Two races, two places!

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I raced again this weekend (I know, you're asking yourself "holy heck, does this chick race all the time?" - yeah, kind of).  I love racing... and I have the ability to race a lot so I do.  I know it's not the way some people do it, but it floats my boat.  So we had one race on the schedule for Sunday, but on Friday, we went for a run and swim at the local state park and they were setting up for the weekend.  There was a women's only sprint on Saturday and I debated entering.  I had decided not to by Friday night since money was an issue and I didn't need to race two days in a row, but Tom convinced me and I'm glad I did.

Saturday was the Greenswell Tri for Hope benefiting the Stephanie Spielman Fund.  I love women's only events.  There is just a great buzz all day long, lots of "You Go Girl's" which I love, and a great feeling of camaraderie.  You just can't beat it.  And they had a good turn out for it - 179 women.  I like it!  Tom played sherpa (which I secretly love too) and got some great photos throughout the day.  Short swim (.25 miles), short bike (12 miles) and short run (2 miles).  Just the right distance to go hard, but not so hard that I would be toast the next day.  The swim was uneventful - too warm for a wetsuit and a little frustrating with everyone walking and dolphin diving the whole thing, but I was 5th in my AG coming out of the water (and in wave 4 of 6 so lots of people in front of me). On a side note - I like that the swim cap matches my outfit (yep, it's the little things), but that will come back to bite me tomorrow...

I passed a crap ton of people on the bike (this is normal... not saying that I'm an awesome biker, but it is definitely my strength and I know that and I also know that this is a very beginner friendly race).  As a matter of fact, I came into transition after the bike and it looked like this:

:)  Of course I was a total putz and racked my bike, only to have it fall off the rack.  What the heck?  Tom yelled "leave it" but I couldn't and wouldn't leave Papa Smurf laying on the grass (plus I didn't hear him!).  I knew that there were three girls in front of me, (because coach Tom was scouting them), but I also knew that 3 waves went before me so I just ran.  Felt a little sluggish on the run and it might have been a wee bit long, but ended up crossing the finish line in 1:00:51.  Good enough for 2nd overall!  The lady that won was pretty tough (and 12 years older than me... which is really cool... I feel like there is hope for me to get faster as I age gracefully), but she only had me by about 40 seconds.  Maybe I should have left my bike on the ground in T2! Just kidding... I was pretty stoked about second, especially since this race company does overall awards (not all Columbus race companies do that).  And they did an awards ceremony which was cool.  Got a plaque and some organic soap. (Which totally random side note, but why does organic soap smell so bad?  I'm all about doing your thang with natural stuff and whatnot, but I could not wash myself with this stuff and be happy. Maybe it's just me).

Went home and plopped my butt on the couch with a really bad movie and my Recovery Pump.  We'd see how these bad boys helped my legs for the Olympic weird ass distance race I'd be doing on Sunday.

Sunday was the Greenswell Wellness Tri.  I knew it wasn't going to be a true Olympic, but it was close - 1.5km swim, 38km bike and 8km run. With this being a new race and race company, we didn't know how many people would be out there.  Turns out, not too many.  I think there were 47 total doing the "long" race (while 167 people did the sprint du and tri!)  There were only two long course waves - men and women. Fairly simple huh? We all lined up for the swim and it seemed long.  Like really long.  I know that sights can be deceiving and we were all hoping that was the case (but I swim here 2 days a week and knew our hopes were about to be crushed)... all 19 of us women!  I opted to not wear my wetsuit because of the warm water and wasn't alone.  The horn went off and we entered the swim for the two loop rectangle.  Now, I suck at swimming.  I'll be the first to admit it.  I'm usually not last, but I'm much closer to last out of the water than first.  I know that.  I am working on it.  After one lap I looked at my watch and holy hell, either I'm not swimming, or the course is long.  And the sprint started after us and when we were on our second lap it was total chaos.  And the buoys were the same color as the swim caps. Green swim caps and green buoys are all I saw when I sighted, but which was which??? And lots of people dolphin diving again.  The whole swim.  I was so frustrated.  I usually swim between a 28-32 minutes for an 1500m swim.  I exited the water in 41 something.  Totally defeated, I made my way to transition.  Lots of other people were at their bikes, mumbling and grumbling about the swim.  At least I wasn't alone.

