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Today is a modified schedule, which usually ends up screwing me over. Instead of having an easy day full of small classes spread out over the day, I have my homeroom class the whole day, except when they have specials. As I explained to one of my students, I love them and I love teaching, but I hate babysitting. I hate sitting around doing nothing.
So, instead, I'll listen to the girly chatter in the back of the room as I write a race report from yesterday's triathlon.
Pre-Race: On Friday night, I noticed a nagging pain in my lower back that was certain to turn into pulled muscle pain. And it did. There is nothing quite like a pulled lower back muscle. It is impossible to do anything without using that muscle, including sitting, standing, reaching, and lying down. I spent Friday evening furiously sitting in a recliner wrapped in a heating pad, breaking my "no alcohol within a week before a race" rule for the sake of the race. A glass of wine really helped. And with a glass of wine and a decent quantity of naproxen in my, I managed merely a mediocre night's sleep. The following day involved much more reclining heating padding, and I slowly started to feel better. I even felt well(-ish) enough to march in the Nassau County 5th Battalion (Fire Department) Parade. This year, though, I invested in some Dr. Scholl's for my flat and clunky parade dress shoes, and the parade route was only about a mile long (compared to last year's 2+ miles). With the intention of healing, I even had a beer at the parade, and some cotton candy to carbo-load. I tried to go to sleep early, but ended up staying up too late and getting about 6.5 hours of sleep. Great way to prepare for a race.
Race Morning: I had to be at the race at 6AM, because my mom was volunteering (and because of her volunteering, I got a free race entry). For the last two years, the race has been exceptionally run. Last year, they didn't let my mom park in the volunteer's parking lot because I was there too, and they didn't want to crowd the volunteer area with bicycles. This year, I should have known something was wrong, because they didn't even care. There were so few volunteers that it didn't matter. The race was also run by a different organization than the last few years.
I had eaten some bread in the car, and packed some extra TP just in case, because I had been having tummy troubles. I ended up stopping at the bathroom twice before the race, with no success. I hoped it wouldn't become a problem during the race. I unpacked in transition, which was especially chaotic. The bike racks were labelled by hundreds (as race number 1000, I was on the 1000-1099 rack), so we had to choose our own spot. It was fine at 6AM, but as more racers showed up, the rack was getting crowded. A couple of overly possessive racers were not good at sharing.
Picking up my chip was a whole ordeal. My mother was volunteering here pre-race, and I felt bad that she had to deal with this stuff. When I arrived at the timing table, I was told to look up my chip number on the list posted behind the table. The list was alphabetical, and the chip numbers did not correspond to race numbers. I was supposed to find my name, look up my chip number, and go pick up my chip. I then had pick up a neoprene band, so I could attach the chip to the band myself, before strapping it to my ankle. This wouldn't have been so bad, except my name wasn't on the list. And neither were about 20 other people's. We waited for the race director, who sent us over to the timing tent. At the timing tent, were were assigned chip numbers and told to write down our name, age, gender, and event (tri, du, or 5K). Then I could finally get my chip, attach it to the band, and Velcro it to my ankle.
It was a little chilly, so I put on my wetsuit early. I met a few lovely women in the transition area, and we had some nice chats about how a career in education is quite conducive to triathlon training. We were told to be in transition at 7:15 for announcements, but when there were no announcements by 7:25, I headed down to the water. The official start was 7:30, but I had no idea what wave I was in. I stuck with other orange-swim-capped folk.
When I arrived at the water, it was clear the race wasn't starting any time soon. They had set out the buoys, but had no means of anchoring them down, so within minutes the current had carried them back to shore. While they sorted out the mess, I jumped into the water to get acclimated. Other than the initial shock of cold water down the back of my wetsuit, it was actually pretty nice. The few weeks of unseasonably warm weather made the water warmer than usual. I dunked my head under, and swam a few strokes until I could breathe normally. Good enough, let's get ready to race.
The Race: The first wave began (as rumor had it, I was in the 4th or 5th wave), and the swim course was now marked off with one smallish yellow buoy being held in place by a volunteer on a surf board, a large white sign on a dock, and an orange flag at the exit. Certainly not ideal, but I'd get extra practice sighting. The first wave went around the far side of the dock, but the second wave got pulled in by the current and stayed to the inside of it. Nobody seemed to know what was going on. As I was trying to figure it out, a bunch of orange swim caps got in the water, so I went up to the starting line. In the two minutes before our wave, swimmers were slowly drifting out in a clump, basically shortening the course considerably. No race director was stopping them, or even saying anything, and by the time the wave started, some of the orange swim caps were treading water about 100m away from the swim start. I hung out in the middle of the group, not wanting to cheat, but also not wanting to get left behind.
