Cap Tex 2013

The CapTex Tri held in Austin on Memorial day is always a fun race.  It was one of the first races I ever did when I first starting racing triathlons and I was excited to get back to it this year, since I didn't get to do it last year since I was training for Ironman.  I had a game plan this year too.  I have had sub par results at this race the two years I have raced the Olympic distance and I really wanted to finally break 3 hours.  I knew it was was going to be tough and when I told Dawn, my coach, what I wanted to do she wrote out a plan for me to get there.  The whole mantra of the training was "Make it Hurt".  I told myself I could do this.  It's not Ironman.  I'm not going to be out there 13+ hours.  I can "hurt" for just under 3 hours.

The weather leading up to the race began kinda sketchy.  In San Antonio we started getting downpours of rain (with as much as 9-11 inches in some places).  I was hoping that by Sunday/Monday the rain would subside.  We started our drive up to Austin late Sunday morning and we were getting rained on as far as San Marcos.  Then, miraculously, the closer we got to Austin, the rain stayed away.  It was partly cloudy with a slight breeze; humid but not too terribly hot.  I was super relieved to see dry roads and just hoped that the rain would stay away!  We did the usual packet pick up, checked in our bikes, and then ate some food before we decided to head on over to the hotel to check in.  We had tried to check in earlier but they said they didn't have any rooms ready yet.  That's fine.  To make a long story short, we eventually got placed in a room about 2 hours after the normal check-in time of 3 pm and after having to get quite angry with the hotel staff.  (Apparently the hotel overbooked and only had one housekeeper cleaning rooms or something like that)  Not the best way I wanted to start off my evening before the race, but we tried to shake it off and continued with our evening.  We had a fun dinner an Mendola's Italian Grill with Herb, Suzy, Lexa, Jaime, Ed, and Michelle from Alamo180 and another couple who were very nice.  Brian and I got back to the room a little after 8 pm and got ready for bed.  I think Brian fell asleep fairly quickly but I wasn't quite ready for bed so I stayed up a little longer.  I was probably asleep by 9.  Got a great nights rest and was ready to go when the alarm went off the next morning.

The reason we picked the hotel that we did was that it was walking distance to the race.  Brian and I have been notorious for miscalculating the time it would take to get to the race and have barely squeaked into transition just minutes before it was closing in previous years.  We vowed not to do that this year!  We met up with the gang in the hotel lobby and walked over to transition.  Got set up and had some pictures taken.  Suzy and I were wearing our new Fast N Loud tri kits by Smashfest Queen so we wanted to have some photos of us in them.  Finally finished setting up, grabbed my swim cap, goggles, and wet suit and walked down for our almost 2 hour wait before our wave started.  Suzy, Lexa, and I are all in the same age group so it was really nice to have people to wait around with.  My plan during the swim was to try to keep up with Lexa and then try to catch up to Suzy on the first loop of the bike course and then try to hold Lexa off for as long as I could.  That girl can run!!!  I had borrowed a sleeveless wetsuit from fellow Ironwhiner Kris because the old one of hers that I had been using was just too big for me to use and when I went to order one online they were on back order.  She was gracious enough to lend me her new one, which I was worried about being too tight in the neck area but she swore to me that if it feels too tight on land it would be perfect in the water.  I probably stood with the wet suit on for about 20 minutes trying to get used to the feel and thinking that it was probably going to choke me in the water.  Pretty soon our wave was up and we were in the water.

Now, apparently there was some sort of glitch with my timing chip that I am trying to get sorted out.  None of the times are correct when I look them up on the results page and it's so frustrating!!  Hopefully I can get that fixed.  The times I'm using here are the ones from my Garmin.

Swim:  31:56

Once I was in the water I didn't even feel the wet suit.  It was like butter.  We treaded water for a few minutes and then we were off.  I have to say that with the clouds hanging around and my new goggles I had no trouble sighting.  This was one of my best swims in an Olympic race ever.  I had to jostle with a few girls to keep my line but I was very happy by how quickly I started passing up girls in swim caps that had started in the wave before me.  I PR'd my swim by 3 minutes!

