GO USA! World Champs Race Recap

Well, it’s been a sufficiently long time since I raced in the Age Group World Championships for Triathlon in Auckland, NZ.  I thought it might be time for a recap.  Obviously, had I WON THE WHOLE THING, I probably would have posted a bit sooner.  So, just to kill the excitement, you should know… the race wasn’t spectacular.

On some basic level, it’s worth noting that I think the course favors a cyclist who climbs hills a lot.  Needless to say, not me 🙂

The Day

On October 22, 2012, I raced in the Age Group World Championship Olympic Distance triathlon.  It was a mild day after several days of storm which continued to ravage the Auckland bay in which we would be swimming.  The chilly conditions had Team USA nervous at our team meeting the day before, but I decided to stick with my plan and raced in my all too cute 1-piece tri unisuit.  Clearly built for function over form 🙂

SWIM

My wave started with a 20 minute delay.  The whole day was delayed in fact because the sprint course had gone before us and the swim course had to be remarked.  I knew the swim wouldn’t be easy because I could see the wind picking up the water in the far distance where I knew I’d be swimming.  The result was “ok”– I posted a great time comparatively but not absolutely.  My time was, in fact, 5 minutes slower than my PR for a 1 mile swim owing at least in part to the 4-5 foot swells in the bay off the coast of Auckland where we were swimming. I held on by citing the swimmers in front of me, rather than buoys that I could only see on the off chance I was breathing and not at the depth of a swell simultaneously.  Because I couldn’t see the buoys, I defaulted to quite a bit of vertical… “meerkat swimming.” This should be self explanatory but if not, here you go–

Though, I’m not that cute Needless to say, I was exhausted getting out of the water.

Transition

Then, to my unpleasant surprise, I found that we had to run AROUND transition to get into the gate at the far end of the pier, at the end of all the competitors’ bikes.  The reason for this is totally logical– there was no way OUT on the other side.  To avoid have mass chaos, one side had to be entry and the internal side (the part connected to the land) had to be the exit.  Still. Annoying.  In my case, that added 3.5 minutes to each transition!  Argh. I didn’t even consider the lengthy transition at the time because I was just exhausted and I generally try to avoid the whole self-pity thing in races– it rarely helps.

BIKE

Woe. Is. Me.  Ok, I say I TRY to avoid self pity, sometimes, it’s inevitable.  The bike course, for me, was a disaster.  So, I got on the course trying to relax, get warm again, and just feel fluid.  It didn’t start too badly– I did get warm and fluid just in time to hit the first of… 8 hills.  I got through the first 4 and felt… hurty. I was sore from clenching in the cold, sore from non stop climbs and even the descents were a little less than awesome because each ended in a sharp turn– so I couldn’t carry any momentum beyond the descent 😦  Beyond the physical strain, which I was simply unprepared for, I hit an unusual mental strain– my clock was reading a pretty disastrous race time.  I hadn’t noticed how long my swim or the transition had taken but I did take not of my bike lap finish with 13 more miles to go– it was ugly.  So, that said, I headed out for loop 2.  The first hill hurt but I got it done, the next one was incredibly painful with my old hip injury flaring up because of the stupid muscle pulls I was feeling in my legs.  But the 3rd hill was…. bad. As soon as I hit the hill, I JUMPED my gear down as far as possible to release my muscles.  Not only did that BARELY help but in addition, my chain fell off.  UGH!  I pedaled into a plateau for a moment so I was actually able to get the chain back into place with some quick pedaling and shifting.  However, when you do that you always run the risk that you set up your gears incorrectly which I had clearly done because ont he 4th, it dropped again… and this time I had to get off the bike to fix it.  From there- you can imagine, I was not the happiest kid on the course. From that point, I did my best to thank volunteers, smile at cameras, and basically just wish and hope that I could be off the bike as soon as humanly (maybe a faster human than I) possible.  I transitioned to the run and basically just jogged out my tired muscles.

Transition 2

At least this time I wasn’t surprised, but it took a really, really long time.  We’re talking over 4 minutes in total. I promise, I wasn’t having glass of wine at my bike, really!  It was just a long way to run… twice.

RUN

My body was so sore that my chest and lungs weren’t- a clear sign that I wasn’t able to work hard enough to get into the cardiovascular system, which  is where my system tends to do best.  I’ve mentioned this in the past but my type of fitness is about performing at a good level when most other people have worn out– that means my heart can keep up at a pretty decent pace even when I’ve been going pretty hard for along time.  This had the feel (to me) more like a sprint because my muscles were simply super saturated.  Going harder made me wobble on my sore quads instead of dig into my chest/lungs for more air.  I wasn’t at the point of breathing insanely hard because my silly legs were just incapable of giving more speed.  Lame.

Finale

Clearly… this was not my best race. I finished in a whopping 20 minutes from my PR– but considering the choppy swim 5 mins slower than my pr, 5 minute transitions instead of 1 and a dropped chain? I don’t think it was actually as bad as it appeared on paper.  It was however, as bad as it felt.  Blech 🙂

The COOL PARTS?  It was AMAZING to rep the USA.  I loved getting cheered on by the Aussies and Kiwis and others, who clearly weren’t American but it didn’t matter.  They were all cheering “GO USA” as I ran by.  I also had an awesome fan cheering me on the whole time!  James actually saw me about 6 times over the course of the event.  There are LOTS of [super attractive  wet dog, tired cyclist, pathetic runner] pictures!  He was an awesome supporter 🙂

Now the crazy fun highlights? Those were all on the South Island of NZ.  I’ll give you just a taste: