September 8: Another Race, Another Experience

Today I raced in the Novi Fit Triathlon. My goal today was simple, to beat the time from the last triathlon I was in three weeks ago. I figured I may be a few minutes off, since the bike portion for this race was posted longer than the previous one. But if I really push myself, I may be able to beat that time anyways.

My day started off organized. I got to the race site at 6:00am, long before it was light out. (It's amazing how the days are already so much shorter than three weeks ago.) I was one of the first ones there, and got one of the best parking spots in the park.

As I was registering, I was getting eaten alive by swarms of mosquitoes. I hadn't even thought about mosquitoes! Fortunately, I had some mosquito repellent in my bag, so I quickly sprayed some on my legs and over my tri shorts (since those were the only exposed parts of my body). Problem solved.

I soon saw friends Crissy (my fellow Team in Training teammate), Alex (a friend that I work with) and Angelika (a friend from college). I spent time talking with them as they registered. For some reason, I took my hand to brush the back of my tri shorts, and was mortified to find that my mosquito repellent had begun to eat holes right through my tri shorts!

I immediately ran to the bathrooms and splashed fresh water on my shorts, hoping to stop the chemical reaction. By that time, it was too late and damage had been done. My only hope at this point was that it wouldn't continue to the point of no return. I couldn't help but have this thought run through my head that I'd be biking and my swim shorts would be revealing my tail to the entire world! I immediately thought of scratching the race due to this uncertainty, but I decided to hold off to see if the damage would get any worse.

As I set up my transition area and looked at the course, I monitored this situation very closely for the next hour, asking my friends if it had gotten any worse. The good news was that the answer was no. Perhaps I saved my pants so it could take me through what would be its last race before they never see the public eye again.

8:00 am approached quickly now, so I got on my wet suit, making sure that I had NO mosquito repellent left on my legs before I had done so. Ruining a $65 pair of tri shorts is one thing, but to ruin a great wet suit on top of that would have been a tragedy.

Everyone headed down to the water, and I got in a few strokes to warm up before things got under way. Warming up was one thing that I hadn't done today, and I didn't realize how much that would play a factor as the day went on. I have to remember to properly warm up before EVERY race.

I saw a good friend, Pamela, right before the race began. She had come out to cheer me on! How cool. No one had ever come out to cheer me on in a race before, so seeing a familiar face in the crowd was just a wonderful feeling.

I went off in the first of two waves. The old ladies went first (and I'm in that group). We swam in a rectangular pattern in Walled Lake, a nice clean lake with high visability. I tried not to sprint as fast out of the gate as I had done three weeks ago, or else I'd find myself gasping for air once again. This time, I found myself gasping because of the improper warm-up, I'm sure. It took me over 400 meters before I found my strice, and that was very frustrating. I even screwed up once by trying to get into my groove so much that I forgot to sight, and passed beyond the turn bouy by a good 20 yards.

I didn't get bumped around as much as the race three weeks ago, only an occasional leg brush or arm slap here or there. There was one point in time, however, that a gal was swimming right up beside me to the point that she was in my "space" a bit too long. Coach Anne had told me this may happen, and had showed me a technique to "lose" this person by rolling over them. It sounds rather aggressive, to roll over someone, but the technique is actually quite graceful. I gave it a try. One stroke, another stroke, and I began to roll. My head and upper body went right over her torso. I could only imagine what went through her head (WTF!) but it was over within a second. Immediately, the bond was broken, and I was swimming on my own again, with my own space. What a wonderful feeling. Thanks, Coach Anne, for that.

As I swam, I would hit these patches of seaweed that jetted up from the bottom of the lake. These patches of lush green aquatic plantlife housed extremely warm water, as if I were swimming into a hot bath. As soon as the seaweed passed, the water became refreshingly cool again. Occasionally, I'd see a fish, no more than an inch or two in length.

Finally, the finish line was in sight, and I tried to push myself even harder. I was neck and neck with another swimmer, and we essensially crossed the line together.

