Julie McNamara-Dahl

My Next Triathlon Race Report

Lake Chelan, WA

July 8, 2006

Goals:

I didn’t really set any goals for this race.  It was a “B” race and I didn’t know that I was doing it until the Wednesday before the Saturday race.  I had signed up back in March because my mother was planning to do “My First Triathlon” and I thought it would be fun to do this together.  Most readers of this report will know there was a lot of uncertainty right up to the date on whether permits would be issued for this event. 

Night before:  We picked up our race packets at around 6:00 on Friday night.  I had chicken and baked potato for dinner and broke my rule about drinking and had one margarita (it was soooo hot and we were eating outside).  I don’t think there was enough alcohol in it to make any difference!  We drove by Lakeside Park where the event would be held and were rather dismayed to see virtually no sign of a race the next day.  The only evidence was a truck with some Sanicans sitting in the park.  Hmmmm, since packet pickup ended at 9pm, would they be working all night to set this thing up?

Morning of:  for breakfast I had a bagel with turkey meat and some strawberry cream cheese.  I sipped Gatorade prior to the race.

When we arrived at Lakeside Park at about 7:20 I was glad I’d done this event before, because it was definitely confusing.  The racks were set up in the parking lot but there was no control whatsoever about access to the transition area.  None of the wires had been set up indicating where the exit or entrance was for the bike or run, so we just picked a spot in the middle and hoped for the best.

After getting our areas set up, we headed down to the beach at about 8:30.  My Next Triathlon was supposed to start at 8:45.  There had been, by the way, no public announcements, no music, no water, just lots of people milling around.  Of most concern, when we checked around 8:15, the rope of buoys that marked off the public swimming area were still in place, so there was no clear course of how to get from the start to the finish of the swim!  My husband reported, however, that there was a sheriff’s boat out in the water, so we presumed that was getting fixed.  We also knew that the swim exit last year was at the boat launch.  The night before it had been filled with drift wood debris.  My husband reported that there was an 8 year old child removing the debris when he did a reconnaissance, so I guess that was reassuring!

At around 8:40 I wondered if I had time for one last potty stop and decided against it.  Dumb move!  The race director finally made his way down to the beach with an extension cord and a PA system at sometime after 9am.  When he finally got it working (this was about 9:20), he said he would give us some safety instructions and introduced the gentleman who would sing our national anthem.  This fellow has apparently lost 400 pounds!  I remember last year he also sang and at that point had lost 350 pounds. 

After the anthem, the race director told us that we would be racing in waves of 50 people.  Phew – that was a relief.  Last year when I did My First Triathlon, after the same gentleman sang the national anthem, he blew a whistle and all 200+ of us headed into the water at the same time.  For the people doing My Next Triathlon he had us walk past a machine and hold up our leg so that the chip beeped.  While our first group was standing there, up marched the sheriff and I heard him tell the race director that the authorized flaggers were not in place and they couldn’t start the race without them.  Holy Smokes!  I heard the race director assert that they were indeed there and then I couldn’t hear the rest.  After a bit more time passed the race director announced the rest of the safety instructions and then after all that stress and drama, we were off!

I felt really good during the swim.  I had swum a bit before the race and the water was very comfortable.  I remembered from last year that there were rocks in places, so that didn’t startle me.  I didn’t have any problems sighting, and I actually passed a few swimmers.  When I got out of the water at 8 minutes something, I felt really good.  What I didn’t realize was that the timing line was quite a ways from the water.  I had set as a goal not to get my HR up too high before I left for the bike, so I was determined not to run up the hill.  However, the crowd and my own husband were yelling at me to run.  So I picked it up to slow trot nervous about what would happen to my HR and mad when I crossed the line that it would show a slower swim time.  Oh well.  (per results my swim time was 9:20.9 or a 2:20 pace).

