the new Tri suit, and that hawt bike, triathlon decided to take you down a notch, well take you down into the sand clipped in at least, just to make sure you weren't tooooo full of yourself for that first place podium finish!

great race, great report!!

p.s. thanks for the no shoplifting tri gear tip, i gotta cut back, i've been thinking about knocking off a TRI store late at night, of course i wouldn't go for the vault or the register, just more TRI gear -- so, i probably needed that intervention.

 
At 10:23 AM, Blogger Brett said...

The race sounds brutal! Congratulations on the finish, though. I think I would have bailed after the crash! :)

 
At 1:42 PM, Blogger Fe-lady said...

What a great race report with all the photos! (Thanks to mom and hubby-right?) And congrats on your "wins"-you and sis are so CUTE..your mom must be very proud of you both!
I could have done without the porta potty descriptions tho...why do we always LOOK~?
Great race time BTW!

 
At 2:15 PM, Blogger JF said...

Great job girl! COngrats on your win! You deserve it! I hope that this race picks your spirits up after Kure Beach, b/c your splits were awesome!

Sorry about the crash! That sucks, but glad you finished through it all!

Yeah, don't worry, I look too! GROSS!

 
At 6:00 PM, Blogger Chris said...

Great race report! A little heavy on the poop side, but I feel like I know you all the better now. :)

Congrats on your podium finish! How many people can say that they've fallen off their bike *and* still managed to finish first in a race?!

 
At 6:08 PM, Blogger Papa Louie said...

Too Hillarious! So cool you can race with your sister. Sorry about the mishape with the shoes locked in. You may want to learn (like what I do) to pull your feet out of your shoes about 1000 yards from the dismount line and pedal with feet on top of your shoes. This way you don't have to worry about unclipping and it also saves T2 time.

 
At 8:07 PM, Blogger TriBoomer a.k.a. Brian said...

I'm diggin' the post and the pics. I can't stand the deeper sights in those porta poopers either.

Great job in getting a podium appearance even after a bad T-2.

Stay tuned...

 
At 10:13 AM, Blogger Janet Edwards said...

How awesome for you to gals to finish one & two!

I had the opposite happend recently with my shoes. I had gotten sand wedged back in there and despite all my beating I could not get my shoes to clip in. Way to shake off the fall and finish on top. I think Falcor will forgive ya given that kick-arse finish!

 
At 7:08 PM, Blogger ShesAlwaysWrite said...

AWESOME race report!
I was cracking up about the porta-potties... my first race ever I fought my one-piece in them and tried so, SO hard to keep it from touching anything!

So sorry to hear you crashed coming into T2 - I just barely avoided that myself at the last race. But obviously it didnt' get you down too much : )

(Seriously - 1:30 sprint tri?! OMG woman, you rock.)

 
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