Small Texan Tri Relay - San Antonio Smash



Me, Shelly & baby, and Kris.  Thanks Roland
for taking our pic!



This past weekend I competed in my first ever triathlon relay.  My friend Shelly is a soon-to-be mommy and has been doing very good at taking care of herself once she found out she was preggers.  Her go to activity to stay fit has been swimming and it was her idea to do a relay.  When she and Kris were talking about it, I told them that if they wanted a 3rd person I would be willing to do the run if they were looking for a 3rd person since I wasn't sure if Kris was all geared up to do the bike/run part of the relay.  Luckily they were down with the idea and that's how San Antonio Smash was born!

I set a pretty lofty goal for myself for this race and decided to see if I could run a sub 9-minute/mile 10k.  I'm not quite sure what I was thinking since I've never been able to do that in any of my training, or any races for that matter, but I wanted to see how well I could do.  And truthfully, my run training leading up to this race was pretty pathetic.  I just couldn't seem to hit any of my targets during training and I was getting worried about letting my teammates down.  Luckily, I did have one great run before the race that gave me a boost of confidence that I did, indeed, have speed in my legs.  I just wasn't sure if that speed would last me for 6.2 miles.

Come race morning we talked about our goals so we could be sure to be in the transition area ready and raring to go.  Shelly had an amazing swim of 31 minutes for the 1500m swim.  Even 20+ weeks pregnant she swam what is my fastest ever Oly swim time!  Way to crush that swim Shelly and baby!!!!  Kris took off on the bike looking to crush those hills and chip seal out in Boerne.  We had estimated her bike to be around 1:30 so I had some time to wait around and get more and more nervous for my run.  As we were waiting for Kris to come back, I was able to scope out my competition for the run.  I was able to see the runners for the teams I was guessing were in 2nd and 4th.  I'm not sure where the 1st place team runner was, but it was all male team of Marines, so I wasn't worried about them because - come on - they're Marines!  There was no way I was going to catch them, lol.  The next two teams had two females who looked like they would be some fairly tough competition.  I was trying not to let their physical appearance get to me too much because I know runners can come in all shapes and sizes and that maybe I had more experience that would help me out.  I never saw the first place team runner take off, but I did see the 2nd place biker come in and the girl take off.  Her husband crushed the bike course with a 1:18, so I knew it would probably be coming down to between me and the girl from the other team.  Kris came into the transition area next and we had a swift exchange of timing chip and race belt and I was out the gates flying!  She had an amazing bike split of 1:32!!!  Only two minutes off her goal time and averaging 18 mph.  Amazing!!!

It was all up to me now.  I wasn't sure how much time I had until the girl on the other team would take off, so I decided to try to crush that first mile because it was flat. I flew up the dirt hill to the top of the dam and ran. I glanced at my watch and saw 6:41 pace!  Okay, slow it down Orissa. There's no way you can maintain that. Brought it down to 8:30's and stayed there until I hit the hills on Ranger Creek Rd.  Let me tell you, that course does not have one spot of shade on it at all. The sun had broken through the clouds and was out in full force.

Every time I heard footsteps coming up behind me I tensed fearing it was going to be "that" girl. But luckily I was only passed by a couple male athletes. I finally saw the other girl from the 2nd place team, and she was walking (!) up a hill. I calculated she was maybe 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile ahead of me. I hit the turn around and told myself to catch her. Unfortunately, my worst suspicions were confirmed when maybe only 1/4 mile behind me was the 4th place girl. Crap!!  Don't let her catch me!!  I'm not loosing 3rd place for my girls!

I've always wondered if I could run like me life depended on it. Like, if I was being chased by a serial killer, if I could run away from him. The answer is: YES!  Those last 3 miles were a terrified run for the finish line. I finally made it back to the dam (and saw the 5th place relay girl heading out) and ran up the last hill of the run. Once it flattened out again I was sure she was going to catch me. In my head I knew she was right there just waiting to pass me at the finish line. I was to scared to look behind me because I didn't want to see how close she was. If I would have seen her, I think it would have mentally done me in. So I ran. I came up to Brian, Kris, and Linda and they all shouted at me to dig deep, push harder, the finish line was almost there. I wanted to tell them that the next place girl was right there but I had no extra breath to talk.  They were so confident that I had this, but in my head she was still right there.