As usual, the gun went off and I forgot to start my watch until a couple of minutes in. The swim started off remarkably smooth, and I quietly hummed a tune to myself to keep my breathing even. As we passed the first buoy, I asked the volunteer on the surf board which side of the dock we should swim on. He said that the current is pulling people inward, so I should try to stay as close to the dock as possible, but not go around it. Okayyyyyyy. The swim went well, and for the first time in my triathlon career, I got out of the water in the middle-ish of the pack. It felt good. As I treked towards T1, I looked at my watch. I know I had started the timer late, but 15 minutes for an 800 meter swim was ridiculous. The course must have been short. When all was said and done, my swim time ended up around 19:30, which was way too fast for the course to have been a full 800 meters.
T1 went well, and because my swim was strong, there were still other women in the transition area. We chatted a bit while struggling to pull off wet wetsuits. I didn't rush, but worked smoothly. I didn't forget to take my chip, and left T1 in 4:03 feeling good.
The bike felt good all around. It was a 2-loop course, with some rolling hills. I took the first loop strategically, making tight turns and really picking up speed on the downhills. I had trained at about 12 mph, so I was happy to complete the first look at 13.3 mph. On the second loop, I really cranked it up the hills, trying hard to pass a 14-year old boy on a mountain bike. I made friends with a woman who, I discovered after the race, I had already met a few times at FD-related events. I finished the bike feeling great. 50:03, average 13.8 mph.
T2 was also smooth, although I had to switch the chip to my other ankle, because it was sandy and starting to chafe. 2 minutes even.
The run started okay, but my calves started cramping up about 100 meters in. Ugh, this was gonna be tough. I fell into a good breathing pattern, but I spent the entire 3 miles thinking I could have moved faster if only my calves were at all functional. At a big ugly hill in the last mile, I kept on keeping on, but the steep incline gave my calves a good stretching, and I finished feeling good. My mom was cheering on and directing runners around the last bend, and that gave the the oomph to finish strong. I ended up doing the first mile in about 12 and the second and third at 11:00, for a total of 34:20.
As I crossed the finish line, I heard the announcer fumbling to find my name. Number 1000...is...uh...part of relay team 404...and then he announced a name that wasn't mine. Interesting. Then I forgot to stop my watch at the end, and the clock time reflected the first wave start time, so I wasn't quite sure right away whether I had achieved my goal (beating the last two years' times).
Post-Race: I handed off my chip (after separating it from the band), and looked for a finsher's medal--only to find they had run out. Awesome. I stretched out my legs, swallowed a gel, and chugged some water. I then accompanied my parents to our 3rd annual post-triathlon Father's Day binge at the diner. I enjoyed a tomato juice (mmmm, salty and satisfying), vanilla egg cream, Belgian waffle, 2 fried eggs, and French Fries. I probably consumed more calories than I burned in the race, but I was still proud.
I didn't have a good finishing time, so I kept checking the race website to see when it would be updated. By about 1PM, the race website was down, so I figured they were updating it, but when it wasn't fixed by dinner time, I went right to the timing company's website. I searched the results, and found neither my name nor my race number. Fortunately, I have a head for numbers, and I remembered my chip number. By CTRL+F-ing my chip number, I found Relay Team 404, whose numbers mostly matched mine (at least, T1 through the run). After being baffled by the hugely wrong swim time (31:30) and finishing time (over 2 hours), I realized that since they thought I was a relay team (who started in the 1st wave), my swim and final times were off by the difference between the 1st and 4th swim waves.
I tried to use the times of the people I'd seen in T1 with me, but by the evening, the race website was back up and had posted the planned wave start times (why this wasn't posted before the race baffles me, but maybe a lot of people had difficulties with timing), and I saw that my wave was 12:00 after the relay's wave. The new website also included the instruction to contact the timing company directly with any questions or concerns. After some math, I calculated my final time to be 1:49:55, which is faster than the last two years, but really unknown given the debatable distance of the swim.
Despite the horrible organization of the race (that many said they wouldn't race again here), I raced strong and finished feeling good. I could have pushed harder, but now I feel healthy and ready to continue training tomorrow.
As for school, this is getting tedious. Only half of today and half of tomorrow left. 8 hours. 480 minutes.
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