When I got out of the water, I looked for my sandles so that had something to protect my feet as I ran to the transition area. I'm so glad that I chose to do that. There were many rocks and pebbles around, and even though there was carpeting to "protect" the racers, they were still there and could still easily be felt.

I ran through the tunnel, and to my delight at the other side, was my family. My husband had brought our girls to cheer me on. As I passed them, I heard Lindsey say that she wanted to show me the book that the tooth fairy had left her from the night before. So cute.

My first transition was a bit on the sloppy side. It took me over 3 minutes to transition from the swim to the bike. Once I got on the bike, though, I found my stride quickly. I felt good on the bike, though it took me around 5 miles to really catch my breath from the swim just minutes before.

The bike route consisted of three laps around Novi, each just short of 5.5 miles. I ate a PowerGel for some energy at the 6 mile point, and that sustained me for the rest of the race. I am so much more comfortable on my bike than I used to be. I peddled out of my saddle a lot at this race, and that really made a difference. I am not a fast cyclist by any means, but I have improved throughout the season. I used to bike at an 11 or 12 mile per hour pace. This race proved to be my personal best, coming in at a 17.2 mph pace. Big improvement in just five months.

Back to the transition area, where this time it only took me 56 seconds to switch from the bike to the run. This includes me spacing out completely and putting on my swim goggles instead of my sunglasses...DUH! I switched before I started running.
The run proved to be the absolute hardest part of the course for me and a lot of other people. Advertised as a 5K (3.12 mile) run, the consensus was that it was much longer than that. The run consisted of 100 percent trails, and I again was so thankful to have a little bit of trail experience under my belt.

The course was a winding trail that took us up and down hills, with very few straightaways for anyone to truly pick up speed. There were undulations, tree stumps and all sorts of things that could easily tweek an ankle, so I had to keep a cautious eye on the trail so I wouldn't hurt myself.

I'm the first to admit that I'm not a fast runner, but today, I set a new record for myself. I passed zero people...that's right, none. Zip. Zilch. Nada. I think a snail passed me. The run proved to be detrimental to my overall time, which wasn't too bad up until this point.

42 minutes after starting my run (an estimated 3.5 miles according to the latest race organizers), I crossed the finish line. Gary and the girls were there, and Pamela was there. "And let's all give a big cheer for Andrea Dunca, number 57!) Yeah, Dunca. I found it funny that someone could actually screw up Duncan, but I got a good chuckle out of it. My overall time from beginning to end? 2 hours, 2 minutes and 11 seconds. 11/23 in my age group overall, with a breakdown of being 6th in the swim, 9th in the bike, and a slow 18th in the run. Overall, I was 44/88 for the females, and 142 out of 204 for the whole field.

Overall, the race was (kind of) fun. It was very challenging, and truly revealed my weakness (my running). I know I'll really need to focus on that during the off season. Fortunately, nothing else was revealed (my bottom)...My pants, though thin now, made it through the race and spared everyone from revealing my butt. Now THAT would have been memorable.

One final comment about the whole race today -- and that is about the guy that won the whole thing. His name is Aaron Scheidies (a former Spartan, go STATE!) and he beat the entire field by at least 3 seconds, with a time of a lightning time of 1 hour 19 minutes and 54 seconds. Normally, I wouldn't make mention of any individual, Spartan or not, but this guy is a bit of a history-maker. Not because of his outstanding time, but because of a number of other things. At the age of 24, he has already raced in over 70 triathlons and 3 ironmans, and is a 3-time triathlon world champion. And he has been able to achieve this all with a disability -- he is blind.

If you could have gone through that run course with me today, you'd be shaking your head as I do now, wondering how the heck a blind person could ever navigate through such a winding and undulating course. But with the help of his guide, Adam West (another Spartan!), he was able to run and do all of the other disciplines with ease.

It was truly an honor to even participate in the same race with such an inspiration. I encourage you to google this guy sometime and learn more about him. His story is a great example illustrating that if you truly believe in your dreams, you will achieve your dreams. Just ask Aaron.