race report - santa barbara tri

here goes~first time i'm actually posting numbers here. race distances: 500m/6mile/2mile. times: 11:00/1:32/19:22/2:36/26:32.

my buddies raced saturday. i was the official photographer. in my photographic duties, i ran around a lot. granted i had on my knee brace and my new achilles/plantar brace, but i was having pain even running around then. so at that point i'd decided once-and-for-all that i was just going to walk the run the next day. period. essentially my race ended as soon as T2 started. good plan. how many good plans do YOU know that actually materialize? because virtually NONE of my do...this race was no different.

water was a balmy 63 degrees (joke). we were wave 4 of the co-ed group. all of us were amazed at how close to shore the swim course was. very short in and out distances. it was an all-out cat fight to about 5 yards beyond the first buoy. and lemme tell ya, i'm no little pussy (had to, couldn't let that one go). i kinda feel bad, i never once got hit but i hit my fair share of girls. no, scratch that. don't really feel bad at all. i was so hyped up - too much so actually. really need to work on that. granted adrenaline is a good thing, but i noticed it hindering me when i was trying to get into my rhythm in the swim. i'd gone out twice beforehand, as usual to acclimate my body temp, but the first time took my breath away. the second time helped, but i wasn't as calm as i'd like to have been going out with my wave. shortly after that first buoy, it was like someone turned on the light switch - it thinned out within i think 2 breaths (6 strokes) and there were only a few of us. the only gripe i had about this race (well, ok so there were a couple, but in this particular leg...) was that there was no delineation between the waves. we all had either white caps or blue caps. and they weren't gender specific. so when we were out there, it was hard to tell which were girls from my heat, and which weren't. not helpful for someone who feeds off the hunt. i'm told i passed a guy from the very first wave out that morning. sucks for him. i was following this one girl towards the last buoy, just staying with her. and then i decided i should push it and catch her. what the hell, right? i was walking the run, i could kill my shoulders and arms, wouldn't need them again for the rest of the day so screw it. caught her, faster than i'd expected which actually scared me a little bit. beat her out of the water. below is the pic of 'her'. i looked down at my watch and was surprised also by my time then, and intrigued that my HR wasn't capturing at all. that was going to make for an interesting race. my watch had just become a very expensive stopwatch, my HR monitor just an additional strap to hold up the girls. ah well.

get into and out of T1 shockingly fast. i was having too much fun. i was talking to all the girls around me, asking them about their swim...i shut up when they didn't seem to be having as much fun as i was. got to the road with taunto and off we went. i was doing my 'woot woot' thing, having a damn good time. fucking lunatic. the bike was actually pretty fun. i still haven't looked at my avg mph, but i know it wasn't the best, nor what i was hoping for. but it was such a short course, and there were very few straightaways on which to gain some ground, so i just went with it. cheered on every LATCer i saw, chased down a few people. the bitch i'd hunted down in the swim oh-so-effectively returned the favor about mile 2 or so. whorebag. that wasn't in the plans. i didn't keep track of how many people i passed or how many passed me, besides the above-mentioned whorebag. but i pushed it, HARD on that bike course. since i'd watched my friends the day before, i knew how they were trying to (poorly) (my other gripe btw) run the bike dismount. so i pulled my foot out of my right shoe, undid my left shoe and braked, and then forgot to take my foot OUT of the shoe. nice charrissa. half-assed course official: 'dismount at the chalk!!!' charrissa: which chalk?? THIS chalk?? and down i went. mother fucker. landed my ass ON the chalk line. didn't hurt, but didn't look pretty, nor was it in the plans either. then the guy grabbed my bike for me and i yelled at him. probably scared the shit out of him. i have this fear of being dinged for outside help. so i didn't want him helping me. i grabbed my bike and my shoe and i was running again. yeah, that could've gone smoother. those pics were deleted as soon as they were shot. sorry.


T2 could've been faster. i got everything off, and everything on, and then remembered my knee brace. and of course one of the straps wasn't tight enough. i don't know a way around that part. if i tighten the brace before the race, chances are it still won't be tight enough, or it'll be too tight come T2 because of the blood flow fluctuation in my leg. who knows. so i'm coming out of T2 jogging (no one wants to be seen walking out of transition) and that's when i realize it - no pain. in my bad knee, in my good knee, achilles, foot, nowhere. son of a bitch. i'd just red-lined for the first 30 something minutes of that race on the premise i was going to walk the run because of my injury(ies). HATE that. then i realized the adrenaline from the botched dismount might be masking pain, so i walked/jogged the first mile. i also noticed my heart and lungs weren't on point, so i just took my time. cheered everyone else on. got to the water station and tried to barter for a corona (seemed like a fair trade - taunto for a corona?) (yes, i've already apologized for trying to give taunto away for beer - he said it was ok, because i was still asking for a mexican import; now if it had been a bud light i was asking for, he says we would've had some major problems). they were aptly apologetic for being unable to meet my thirst needs at the water station. i hit the mile marker and still with no pain, i decided to run it in. i looked down at my watch and saw 51 min. THAT's when i realized i still had a chance to make it under an hour - my pre-injury overall goal for that race. word to the wise - don't come up with time goals for a race with less than a mile left. it's just not feasible. or maybe just not for me, when i'm not playing with a full deck yet. others probably have the ability to pull something like that out of their asses, but not me. not yet. i was able to push the last 100 nicely, not a full sprint but a comfortable quick long-stride run. official finish time: 1:01:01. what can ya do?

on a personal note, the weekend was just plain perfect. eve had an awesome race, her first back at it after the horror that was oceanside back in march. dave experienced a fun twist, loss of all food within the first 5 miles of the ride. i was just like a proud mama with her little duckies all out playing in the water on saturday. i managed to take some great race photos of the two of them. it was too cold for eve, but once again, she's such a trooper. such an inspiring little lady that one is. we had wonderful food the whole weekend, in particular saturday night's meal. complete with wine, amazing food, singing, pencil art, garlic knots, and animated conversation. i am so blessed to have these people in my life. enough said!