Sunday dawned clear and the promise of hot hot heat … a perfect training opp as we headed bright’n'early to the Valley. Too bad I’d had a crappy sleep, bumping my hip hematoma twice in the night – a jarring painful, take-my-breath-away experience. Got to the race site in plenty of time but forgot to take food other than gels with me to transition. This would prove to be #1 of my downfall.
Picked up race kit, bodymarked, set up transition and headed out for a bike warm up. Within minutes realized that something was up with my right cleat – stopped and saw it had cracked. LOVEly. Hustled back to transition, found Tom, got it jerry-rigged enough to work but ate up my run warm up time. Started to feel hungry. Uh oh!
Got into my wetsuit, had a warm up, felt okay, not stellar, but okay. Hunger growing. NOT how to start a 3hour workout! Unfortunately I only had enough gels for the bike & run so had to suck it up. Bad Jen. Bad bad Jen. Horn blows and we’re off. A couple of weird things on the swim – a river swim that goes under 2 bridges and does a dogleg turn. I knew this inherently but having never swum round a corner didn’t anticipate the curve. Kept ramming into the bank. Doh! The current was monstrous on the way back down – kept sighting on the bank and never seemed to be able to get past a certain white house. Erg. Still my time was 30:07 for 1500m so not too bad.
Bridgetown 2009
The bike was just awful from the get-go. I’d changed my seat setup earlier in the week – DUMB move Jen. Dumb dumb move! – and I started getting cramps in my hamstrings, knees, neck in aero, fell off the road twice. It was just an uncomfortable, painful, miserable ride from start to finish. Two gels did little to assuage my hunger. Time: 1:26/29.7kph
By now the hot hot heat was turning up as I headed out on the run. I had one gel and my salt/electrolyte tabs with me but chose not to take my water bottle. BIG mistake. Big big mistake Jen. It was a 5k out/5k back route with some long climbs and no shade. Thankfully there were folks with sprinklers along with way except for a 2k stretch that went through farmers’ fields – long climb in the middle of nowhere, sun beating down with no water – NOT fun. I was on a 6min pace at 3k and by 5k just wanted the freakin’ thing to be over. One bright spot – ice cold sponges! – they got me through the final 3k. What a wonderous invention! *swoon* Pitiful time of 1:12/7:16k
Overall: 3:13
meh. Well you know what they say, a bad dress rehearsal guarantees a good opening night. I’m counting on it! (25 days!!)
Just to let you know Ma, Simon doesn’t like red bar tape!
Oh well. I did see you got third in your age group. There is always a consolation prize!
The red tape was NOT my idea. Rectifying that this week. Obnoxious looking isn’t it. And yah, 3 outta 3. I rock.