As I got out of the water and ran to the strippers I realized a mistake I made with my Garmin.  I haven't ever used it in multisport mode before and I forgot to check the box to include transitions.  So when I hit the button as I was running up from the strippers it said "Begin Bike".  At first I thought maybe somehow it got hit and I was in T2 in the water but that was not the case.

Bike:  1:21:36 (18.3mph)

I was super excited to begin this part of the race.  I really wanted to have a decent bike split.  My goal coming into the race was to ride under 1:25 and I met that goal.  The weather was great.  Some slight wind gusts here and there but overall perfect conditions.  The Ironwhiners were in full effect out on the bike course cheering us on and looking fantastic in their matchy, matchy green shirts!!  It was so awesome to see them there.  It gave me the boost I needed when I saw them.  The course was crowed by the time I hit it and I just tried to be aware of the riders around me and avoid the big holes that were in the ground.  This was the only thing I didn't like about this course.  There were some major holes that if you hit them you could really mess up your bike.  Luckily I avoided most of them and I caught up to Suzy at about the halfway point of the first loop.  Okay, one goal down one more to go.  Try to keep Lexa away!!  I managed to hold her off until the 3rd loop when she caught me.  We bunny hopped each other for a little ways but then she managed to hold on to her position.  I was able to see her on the turnarounds and she was never too far ahead of me which made me happy.  I knew Brian must be having a great race because I never saw him once on the bike course (or at all during the race for that matter).  He ended up finishing with a time of 2:34 and a 19 min PR!!  Yay Brian!!

I finished my last loop and rode down to the dismount line.  I'm very happy to report I got my first compliment on my kit by the girl at the dismount line :)  I ran into T2 happy to be heading out to the run but also bummed that I had messed up my watch because when I hit it after I got off the bike it said "Begin Run".  This is when I knew I had forgot to hit the include transitions button.  Boo!

Run:  59:54 (9.25 min/mi)

Off to the run!  My goal on the run was to complete the 10k in under 1 hour and I met that goal too!  It wasn't as fast as I would have liked but my running is coming along slowly.  I had some trouble here deciding how fast to head out at the beginning.  I decided to stay where I was at (low to mid 9's) and to see where that took me.  Again, the weather was not too terrible.  It was warming up but not nearly as bad as it has been in previous years.  Once I hit the downtown area, the breeze felt wonderful.  I ran past the Ironwhiners, where they had picked out a prime piece of cheering real estate in the shade and their signs and cheers made me laugh and give them a wiggle as I tried to get jiggie with it while running :)  The run seemed to go quickly.  Before I knew it, I was on the second loop and headed out and back in no time.

Total time:  2:57 and some change. 

I'm really hoping this is correct.  This was the total run time that was on my watch when I stopped it.  Since I had my transitions off, I'm worried I may have wasted too much on them but even totaling up the above times that only gives me 2:52:46.  So that leaves me with 5 minutes and some change to to play with between the two transitions.  From going back on the player and reviewing the times, I'm thinking my T1 was about 3:14 and my T2 around 2:02.  Kris told me it was "mathematically impossible" for me not to have cracked 3 hours because she saw me on the bridge on the way back and checked her watch and she says there is no way that it took me 9 minutes to run to the finish line from there.  I'm going to agree with her and stick with what she and my Garmin says.



Jamie, Lexa, Michelle, Ed, Suzy, me, and Brian.  All finishers of the 2013 Cap Tex Olympic Tri!

I will admit that even though I loved training for Iroman and I plan to do another one, I forgot how much I enjoyed racing.  Yes, the shorter distances are tougher because you're trying to go all out, but it feels good to "Make it hurt" every now and then.  Just seeing the improvements that I've made too, is very satisfying. 

Linda, Kris, Aixa, and Herb cheering us on!

And I'm so grateful for all my friends who came up to cheer us on.  You guys are awesome!!!  And thank you Robert Cordova for all the fabulous race photos you got of everyone!