record breaking

It occurred to me at some point last week that I haven't done a half ironman in over a year. The disastrous attempt to cover that distance in New Orleans, combined with 2 full IMs later in the year, left no room (desire) to do one of my past favorite distances. Writing that last sentence made me wonder what my current favorite distance is. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

So onto the race that I have now done 8 times, if my finger-counting is accurate. First of all, I need to drop this whole "I USED to be able to do such-and-such" attitude that I've had for over a year (see NOLA) now. I think one of the reasons I feel the need to remember past performances is the husband. He didn't know me before this recent wave of slowness, and when he tells me he's proud of my sucky run time, it's almost frustrating. I want to yell NONONO! Let me look up results from 4 years ago; THAT was a good run! So for now, I'm going to try and compare my races to last year's, which tended to be mostly record breaking, in the slow kind of way. 

This year was the 28th running of the Gulf Coast Triathlon, one of the classics down in Panama City Beach. It runs on much of the same course as IMFL, except it's flatter. Yes, it's possible. So a few concerns leading into the race were 1) the wind, as usual, 2) the threat of thunderstorms, and 3) the oil spill in the gulf. The potential of this oil spill to hurt the beautiful gulf coast just breaks my heart, and I was hoping to get to swim there at least one more time before it hits. As of now, I think they're doing a pretty good job of keeping it off the beaches, but time will tell. (Side note: my family has always gone on vacations to the gulf coast, from Gulf Shores to Panama City, and we spent lots of time in Perdido Key. The bike course even goes by Mom and Dad's honeymoon spot, the Fountaine Bleau. It's still kicking too, after 40 years.)
The oil stayed away, the thunderstorms held off, and the wind was a usual part of the day. Now the details. 

Swim: The breakers seemed smaller than usual, so there wasn't much of a problem pushing through them. The warm, green tea-colored water seemed to be dense with algae and murkier than usual, so I defaulted to my closing-eyes-under-water, so as to not freak out at the darkness (dark water means you can't see those large predatory sea dwellers before they snap you up, obviously). If I were to catch a glimpse of something underneath me, I'd probably have a heart attack out there. 

 I know! Doesn't look that bad, right?

Even though the breakers weren't that bad, the sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to return soup to a deli (George Costanza). I figure some strong swimmers and larger people are kind of like barges through the ocean. They cut through the waves with little tossing about. On the other hand, I am like a toy sail boat who gets thrown about, up and down, over and under. Somehow I managed to have fun out there despite the tossing. There was no freaking out or hyperventilating. It was more like body surfing. I happened to spend a little too much time having fun though, and set a new record for myself, 4 minutes slower than ever before.

If just my Garmin was waterproof, I'd have to report my actual distance swum. I think it was something like this:

Uhhh, can I have a do-over? It was almost comical how every other person I'd see out there was swimming almost exactly perpendicular to me. I may have broadsided a few. I was breathing every other stroke and sighting every 4th, and still I was never headed toward the buoy on my next sighting. At one point I was well on my way to Tallahassee. Thankfully I exited the water in the general vicinity of the timing mats.


T1: My only real thought was, "where are all the bikes?"


Bike: There is always always wind coming from some direction out there. It is May after all. I had told husband to go easy for the first 10 miles, so I followed that rule as well. We had a short out and back with a good tail wind the first 3.5 miles, a little headwind the next 7ish. Turning north on 79, I knew there was wind tunnel potential in that pine tree alley. Thankfully it was mostly crosswind. I picked it up here and started seeing the speed increase. In the back of my mind was the last 10 miles out, along 388, which has finally been freshly paved after 10 years of bumpiness! 388 proved to be slightly windier, but overall, I was surprised at the speed I was able to maintain. Coming back into town, especially along the beach, there were some stronger cross gusts that made me grip the handlebars, but nothing outrageous. I kept reminding myself of how many bike workouts I'd done in the last couple of years with Liz, and how much stronger I must be on the bike. I managed to have my fastest bike ever on that course, and even grabbed #1 in my AG! That's new for me.


T2: Coming in toward the dismount line, going all of 14 mph, I chuckled at all the volunteers telling me to slow down. I was about to show them all how to dismount. I had unstrapped the shoes and was swinging the leg over for a flying dismount when it caught on the spare tube and caused a wobble that zapped the grace right out of it. Thankfully there was no fall, and I landed inches from the line. Then I continued on to win my AG split for T2!! Can you imagine, I ranked first in 2 events in the same race! I was excited to see that there were still not many bikes back in the racks at this point.


Run: I ran out of transition with a guy who immediately asked what my goal pace was, and then continued to tell me he had done hundreds of 40/10 bricks on this course, with the run being at a sub-7 pace. You go for it then, dude. I let him go at the first water stop, only to pass him again at mile 10. I thought surely I could manage a 1:45 on this course, given that my last marathon here I'd averaged that for both laps. The stomach thought otherwise, and continued to give me stitches until I figured out how to run more hunched over and find relief. I'm sure that was a nice sight. I straightened up just in time for Amy to take my picture out in front of the Terp house. 

I really tried to smile for this picture. At that point I was just d.o.n.e. with this whole experience. I had just looked at my watch for the first time and seen that it might not be my worst race here, but it surely wasn't my best. I couldn't blame the weather (ok, maybe the wind during the swim); it was mostly overcast until 10 miles into the run, which doesn't mean it wasn't hot. But past years have seen 100+F, and it was far less than that, 85 tops. 


I'm hoping J will do a guest blog post giving his account of his second ever 1/2 IM. He PRed by quite a bit (despite the puking x3), most likely due to the excellent coaching he had :). And while I'm not ready to retire, I am ready to retire this slowness once and for all. I have now seen success in 2 of the 5 events, with a 3rd on the horizon (T1), and I'm not stopping there. 


Next up is my local race, Heatwave!


Epilogue: J and I spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday morning eating pizza, drinking beer, and floating on the clear, flat ocean in our tubes (that was Sunday). We must've drifted to a different beach, different state maybe, to see that big of a change! It was beautiful.