This is it! This is the one my sister trained to mark off her bucket list. I think she had a smile on her face the entire time.
So here’s the rundown. Saturday we drove into the city and while Chris and me picked up our race packets, Lou and Karl checked into the hotel, which was a block and a half from the start line. I was really excited about finally meeting my coach from last year in person and several other Pittsburgh Triathlon Club members I had been communicating with over the years through Facebook. Sadly, it had been raining all day and since the vendor area was outside they had already closed up and gone home. By noon we were comfortably settled into our room and resting according to plan. My older sister came to the hotel around 4:30, and we walked down to SoHo for our pre-race dinner. Not wanting to have anything spicy or greasy I ordered what I thought was the simplest pasta dish on the menu with chicken. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask for the sauce on the side. Turns out the sauce was spicy, so I ate only half my dinner and ordered simple mashed potatoes to eat in the room a little later.
Race morning one of the first things I did was check my Facebook page for last minute announcements. It had rained the day before and was raining when we woke up. The only announcement I saw was to be extra cautious about ingesting the river water. Chris and I walked to the transition area to get body-marked and to set up our gear, then went through the routine and expectations of each sport and and transition. Finally, the announcement was made to clear the transition area and begin walking to the swim start. Since Chris and me were in the last wave, we took our time and lingered so that we could be among the last to enter the water. I’m not sure what happened to my watch during the first half of the swim, but I assure you I was not THAT spastic. I was out in 35 minutes.
Chris and I had agreed before the race that since I had coached her through the sprint triathlon the week before we would be on our own for this one. I knew she would come out of the water before me, so I kept looking for her on the ride. I didn’t see her for the longest time and began to wonder if her competitive streak kicked in on overdrive. Finally, at about mile 9 I came upon her. She was doing great and feeling really good, so I passed her. When we crossed paths on the second loop she was still wearing that happy face. When I came around the corner where Lou was waiting for me he yelled out at me to “pick it up.” I figured this meant he knew something I didn’t about my odds of taking third in my age group again, so I picked it up like a champ. It definitely felt like I had done better on the bike this year than in 2011. I was hoping for better on my run, too, since I had put a lot of time and effort over the last two years improving my skills and speed. When I left T2 I felt confident and strong. I gave my legs a little time to get used to the new motion then tried to stretch them out. They refused to go any faster!! I tried and tried but in the end wasn’t able to shave much time off my original run time. Still, I shaved 11 minutes off my total time from 2011, and I felt so much stronger than then also. When Lou checked the scoreboard while I was gathering my gear he saw that I hadn’t gotten 3rd place this year. I had actually taken the 2nd place slot! I was so excited, especially since I earned it out of 7 women in my age group and not out of 2 women in my age group. Chris finished in about 8 minutes under what I had estimated her total time would be. She said it was very helpful to her to keep those time goals in mind and to try to beat them. Its something I try to do before every race: calculate my goal times based on an average of my last few months of training.
Post race we learned that there had been an upstream sewage leak for about two hours the night before and 20 minutes or so the morning of the race. I’m happy to say that neither of us suffered any consequences from the high levels of bacteria, but it’ll definitely make me think twice about swimming in that river again unless I know the water was tested and cleared pre-race.
While Chris and I were swimming, biking and running around Pat, Lou and Karl were running around taking pictures. I hope you enjoy the ones I picked for your viewing pleasure.
