Nutrition
Breakfast: Toasted whole
wheat bagel with butter, Boathouse farms smoothie, ¾ banana, 1x Endurolytes
capsule, ~750 ml of water between wake up and race start
Bike: 5x GU Roctaine caffeine
gels in bentobox, Accelerade and provided IM Perform, 2x Electro Delytes, 4x
Endurolytes capsules, 1x apricot Cliff bar @ halfway, ½ Tim Horton’s doughnut
and 1 Honey Stinger caffeine gel @ 75 miles.
~300 calories/hr
Run: 3x Gu Roctaine caffeine
gels, drank sports drink at every aid station and coke at later aid
stations. Used copious ice and water.
I carefully checked my bike in the AM (tires to 120psi, brakes not
rubbing, quick releases tight). The rest
of the time (about 75 mins) I spent in multiple porta potty lines…. In one of
the lines a guy who was particularly hairy was putting sunscreen on and his
friend was giving him a hard time, the hairy guy claimed there was a published
study showing men with more hair were of higher intelligence!
Swim
I was most nervous for the swim….I had never been in the water with
more than about 500 people at once and the race was 3000 people. It was an impressive and daunting sight to
see all 3000 on the beach in their wetsuits and caps. Someone sang ‘Oh Canada and everyone sang
along, I love that about Canada J I am pretty sure I heard my mum yell GOOO
Jackie in the quiet before the start horn, she is still such a soccer mum and I
love her! Crazy rough swim….I got kicked
in the head and pulled under a lot but I could feel the draft from faster swimmers
so I tried to be positive….It would be harder to swim this fast alone with no
draft. Once I got kicked in the front
teeth…crack. Didn’t hurt too much
though. I found feet to follow for most
of the race and was happy to have some open space near the last 800m. The buoys kept staying orange and FINALLY
there were red triangle buoys indicating less than 500m to go, YES!!! Shoulders were hurting and I was really ready
to get rid of the wetsuit! The clock
said 1:07 and I knew that was a reasonable swim for me. I hate getting my wetsuit stripped as I have
personal space issues and I sort of had to run to the tent with my wetsuit on
with a couple of them chasing me trying to grab my wetsuit…..ahhhhhh!!
Bike
A couple ladies with rubber gloves and a lasagna pan of sunscreen
(gross!!!) slathered the stuff on me. I
wanted them to lay it on thick as I hate getting sun but they were pretty
ginger about it…..I had put some on myself before the swim so I hoped it was
good enough! Got on my bike and was feeling
really good, just my arms were a bit tired but my legs felt awesome. I was on my best behavior for 35 miles
keeping my power at 165W. There was a
massive tailwind so I was averaging 23mph but I knew I was pacing well
effort-wise. People were getting flat
tires everywhere as the terrain was a little rough. I felt really lucky. We started up Richter pass and I felt very
good, I was careful to keep my wattage in the low 200s and I was pleasantly
surprised that I wasn’t suffering too much.
An Austrian woman with a suit with her name on it (clearly she had done
ITU age-group worlds) was wearing calf guards and I couldn’t tell what age
group she was in. She was riding really
well on the hills so I tried to pace myself with her from outside of the drafting
distance. There were a lot of officials
and I did not want any penalties. I
asked her what age-group she was in and she gave me a big smile and said
“yours”. We had a good laugh about this
and worked together a lot for the next 30 miles trading leads being careful to
stay out of each other’s draft zones. I
tried not to be a granny on the descents; this was probably the bravest I have
ever been in a race going downhill!! I
was really trying to keep my nutrition properly timed and was proud of myself
for doing this, Joe had me practice this a lot so I knew what I needed to do. It took some discipline and I really didn’t
enjoy eating and drinking so much but I knew it was imperative t load up on
calories and fluids for later. The views
were breathtaking!! The Okanagan valley
is so beautiful. I almost forgot about
racing sometimes. At the 75 mile mark I
got my special needs bag. I stopped and
rifled through the bag, it probably wasted a lot of time but it was better than
eating shit trying to get the stuff out while riding. I ate my Tim Horton’s doughnut, actually I
could only eat half, that is how tired I was.
