So, I guess I’ll quickly post about that race. I was super excited for it, a nice little sprint tri (Dave was doing it to!!!) on my side of the island, which meant no wicked early wake up call and a short drive home afterwards, not to mention it was a sprint so I’d be done in just a little over an hour! We got there, got all set up and body marked (they gave us tattoos so we could apply them ourselves to save from being written on with permanent marker, which you would think is a good idea, but the genius that I am, I tried to apply the tattoo without removing the plastic covering beforehand so that was ruined and permanent marker it was, great start to the morning, Lectie). I should have just quit right then and there. But no we continued on with the morning. It was about a 10-15 minute walk from transition to the start of the swim and believe it or not, it was a bit chilly that morning and I just wanted the race to start because I was getting a little cold. So the swim started in waves and Dave was in the first wave and I was in the second. I didn’t think I’d have any chance to catch up to him (and I didn’t he ended up beating me in the swim portion by 2 seconds!), I just wanted to be out in the front of my wave away from everyone else. The swim of this race is a little different from other tris being that it is swum in 4 different lagoons and you have to run between each lagoon (swim, run, swim, run, swim, run, swim). Anyways, I had a GREAT swim! I was super pumped, out of the water way in front of my group just as I had planned. Into transition (a little slow for my liking, but finally off on the bike). Well I made it 2.5 miles and then…FLAT! Great, just what I wanted a flat on a sprint tri. #1 I’m terrible at changing them and #2 really a flat on a sprint tri?! So, I hopped off the bike and began the S L O W process of changing the tire, I was so proud of myself, I got the tire changed and went to inflate it with the CO2 and what do I hear, POP! Great, I busted the new tube. Let’s just try another CO2 to be sure……POP again. Well now I have a spare tube, but I’m all out of CO2, time to walk back to transition. That was a very long 2.5 miles back, mostly because I was super embarrassed and disappointed in myself, I’ve never DNF before in a race and I don’t like that feeling. When I got back to transition people were finishing and I just made it in time to see Dave finish! He did a great job! Ended up 4th in his age group! Even though Ko’Olina wasn’t what I expected it to be, live and learn I guess. Note to self: time to start practicing changing tires.
Now onto the fun part, last weekend was PF Chang's 30k. My FAVORITE race of the Marathon Readiness Series. Some of you might think I'm crazy, but I really think that 30k or 18.xx miles is the perfect distance to run. It's not a full marathon so you don't necessarily hit the wall, it's too long so that you can't sprint for 18 miles (thank goodness), but it's just long enough so you can get into a good rhythm, hold that pace and feel strong throughout! Well, that's what I did.
For all of the 4 races in the series so far, Craig has comanded, given orders to, suggested paces that he knew I would be able to maintain throughout. At each and every one of these races I said that there was no way that I could hold that pace for that long, I was skeptical to say the least. At all but the 25k, I was able to meet his/my demands goals. Somehow, somewhere I have started to enjoy running and have turned into a pretty decent runner.
The one bad thing about this race is that it starts at 5am which means waking up and seeing a 3 on the clock, ugh. Anyways, Dave and I were up and out the door and he proceeded to fall asleep as soon as we got into the car, typical! :-) Got down to the start, got in a little warm up run in with Kim and Bill and we were off. Dave and I got seperated before the start which I was a little upset about, but when the gun went off I was in full on race mode, game on!
The plan was to take the first couple of miles and build into race pace, then hold for the remainder and if I had anything left at the end, just go for it and it worked pretty well. I ran with Aaron for the first 10 miles or so, we were holding a pretty consistent pace, right on target and I didn't even have to look at my watch a whole lot, excellent! 10 miles in, Aaron was hurting a little so I pushed on. I got a little overzealous at the turnaround and sped up quite a bit, whoops, I hoped that wasn't going to come back to bite me in the ass. I recovered and got right back on pace. I finally saw Dave and that gave me another boost of energy that kept me moving forward. The miles were ticking away, not too fast, but not unbearably slow either.
When I got to DiamondHead hill it started to get a little rough, I needed to break it down from there, make it to Traingle Park, then the top of DiamondHead, then the bottom of the hill, and then the dreaded LONGEST ROAD EVER! I was fine until that last stretch of road, I swear every race that road gets longer and longer and longer and longer. When you get down off of DiamondHead and you make the final turn into the finish, you think you're almost there, but it's still 3/4 mi (I don't know if it's really that long, but it seems like it's 3 miles!). It takes all the mental strength I have to get me down that road every single race I complete and you'd think it would get easier because I know what to expect, but it doens't. I just need to mentally prepare myself for that road come December 11.
All-in-all it was a great race! I'm super happy with the results. 9 minute PR from last year and I felt much better after the race this year than I felt last year. Dave did awesome as well, a personal best! It was his longest run to date! Go us!!
I can't believe we never take pictures together after races, we need to get better at that, but here's a couple from the race.
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| Could be one of my favorite race pictures...both feel off the ground! |
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| It was dark out for most of the race |
