Longhorn Olympic Distance Race Report - Triathlon Week

RedT · 10-16-2007, 05:52 AM

I had so much fun at the Longhorn Tri, my first Olympic distance race! Pre-race I was worried about the weather (what the heck happened to my cold front!?!), the distance (how would that last 3 miles feel), my new Look clipless pedals (how would I ever run into transition on those shoes), and the fact that my worrying could cause tummy problems on race day (great something else to worry about). But that race felt GREAT!

Getting out to the course that morning went without a hitch. I’d set up everything the night before and I woke up just before my alarm went off. Didn’t forget anything. Ok I DID forget that I had planned on having oatmeal for breakfast, but I was able to grab a Clif bar from the stash in my car.

The water was a balmy 85 degrees. I swam about a 150 meter warm up and when I got out of the water it actually felt cool outside. As we lined up for the swim start a group of cheerleaders cheered us on. That was cool!

I took a gel about 5 minutes before my race start, but the race got started about 15 minutes late and the swim start was a tread-water start – or tread-hydrilla start. I kept thinking I would be grabbed by the ankles by the hydrilla and never seen again, a la “Day of the Triffids” ([Only registered and activated users can see links. ].

As the race got started I tried to draft off a few people at the start without much luck. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but I felt like I was having my drafts stolen by other more aggressive swimmers (or they could have just been clueless as to my strategy and just wanted me to move over). At about the ½ way mark the folks who were swimming at my same pace became apparent. I would like to put a shout-out to Meredith from “Tough Cookies” off of whom I drafted for ½ the swim (she was wearing the TC trisuit and I heard someone call her name when we got out of the water). The swim felt great (probably had a lot to do with my Tough Cookie). I felt like I could swim all day. I was shooting for about 45 minutes based on my pool lap time and blew that estimate away with a 37:49.

My legs didn’t even feel bad coming out of the water and I was able to jog into transition. Because this was my first race in my clipless pedals, I took some extra time to make sure my feet were dry and not covered in debris. My T1 time was 03:05, which seems kinda long, but transition was huge and my rack place was not optimum, oh, and I was running in Look cleats.

On to the bike. I was able to get on the bike and clipped in without incident (I could hear the angels sing). Dang, that is a hilly course! It was a little discouraging to have the sprinters blowing by me, but I kept thinking ‘I’ve got to do this again. They don’t.’ I tried to stay in heart rate zone 3, but some of those hills were rough. Also there were USAT judges all over the place and, inexplicably, a bunch of guys on Harleys who sounded like USAT judges coming up behind you. Ahhh! Then I was sent another angel! I don’t know her name and now I can’t remember her number (I wanted to look her up). This crazy gal LOVED the hills. She was shouting encouragement, hooting and hollering up each hill as she passed me, and I would pass her on the down hill. But she was a hill climbing maniac and her commentary and antics made the entire second loop much more tolerable. Overall, I felt good on the bike and was able to put away a gel and 1 ½ bottles of water. I was able to clip out like a pro (meaning I didn’t fall off my bike). I was shooting for a 1:20 on the bike since my practice onthe same course a few weeks ago was less than stellar, and I came in at a respectable 1:16.

I did not break my neck running into transition on my cleats and made a 01:45 for T2. As I was changing my shoes in transition I heard the announcer announce the first Olympic finisher. WHAT!?! The gal getting her bike next to me said, “Well, I guess we won’t be winning this one.” I guess not.

Surprisingly, the run was fine too. Yeah, it was hot and yeah, it was hilly, but when I started I decided that my attitude would NOT be “this sucks, this sucks, when will this be over.” Instead I thought, “I can do this, this is going to be fine.” At the start of the run there was a water stop and a water-mist tent, very nice.

As I was running down the first long hill, I heard a couple of guys behind me trying to encourage another runner. She replied “God help me!” Then they answered “God will help you! Hallelujah!” As they approached me, I said “I want to hear you ‘Hallelujah’ going up the hill!” One assured me I would. “They said he would never walk” he said gesturing to the young, good-looking, fit man running next to him. “Is that true?” I asked him. “Yes”, he replied “I was paralyzed.” Kinda puts thing in perspective, huh? As promised, they Hallelujah’ed all the way up the next hill.

The volunteers were great. The musicians were great. The cheerleaders who were situated so that you passed them twice on each loop were great.

I started my second loop still feeling pretty good, did another gel, ran through the mist-tent. At about mile 5 ½, I past a gal on the mostly empty course. I said “Less then 10 minutes to the port-a-johns!”(which had been a predominate thought of mine for the past 10 minutes). She said “Last year I weighed over 420 pounds and now I am finishing this.” I turned around, look at her and said “You look great. Congratulations!” I mean, how freaking cool is that! I finished the run in 1:01, which was about 3 minutes slower than I had hoped, but I sure ain’t complaining.

Because this was my first Olympic I wasn’t overly concerned with my time because I had no idea how much time it should take me, instead I just had fun and ended up meeting some really neat people and getting a lot of unexpected encouragement throughout the course.

I had a great time, AND I got a great time: 02:59:36. Wooo-hooo! Under 3 hours!

Tar Heel Ted · 10-16-2007, 01:03 PM

Great job. Congratulations!!

Spike10 · 10-22-2007, 02:17 PM

You see why we get addicted to the tri life. Great race and report, next year you will know the course and thoes look cleats much better. By the way I wear looks too and I'm stunned that I haven't fallen down yet either:)
Spike.