I love my Timmy’s!!! I also had a
Gatorade in there and had forgotten to take the internal seal off it so I
couldn’t drink from it. I managed to
unscrew the lid and then punctured the seal on my brake lever, I felt like
MacGyver. At this point I also had to go
pee really bad and I thought to myself, it’s D-day and I need to be a real
triathlete. I waited for a headwind and
a downhill and made sure there was no one behind me and then released the
fury. Gross. My poor Valdora! The last 30 miles were really hard, my
wattage was suffering and my legs were fatigued. Going up the 7 mile ascent to Yellow Lake I
thought I might have to get off and walk but there were walls of spectators
cheering, it was like the Tour de France….devil costumes, cow bells, almost
naked people running alongside you yelling, signs that said ‘smile if you peed
on your bike today’ made me laugh!!! I got
to the summit and was all excited for the descent into town and then the
headwind hit…..grrrr not such a fast
descent after all, but it helped me keep the watts over 160! The last 5 miles in town on rough roads were
tough, I was so glad to get off the bike!!
I didn’t pay much attention to any data but my wattage but I knew I was
around 20mph which would have put me in the top 10 for bike splits in my age group
last year.
Run
Had a decent transition and really nice volunteers in the transition
tent helped me put my shoes on and get all set to run really quickly. Back to the sunscreen ladies, the white goo
in the lasagna tub was almost half gone!!!
It took my Garmin a couple minutes to load the satellites and I was
feeling great running through town with lots of cheering people. Then I realized I was running
7:30s….naughty!! I could hear Joe saying
“take it easy on the first half of the mary” so I slowed it down to 7:50s. I thought this was a good compromise since my
goal was 8:00s, I like to have money in the bank…..A couple girls ran by me
like I was standing still, I forced myself to behave. I was being an aid station whore, taking ice,
water, coke, sports drink and sponges every mile. It was about 93 degrees by now and I knew I
needed to stay cool. The sports bra is
such a great invention; it’s like an ice storage shelf!! Spectators were out with their garden hoses,
hosing us down as went by. Again, great
spectator support and hilarious signs…..one woman had one that said ‘you’ve got
stamina, call me” and then her phone number!
A guy in a lawn chair who seemed to be watching in earnest said to me
“fifth”. I said “in my age group” and he
said, “age group overall but most of them are 30-34”. That was the first time I had any idea of my
placing, I started to have some hope for a Kona slot at this point. There were a few little hills and at 10 miles
the big hills started but I could tell I was gaining on a couple girls
ahead. I passed one and saw another one
on her way back as I approached the 13 mile turnaround. It took me a couple more miles but I passed
her too. After doing the shitty hills
for a second time I was starting to feel like a puddle of organic matter and I
really wanted to be done. I went into my
autopilot mode that I do when I start to suffer in races. It feels a bit like sleeping and I just keep
going even though it hurts. The pain was
purely muscular, my cardiovascular system felt fine but my quads were
absolutely burning with every step.
Jesus, I thought to myself, I am hitting the wall….I really wanted to
walk but I made a deal with myself to only walk the aid stations. I was hitting about 8:30s but I didn’t care
anymore. I don’t have a lot of memories
of the last 6 miles other than that they felt more hilly in this direction. As we did the final out and back in the last
mile I passed two pro women who were clearly not having good days. I tried to get them to run with me but they
waved me on. As the clock came into view
with about 50m to go I saw it tick over from 10:18 to 10:19 and I did my best
to sprint in on my now very buckly old lady legs….When I had considered time
before the race I had thought a 10:30 would have been the best possible result
and would have been happy with a 10:50 so I was pretty giddy with the possibility
that I might even break 10:20!!! I made
it through at 10:19:30 and a couple volunteers caught me and took me to the
finish area. They told me I was 8th
overall, I could not believe it!! I
actually felt fine except my legs were cramping a lot. My parents and Sandy Rosenhauer were running
along the side of the chute yelling my name and cheering and I started to cry
when I saw them. Finally I was in the public
area and got a big hug from everyone and my tears were freely flowing, I guess
I wasn’t that dehydrated!! Dad was photographing
all of us crying girls, thanks dad J. Had a nice massage in the tent but I could
tell my legs would be in agony for a few days no matter what I did. We all went for dinner and I was pretty happy
I was feeling hungry, I thought it must be a good sign! I was glad the restaurant we went to had lamb,
I do like eating little baby sheep flesh.
I know that sounds gross but yum, I love me some lamb!