Up in the transition area I think I did better than last race for speed of getting off the wet suit. (T1 was 2:54.7).  I didn’t feel as light headed as last race (of course this was only ¼ of the distance).  When I put on my Garmin, however, I was alarmed to see my HR was in the 170’s.  I took off on the bike and pushed it from the get go.  I felt quite strong but was alarmed everytime I glanced at my Garmin and it said 178 or 183.  After downloading at the end of the race I know my average HR was 178.  It appears my bike time was around 39:15.  (Results say 38:43 or 18.6 mph).  I had only one moment of anxiety during the bike ride when a car cut right in front of me to turn into a driveway.  Honestly, why can’t these idiots slow down and wait for 30 more seconds.  If my HR wasn’t high before then, that gave it an extra jolt.  I drank about ¾ of a bottle of Gatorade during the ride.  I also was happy to see my mom when I was about ¾ of the way back.  I was SO worried that she would have problems and it would be my fault for talking her into doing this.  So I was super glad to see that she’d made it out of the swim and onto the bike course.

I had a quick transition to the run. (My Garmin shows :56 T2 – somehow the results don’t have times for T2). I took time to swig some Gatorade and put on a hat.  What I remember most about the run is the heat.  It was SO HOT.  The course was only briefly on residential roads before heading out onto the highway.  The shoulders were wide, however, and I had no problems.  The only confusing part was the turnaround.  It wasn’t marked!  There was a lady there who said, “go around the tree”.  Honestly, some chalk on the sidewalk wouldn’t have been so hard! 

On the run back I monitored my pace and was trying to keep it sub 9 minutes.  There was a time at about the 2 mile mark where my mind wandered.  I think I was thinking about the race director and other non “in the moment” thoughts.  I snapped myself out of it and picked back up the pace.  That last mile was the test of mental toughness.  It was SO HOT and I knew I had been at a ridiculous HR for way too long.  My mantra became “stay strong”.  I was mad because earlier my ipod had gone on the fritz and I couldn’t listen to my prep music.  That kept me from using my usual songs to motivate me. 

In the final tenths of the mile there was a hill.  At this point I was panting and breathing more heavily than I think I ever have.  When I look back at my Garmin, I can see that HR reached a peak of 198 at this point.  Holy smokes!  No wonder I felt like I was killing myself running up that hill.  But I was determined to finish running all out.  I made it across the finish line.  Relinquished my chip and got my finishers medal.  Cold water, bananas and muffins were waiting.  My watch said something like 1 hour 17 minutes and some seconds.  I hadn’t checked my time for last year, so that sounded pretty good.  (Average HR for the run, by the way, was 183 – can you say anaerobic?).  I now know my official time was 1:17:54.1.  The really cool part is I placed 64/414 and 3 of 34 Women 40-44.  And the other two gals beat me by less than a minute!  (Of course one has to keep in mind that most of these are first time triathletes, so everything is relative!)

I waited in the shade with my kids for my mom to finish.  I knew that the finish line wasn’t when you needed support.  It was on that miserable little hill a few tenths of a mile back, so I walked back to wait for her.  As I stood and cheered people on in a rare patch of shade, we were informed that the person who lived there worked graveyard and would we please move somewhere else to cheer.  Hmph!  Grinch.  Anyway, just then my mom came up the hill.

She didn’t look so good.  She asked for water, but I hadn’t thought to bring any.  I walked with her up the hill and near the top she got a bit more energy to finish it running.  We didn’t have official times yet, but she was happy to think she finished in under 2 hours, but not so happy because she had had to walk rather than run the whole way.  Now that results are out we know she finished in 1:59:16.9 – less than two hours!  Yahoo!  She also placed 1 of 3 women in the 65-69 category.

I checked my results from last year and it appears that I shaved off a couple minutes from last year’s time of 1:20:46.7.  I was hoping for more improvement, but given all that’s happened in my life the last few weeks, this was probably a fine performance.  Even better – I woke up the next morning and went for a 41 mile bike ride before we headed back to Seattle and I felt great.