The bike was two laps for us.  The first lap I passed a lot of sprint tri people.  At the entrance to the park at 12 miles, they turned in and we went straight.  Then there was no one around.  It literally was like the race had been canceled and I didn't get the memo.  Way up ahead I see a biker so I put my head down and hammer to catch them.  It took a while, but I did, but they weren't in the Olympic weird ass distance either.  Oye ve.  My legs were feeling the second lap a little (although the Recovery Pump was amazing as always in getting me recovered), but I still managed to have a good bike.  I got to T2 and literally lollygagged.  I felt like I was in lala land.  I'm never like that. Maybe my mind just wasn't right.  Ha... The run was a course that we run a lot... the same run that I've done in 2 other tri's this year.  The RD said to turn around at the end of the dam for the 8k.  The 2 mile mark (which was about .3 of a mile short of the end of the dam) is where we all turned around.  There were 3 teenagers volunteering who maybe weren't given the memo that we needed to run past the sign to the end and told us all to turn around.  I ended up finishing the run in like 34 minutes.  My results say I ran a 6:54.  Right.  In my dreams.  I think it was more like 4.1 miles which would make my pace closer to 8:20's - that's more like it.  In any event, I finished the Olympic weird ass distance tri in 2:24:40 and snagged 1st in my AG (by default, the third place overall was in my AG so they took her out, but whatevs).  Woo hoo!  No soap or awards ceremony this time, but a cool plaque.  And Tom won his age group!  Good day for Team Kingery!

We packed up our stuff, hopped on our bikes for another 25 miles and some great greasy diner food the next town over.  Nothing like racing hard, biking 12.5 miles, eating a grilled cheese and biking back.  Nomnomnom!

So like I said Greenswell is a new race company.  Well, kind of new.  The RD has been around a while in Columbus and had a old company (which we honestly loved racing with) that went out of business and started this one.  I really love that there are more options in Columbus for races, but I worry about the "newness" of the company at these races. They are very environmentally friendly (no plastic bags at check in, recycling throughout the venue, etc).  While I'm all for that, the course wasn't marked with paint, only green 4x4 signs with black arrows (which is fine, but we are in a very wooded part of town so you couldn't see them).  So that was a tad frustrating.  Luckily I knew the course like the back of my hand since we train here all the time, but others had a hard time with it.  The swim - WAAAAAAAY long.  A few people said that based on their times, they thought that it was at least 2km, if not a little longer (I would say 2km max). I did a true OLY at this same location three weeks ago so I know it's possible to have a 1.5k course.  And the matching swim caps / buoys is a huge pet peeve of mine (isn't this some rule in the RD bible that you don't do this?).  Tom had a really hard time with sprint waves running into the water to start their race as he was starting his second loop.  I guess some girls bullied him a bit, but being the gentleman that he is, he gave it back to them! I didn't have that as much, but ran into a lot of them my second time around.  The run was definitely less than 8k.  Results are based on that distance. And the results don't match up.  The finish times are right, but if you add up all the portions, they are long by about the T1 time.  Looks like they have the T1 time added to the bike which makes out averages seem lower - a pet peeve of Tom's since he actually biked 23.5mph and not 22.9mph.   I don't mean to bitch and moan, but I'd love for this company to make it. Just some things that need to be straighten out I guess.  They have another event in August (exact same course and everything) and although it's a great training day to get out there and just do it, Tom and I are debating if we will.

No more races for a little while.  I have some massive training in the works!

How was your weekend???