1:18:25
2/52 females. That's right second overall! Woohoo!!
1/7 age group
500mSwim: 11:32 (I know, sad isn't it :p) T1: 1:16 12.5mBike: 39:53 T2: 0:25 5kRun: 25:21
Bike Course and Elevation
New Sprint PR and 5K PR for me! Yeah!!
Pros (I know I'm a little biased since this is my home pool):
Friendly volunteers
The lanes are huge! It is a 50m by 25y pool. You basically get 5, 5 yard lanes. They started each swimmer 15 seconds apart which was perfect in my opinion.
Both bike and run course were flat. I did hear some people who are mainly runners remark about the hills, so I guess my definition of hill has changed. I'll try to post the elevation profile later, the accuracy may not be wonderful since my aero bar was rubbing, doing strange things to it.
For once someone got the water stops right! One maybe a quarter mile in that could be hit 4 times (you ran past it into a turnaround and back past it before heading to the main turnaround) and then one at the halfway point! Perfect!!
The medals are nice. I liked the shirt, I had seen the previous year's shirt and was not that impressed, I didn't like the colors. This year's was much better, might even be my new favorite race shirt.
Cons:
Portland road is filled with potholes and is a very poor road to ride on. I'm sort of used to that in Oklahoma, but it is probably among the worst 10 roads I've been on.
The choice of road leading in and out of the college for the bike created a bottle neck.
I felt like the course was marked well, but I did hear of some people taking wrong turns.
Where was the clock at the finish??? Even if it's a staggered start I can do the math to know what time to take off! I wanted to know what my time was when I finished. It didn't take him too long to start posting results, but still I like having the clock at the end!
Personal:
I spent the entire hour and a half before the race worried about my seed time. I was #32! AH! Nearly everyone I swim with was after me and I know they are faster than me. There were tons of small women that looked like swimmers after me.... What was I thinking! I thought I could swim it in 9 minutes even though Marleen had warned us swimming 50m length is a totally different animal than 25m. She also told me to put in 8:55 that way I'd be at the front of all the 9 minute people. Why didn't I think of that. Definitely a trick to remember. I apologized to the lady directly behind me before we started and then off we went. To my surprise I was only passed by two people. Turns out everyone had under estimated a 50m length pool :p Even the men of our group that started ahead of me finished around the same time I did. There was a small group of 4 or 5 swimmers just behind me by the time I got into the final lane, but they couldn't quite catch me. When I felt a hand on my foot I pushed a little bit harder and manged to keep my lead.
Oh how I hate that run to the bike. Everyone says they hate T2. Not me, T1 is where I have trouble. I think it's because I enjoy being in the water and I am heavier. To suddenly have all that weight forced back on my bones, it's hard to get motivated to run to my bike. My Bike, my new bike! A Fuji Aloha 2.0 This was only my second time to ride her. I was so excited I passed 4 people in the first half a mile. Her ride is smooth, I don't feel like I'm battling my bike. It was wonderful..... until about the third mile. I could tell my shifter was tilted on my left aero bar. I took my arm off it for a second and it sagged. It came loose. Why, oh, why didn't I go over all the bolts and tighten them. D'oh. By mile 7 the right aero bar came loose. Fortunately I had my aero bottle attached to them, so as long as I had one arm on an aero bar they didn't fall forward.
It was a two loop course which did cause some frustration as I was trying to turn back into the college. If the timing mat had been further back from the turn I could have passed comfortably and avoided the slower riders. I couldn't do so without possibly not being read by the mat. I was 6 minutes from first so it's not the end of the world, I didn't lose enough time to make a different, but I wonder if anyone else had that problem. As I took my hands off my aero bars coming into transition, the aero bottle started dragging on the wheel. It was frustrating, but an easy fix once the race was over. I'll forgive Tigress (She's orange and black and my transition towel has tigers on it. I know I'm such a girl sometimes :p).
The road was fine for barefooting. I tried to not think about racing anyone. I only counted one woman ahead of me so I know I wasn't paying attention since there should have been at least three. The girl who got first is also a swimmer with the OCCC triclub. I was a bit worried toward the end that she would pass me, so I tried to hurry. I shaved 4 second off my best 5K time. Maybe I need to ride my bike before all races. It seems to give me better run times. Last week she beat me by 10 minutes, this week it was 6, I hope to close that gap a bit more next time. She's incredibly athletic and smaller than me. She's been at this for 3 years, has a beautiful cervelo and from the sounds of it puts in a lot of time on it. She's also completed an Ironman. Honestly, I'm surprised I'm this close to her time. I know she'll probably always beat me, but I like to have a goal!
I could hardly contain my excitement about being second! It's so affirming to see all those bodies you don't think you can compete with and to come in second!!?? I was on cloud nine. Then I realized that night.... Ironman Kansas was this weekend..... all the real athletes (minus the girl that came in first) aren't in the state, D'oh.