Finally the finish line was there and I crossed it!  I didn't get passed!  I managed to hang on to 3rd place for our team!!  Best feeling ever!!!  I walked around for a bit and Kris came over and doused me with water and that felt so good. What seemed like seconds later but what was probably a couple minutes, the 4th place girl crossed the finish line.  I went over and high-fived her and told her good job.  She probably had no idea why I was doing that but, to me, she's the reason why I was able to run an 8:56 average.  Not that I wouldn't have tried my best to do that regardless, but with the added pressure of knowing that I was being chased it made me do something I didn't think was possible.  After looking at the final results, if the course had been longer she eventually probably would have caught me because she ran the 10k 3 minutes faster than I did.  It was good to see that my fear was legitimate and I wasn't making it all up in my head. 

I took a quick dip in the lake to cool off even more and then grabbed some yummy sausage and potato salad to eat and waited for the awards.  At the awards we found out that we had held on to 3rd place by 40 seconds!!  Holy cow that was a close race.  Thanks to Shelly's 5-minute swim lead on their swimmer and our super quick transitions, we were able to hold them off!

 

With our medals.  Even baby got one :)

This relay was so much fun to do and I'm glad I got to do it with Kris and Shelly.  I would highly recommend doing a relay to anyone who hasn't done one before.  It's a totally different way to experience a triathlon but such a great way to still compete and cheer each other on.      

 

Marble Falls Tri 2013



In our matchy-matchy green Smash tanks



This past weekend was my second short-course race of the season up at the Marble Falls Tri.  It turned out to be a great race, with a great course, and awesome volunteers.  My friend Aixa talked me and Brian to sign up for the race and I'm glad she  did.  And since her husband or children weren't going up to Marble Falls with her we decided to carpool up there together.

This course is longer than your typical sprint but not quite an Olympic distance tri.  It was a 1000m swim, 23 mile bike, and 4.4 mile run.  The water up at Lake LBJ was very warm so the swim was not wetsuit legal.  We drove the bike course on Saturday just to check out the terrain and the road conditions and overall it didn't look too bad; one hill as you leave the lake heading south on 281 and then maybe two "big" hills out on 71 before you hit the turnaround and have to climb them again.  The run course looked fairly flat but with trees to offer shade.



Pre-race prep w/Brian, Denise, Aixa, and me

 Swim:  22:48
I had set a pretty high goal for my swim since I've been making some breakthroughs on my swim workouts in the pool.  I wasn't too worried that I haven't really done any open-water swim training but maybe I should have been.  Our wave of girls (39 and under) was fairly small (maybe between 20 and 30 girls at most) so when we took off in the water, I was able to find some clear water and go.  I wasn't able to accomplish my goal of starting right behind Aixa and trying to hang onto her feet like I wanted to because they started the countdown to leave before I made it out to her.  Anyway, I was swimming and I felt great.  I was sighting good and I didn't have to maneuver around too many people.  I caught up to my first previous wave swim cap before the first buoy and I got a little boost out of that.  As I got to the ramp to climb out I heard someone yell "Go Sharon".  Sure enough, a woman from an age group that started 6 minutes!! after me finished at the same time I did.  As I ran to T1, I looked at my watch and saw that horrible number of 22 minutes on there.  My spirits dropped tremendously.  I had this inner monologue the whole way to run asking myself how I could have missed my goal by 4 minutes.  Trying to shake that off, I geared up for the bike portion of the race.

