Dam it Man Tri

We traveled up to Truth or Consequences to race on Saturday at Elephant Butte Lake, in Dam it Man Triathlon. It was another inaugural race, but unlike some others that I have not had awesome experiences with (IMCdA, Degray Lake 1/2...), this one went smoothly. The lake is a reservoir of the river that runs through town, which means I swam in the Rio Grande, more or less. Completely different from what I think of when I think of major rivers (ahem, the Mississippi, the Ohio), it was clear enough to see your hand in front of you!

Friday evening we did a little course preview to see just what 1400+ft of climbing in 12.5 miles looks like. The first thing we noticed was just how far down the lake was from transition. That picture from my last post? Yeah, it was taken from near transition, looking down at the dock that was the swim start/exit.

Here's another view of the run to T1. Or maybe hike is a better word for it.

It looks even more intimidating from this view:

Anyway, we managed to get through registration despite some rudeness from a volunteer and headed to our pre-race dinner at Pizza Hut.

The next morning we awoke to overcast skies, but thankfully no rain. I wasn't up for those descents, gravel included, in the rain. The temperatures have been really cool around these parts due to this whole monsoon season thing, and we were lucky to have our long sleeves!

We got all set up in transition,

and I taught the first time volunteer about where to mark what. Unfortunately this was after someone had marked J. So which is he, 29 or 33? Glad I wasn't trying to run him down.

The race organizer had measured the water temp at 77F just before the race, but somehow the USAT official thermometer read 80, so wetsuits were out. I'm always amazed at how many comments I get about my blueseventy speedsuit. People like to remind me wetsuits aren't legal, and I quickly tell them this has neutral buoyancy. Do you think I'd really be that slow if it did?

So down to the ramp all 60 of us participants hiked, and we did a deep water start in the clear-ish green water. Out and back around one buoy, for only 400ish meters (they're always long, aren't they?), and out onto a small temporary ramp. The race directors told us that "the football players" would be there to help us out. I got a few feet from the ramp, held my arms in the air, and I was hoisted up onto, well, my knees (ouch), in a split second. I had brought my extra running shoes down for the uphill hike, which turned out to be insignificant climbing for this race. Still T1 took almost 4 minutes.

Onto the bike, I immediately climbed up out of the parking lot, down a hill, made a few sharp turns, and found myself on the dam. We went over two dams that are not normally open to the public. That's fun in a "nobody else gets to do this" sort of way, but it also means that the cars don't clean up all the patches of grass along the rugged road. Here's the dam.

Over 1400 feet of climbing in 12.5 miles is like doing over 9 Jackson Hills. Which means that even though we got a couple of great downhills, those times are slow! Most of the time I couldn't see anyone ahead of me on the course. I passed a few guys and a couple of girls; one stalled out on the first hill, and the other one, who kept looking behind her going up one of the long hills, eventually just pulled over to the side of the road. Suddenly I was in third place, although I got reports of everything from first to fourth. I knew I wasn't near the fastest swimmers, so I went with the fourth. One of these days I'll learn to ride hills!

Onto the run. Similar to the bike, we had to climb up up and up out of T2. This short run was only 2.25 miles, and was almost all up the first half. During the brief downhill on the way out I saw J and the first place girl coming back in. Then another girl. Then I got distracted by the massive gravel road of switchbacks that lead up to the turnaround loop. I walked a few steps here just to get my feet on solid ground. The rocks were as big as my feet! Finally the long downhill came and I found my rhythm. My, how I love running downhill. I crossed the line after a sloooooow run and was determined to be 3rd.

J had finished as 4th place male! He and I compared times and found that he'd beaten me by over 3 minutes. We knew the swim was a given, and he had beaten me on the bike this time too. I knew it was coming. He maxed out at 40 on one of the downhills. Me and my scared self couldn't get over 30. But since they had messed up the initial results (adding 5 mins here, taking away 5 there), we could only calculate that he'd also beaten my run time! I didn't think that would happen anytime soon. I felt a little fire of motivation return with this news.

We hung out around the lake for a while and kept checking results again to see if they'd been fixed. After some discussion with fellow racers, someone said, "I heard that some people didn't go all the way to the water tower." Ah ha! Suddenly, there was an explanation for why 1) J had beaten me on the run, and 2) the two girls in front of me had outrun me by 3 minutes! It seems most of the first finishers had not been directed by the little girls manning the water station to keep running up the hill before turning around. No fault of their own, but they skipped all of this:

Of course I didn't report this to anyone since my husband had done it and the girls would've beaten me anyway. The men's standings wouldn't have changed either. No harm done, we just had to race longer. This does give me a sense of relief that I may still be able to outrun J and beat him overall, but he sure is breathing down my neck.

Next up is a 10k this Saturday night, followed by another sprint up north the next weekend. Quality workouts to come!