Sudbury Sprint Sprint RR-- or Man, I am a Rock Star

Lately I've been really into the double title. Have you noticed that? So, first I must say that my last post was freaking brilliant, and yet most of you failed to comment on it. Did you notice all of my keenly placed literary references? All of my wit entangled with clear, logical thought? Humph. It must be that I'm so right and so brilliant that you have nothing to say. Or that it was way too long to read. Or that it didn't make as much sense as I thought it did. Or that I got a little to heady on you. Or that you just only like posts about pap smears and tats and other unsavory things. Yeah, I know it. You all have your heads in the gutter. Luckily, I'm a fan of the gutter. My mind actually spends most of its time there. So, back we go. I have a RR to write. I had a really good first race of the season for the most part. The good: 1. I looked super cool in my shark Splish suit and pointy helmet, and Mrs. Zebra (Mzzz Z) (my bike, renamed because she's a Mrs. and she is all black and white) was looking sharp with her spiffy new 404 race wheels. 2. Even though I only wore a swim suit, my privates remained intact when on the bike, and in fact, did not even hurt a smidgen! I am thoroughly broken in and tough as iron down there too. (Sexy, I know.) 3. I beat all of my splits from last year by a lot. I PR'd the whole race by almost three minutes, and it's such a short race that that's a pretty big deal. (Thanks, Jen.) 4. I was the second (I wish blogger would let me make that word blink) female and 15th OA out of a big field. Not sure how big. Maybe 350? Anyway, so cool! I'm very excited about that. Some of the big dogs didn't come out for the race this year (like Jarrod Shoemaker, Alicia Kaye, Ethan Brown and local great Jesse Kropelnicki--who were all there last year) -- but even compared to LAST year's results I would have been the third female according to my time. So yeah me! The bad: 1. I cannot mount or dismount without looking like a tool. This is especially bad because Mrs Z is a cool bike with pretty wheels and I wear a pointy helmet. People with these things should be floating onto their bikes at top speed like witches atop broomsticks. Not me. I stop. get on. get my left foot clipped in. push. roll. get my right foot clipped in. and on and on and on and on. Getting off is even more embarrassingly slow. 2. I had to breathe almost everything stroke toward the end of the swim. I think I kept my pace, but I got sloppy because I was sucking wind so violently. 3. I ran out of T2 WITH MY HELMET ON! Dear God how embarrassing. A nice woman took it from me during the first 10th of a mile of the run course. Duh. Running with a pointy helmet. Can you say, LOSER? 4. I only beat the 3rd place finisher by 3 seconds. That's not really definitive, you know? Overall, though, the race was a huge success. This picture sums up my feelings about the race. If it were a better picture you could seem that I'm like--gleeful. It was taken right after I got on my bike, so I wasn't suffering YET. I really, really do love racing. In this picture, I am, however, suffering. That's pretty clear. At least my suit is cute, right? I honestly did NOT pass out after this shot was taken. I know it looks like I'm about to swoon. As it should be, yes? I'm really catching on to this suffering thing. Here is a brief summary of the race. Well, not brief really. I don't really do brief. Arrival: I lurv my new I-Phone. Got me there without a hitch. Listened to tunes, ate a banana and drank some Powebar Endurance as I drove there. Got there, got my packet and all that jazz, set up my stuff in transition. Naturally I felt the need to chat up everyone in transition. It's what I do. I can't help it. One cool thing: a random woman introduced herself to me and told me she reads my blog. Made me puff up like a peacock! She was very sweet and we talked about TNT, the organization I'm running for this fall in the Dublin Marathon. Warm up. Uneventful. I ran 20 minutes and did a few strides. Then I got in the pool and did a few hundred yards. Then I got out. Then I fucking froze. I was chattering and turning as blue as my shark suit. Finally I went into the locker room and got my sweatshirt, even though the race was about to begin. Everyone kept asking me if I was okay. You know that your lips are blue, right? I have this thing called Raynaud's Disease. Part of it is that I turn blue kinda easily. It's really pretty. I'm sure I looked like a grape with my blue face, lips and blue suit. If you click on the link you can see some cool pics of what happens to my fingers and toes (and other parts of me too, unfortunately) when I get cold or stressed, or in this case, both cold and stressed. The Swim Luckily it was very soon my turn to swim. In this swim you get it in at one end of the pool and zig-zag across eight lanes and under lane lines, completing a 400 by the end. Last year I had a horrible swim during which I had to pass a bunch of people, and I ended up doing a flip turn and pushing off of someone's stomach who was hanging on the wall. I kid you not. It was ugly. This year, though, despite a messed up seed time, things went swimmingly. I got close to the toes of the guy in front of me on the last length, but I did not need to pass him and the person behind me was well behind--. All good. My time was only okay. I stepped out of the pool at 5:29. I think I can swim faster than that, and I'm blaming my slower time on trying to flip turn successfully under the lane lines. It's kinda tough. I worked that swim, hard, though. I was breathing VIOLENTLY when I got out. But at least now I wasn't blue, but red. I ran out of the pool and heard my kids shout GO MOM! Oh, I love that. T1 I was slow, slow, slow. I was all shaky The pool had been warm, and outside it was only in the high 50s with a strong wind. The Bike After an awkward mount I zoomed off on Mrs. Z. We were hauling serious ass. I passed zillions of people. Toward the end of the first loop, though, a woman passed me on a decked out Cervelo and a pointy helmet. Alert! Alert! Do not let her get you! I dropped back and then put down the hammer. It was a seven mile bike. There will be NO passing of moi. NONE. I passed her back and stayed ahead. The only bad part of the ride was that the wind was so strong. It really almost blew me off Mrs. Z a few times. I finished in 19:30 for 7.3 miles. Not too bad for me.... T2 Slow dismount. Slow transition. And I ran out with my helmet still on. Need I say more? The Run After getting rid of my helmet, I began to focus on turning over my legs. I know they call the bike to run a brick for a reason--but MAN--this time my legs really, really felt like they were full of bricks. I was tired! And slow! Ouch! Ouch! After a few minutes I quieted my brain and just focused on turning over my legs as fast as possible. My pace increased. This is a flat run, and I had planned to be totally zippy. I can't say zippiness really occurred. I did manage to average 6:45s, which is not what I had wanted, but was still respectable enough. I finished the run in 14:30 for 2.2 miles The end: 42:06. The hub, the kids and I went out to Dunkin Donuts to celebrate. They had donuts (gross) and I treated myself to a latte and a bagel, which these days, is definitely a treat. Then we came back and I got my award. Yeah! It was a great Mother's Day gift to do so well. Thanks to Jen, my fantastic coach! (By the way, she just wrote a great post called Heart, and you should read it.)