Bike:  1:18 (17.6 mph)
Heading out onto 281 S I tried to get my thoughts under control and just concentrate on the bike and try to do my best on the bike.  I put my bike in my small ring and just spun up the hills as best as I could without wasting too much energy.  It was fun passing guys who looked like they should be able to ride faster than me.  On the downhills I just let myself fly down them to try to make up any time I lost on my slow ascents.  The roads for the most part were pretty good.  There was just about a 4 mile section of chip seal that actually wasn't too bumpy but it was loose and made passing kinda tricky because everyone was riding to left of the shoulder to stay out of the loose stuff, so you had to be careful when you passed them.  But overall I made it to the turnaround having calculated that Aixa was only about 1 mile ahead of me on the bike and Brian was about 2 or 2 1/2 miles ahead of me.  A local San Antonio triathlete and friend, Orlando, was at the turnaround on the bike and it was fun seeing a friendly face out there.  He snapped a pic and gave me some words of encouragement.  As I started making my way back up the hill I had just come down I realized that I hadn't taken any Gu's yet.  I had been on the bike about 45 minutes and I started to feel a drop in energy.  I decided to use the fact that I was moving slowly up the hill as my chance to down a Gu.  I had recently lowered my aerobars a notch or two and I noticed a big difference on this race.  I'm able to stay in aero much longer and more comfortably than before and actually have more speed in aero position than I had before.  At the top of the second climb my Gu must have kicked in (and the course becomes mostly downhill) because I got a burst of energy and I was flying back to T2.  I overtook a couple people who had passed on the uphills and I never saw them again.  Overall, I can say I'm very happy with my bike split on this course.  I'm not a very strong hill climber, so the fact that I averaged in the high 17's is so awesome to me!

Run:  41:04 (9.20/mi)
I racked my bike and threw on my run shoes and headed out on the run course.  I decided for the run that I was not going to look at my watch and just run to the point of it hurting and staying there.  I was only going to look at my mile splits and determine what to do from there.  I caught up to Aixa's brother-in-law, Anthony, within the first 1/2 mile of the run and passed him.  I wasn't sure it was him at first until he caught back up to me a little past the 1 mile mark and fist-pumped me and picked up his pace a bit.  I think my passing him caused him to kick it up a notch but it was good because he gave me a good rabbit to chase.  When my watch beeped for the first mile it said 9:02!!  Yippee!!  I was running low 9's right off the bike.  I knew I was pushing the correct pace and tried to maintain that.  It was heating up quickly and I was dousing myself with water at every aid station.  My splits gradually slowed up but I was still running in the 9's at the 4 mile mark and I knew I only had .4 to go.

As I approached the turn into the finish, Brian was there yelling at me that the finish was just around the corner and to pick up the pace.  I picked it up and then I hear Aixa cheering me on.  She was yelling, "Catch your breath here, you have a run up a hill to cross the finish."  I looked up and sure enough the finish was on the top of the biggest hill I think I have ever seen in my life.  I backed off a couple of steps and took some deep breaths and Aixa was running next to me.  All of a sudden I started thinking of something I read on Slowtwitch about a guy getting penalized for having a guy in a cow costume run beside him in a race and I told Aixa to stop, I didn't want to get a penalty because they thought she was pacing me!!!  She kept yelling encouragement out to me as I kicked it into another gear and ran up that hill towards the finish.  I don't know what my face looked like or the sounds that I was making but it HURT. 

I crossed the finish line and was having trouble catching my breath.  I felt like I was just taking in these huge gulps of air but no air was going into my lungs.  I stopped and bent over and kept trying to drag air into my lungs.  I looked around and I see Orlando and he starts to walk towards me.  He asked if I was okay and I told him I couldn't breath.  He asks why and I tell him because I pushed it up that hill as hard as I could.  He helped me into some shade, told me to put my head down and my hands on my knees, and to relax.  He went to get me something to drink and I was finally able to get some air in.  Ahhhh, such a relief that feeling was.  Running up that hill caused me to almost hyperventilate!!  This has to be my strongest finish ever!!

Total:  2:25:27


We had a nice contingent of SMASH representing out in Marble Falls!
(Aixa, me, Karen, Kevin, and Michelle)



Post race with Aixa and her 1st place AG medal!  She killed that course!


So I had some highs and lows in the race but I had a great time and I'm happy with my overall performance.  I know what I need to work on and I can't wait to come back out here to race it again!