So back in October of 2012, somebody (Clayton Warden? Jodi Bump? Joanna Whisenant?) suggested that a group of us sign up for the half ironman distance triathlon held in Panama City Beach in May. Of course, this was sometime around the Goosepond Half distance and Beach to Battleship Full, so I was feeling very in-shape and somewhat invincible. With the same insouciance with which I signed up for the Dizzy 50s (I've done a 140.6, how hard could a 50k be?), I went ahead and tossed my name in for this early season 70.3. Of course, this was before I knew Mother Nature was planning a very cold, rainy winter that would stretch into April, and thus opportunities for long training rides would be non-existant. Not to mention that Heel and Crank would get moved up, that Lake Guntersville Olympic would end up scheduled for the week before, and that the local Frank Maples would be sandwiched between those two. So much for long training runs as well! So I left for Panama City Beach on Thursday fatigued from three triathlons in a row and woefully unprepared for a long event. But hey, after the frigid rain-fest of Lake Guntersville, how bad could it be?
On Friday the other members of our local triathlete group (Parker Edmiston, Rick Grief, Clayton Warden, Tonya Hardy, Dave Patterson, Marien Amerigo, Joanna Whisenant, Brenda McGovern, and Melissa Johnson) rode their bikes over to the staging area and did a quick practice swim and a run as well. Yours truly slept in, lounged in the condo, met the rest of them in time for the pancake breakfast, then went back to the condo and slept for 2 more hours. Then I sat on the balcony and looked for sharks while some of the others laid out on the beach, but luckily I saw only dolphins. We went over to packet pickup and racked our bikes, checked out the Expo (nothing that we couldn't get at a better price at Fleet Feet Huntsville), and went to Mellow Mushroom for the night-before-the-race carbo loading. Yes, we all know that carbo loading the night before the race is too late from a biophysical standpoint, but gosh darnit why let science get in the way of good fun?
The weather was -of course - calling for rain. Now, I had quite emphatically and publicly stated that I was NOT starting the race unless it was 60 degrees and sunny. Naturally, race morning dawned nice and sunny, ruining my plan of staying at the condo for yet another day of sleeping and eating. So I got into my "race zone" and got that excited, pumped feeling I usually get before any event. The women were being sent off before the men for once, so I was in the second wave going into the ocean. This was my first time doing a true "ocean swim" (Beach to Battleship was in a salt water channel) and I had visions of sprinting into the waves like a real triathlete. I'm glad no one was filming that part, but eventually I was past the breakers and I have to say, I really loved the ocean swim. Yes, there were jellyfish, but they were mostly beneath us and I didn't hear of anyone getting stung. I did see some fish too - I was surprised by how much I could see after all these murky lake swims. And I enjoyed stroking through the undulations of the waves, it was a cool sensation. The buoys weren't too hard to see for the most part, and Rick Grief had given us really good advice to sight on the tall condominium tower on the way back in, which worked like a charm and brought me out of the water at exactly the right place. It wasn't my fastest 1.2 mile swim ever, but it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
Since I wasn't too stressed about time, I sat on a bench on the way into transition to get out of my wetsuit. I really think benches should be placed at all transition entrances. It was a lot easier than the standing jig I usually do to get out of my wetsuit. But I digress. Onto the bike, with the sun still shining and the wind not very strong for a beach race. It was great. I was hammering with almost no effort, amazed at how easy it all seemed. That lasted for about 20 miles...the length of most of my training rides. We made a left turn into an out and back section and all of a sudden the sun went behind a cloud, the wind picked up, and the sky started to threaten rain. Yikes! Meanwhile, I was getting passed by the men who had gone into the water at least 20 minutes behind me but had now caught up and were blowing by me on their bikes like I was on a banana seat with streamers. Suddenly my feeling of strength and power evaporated, and it started to feel like work. Oh well.
I was lucky in that it didn't really start to pour down rain until I was almost done with the bike. And since it was still 20 degrees warmer than it had been the week before at Lake Guntersville, I was still feeling pretty good about the weather. By the time I got to the run, I was feeling even better. The run was flat and completely without shade. If the sun had kept shining it would have been brutal. The first two miles felt like crap like they always do off the bike, but then the next 8 miles clicked by like clockwork and I was on pace to go under 5:30. Then came mile 10, when my legs informed me that my longest training run of late had been 7 miles and they were done. My right calf cramped up, my stomach rejected any attempts to take in gatorade or coke or anything that might have helped with the cramping, and I had to walk a bit to avoid a Charley horse. Even when I got running again, it was a sad gimpy sort of jog. TWO - count em - TWO women in my age group passed me in the final 2 miles, and I couldn't do a thing about it but get frustrated. Errg. I'm still mad about it sitting here at the computer 36 hours later. But alas - if you don't put in the time, you don't get the results. And I had been training shorter and faster, so I shouldn't be surprised I bonked out. Still, I was happy with my 5:37 all things considered. I ended up 10th in my age group (grumble, grumble) which thanks to an incredibly generous awards system, got me some sort of something that Rick Grief picked up for me at the awards dinner (and I have yet to see). Rick Grief totally rocked it, and got 5th in his age group. Clayton Warden had a really good first 70.3, as did Dave Patterson and Tonya Hardy. Joanna and Marien finished strong in the rain, keeping it together even when it started to thunder a bit. Brenda laid down a smoking fast half marathon as the third leg of a relay, following Melissa Johnson who PRed with her fastest 56 mile bike leg only a week after doing the Florida Rocketman 70.3.
It was a fun weekend with good friends and great athletes. We have a lot of people in the Huntsville area who do us proud at races all over the globe, and this was no exception. I am always inspired and uplifted by going to these races, no matter what the outcome personally. So what's next, tri peeps?