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!

race report - breath of life

oh the play of numbers. here goes. yesterday: 30min trainer, 800m run, 30min trainer, 1200m run, 30min trainer, 1200m run. followed by an onslaught of nachos and 2 margaritas. followed by 4 hours of sleep. which brings me to race morning. drank about half a bottle of gatorade. zero food. 28 relay teams. one asian guy i knew i could beat in the ocean. too many LATC folks to count. 5th heat out. 11 min and change to the first buoy (hmmmm really? then that next buoy must be way the fuck out there, damn that sucks). passed one yellow capper before 2nd buoy. 4 min to the next buoy (holy shit, WTF is going on?). pass three more yellow cappers. realize that if i bust my ass, i might actually make this thing in under 25 min. is that really possible? catch up to a couple orange caps (ok, seriously. either i’m like speed demon on meth today, or this course is way off). stand up and start running at 24:58. make it to the damn mat a friggin’ MILE away, in 2 foot deep sand, uphill both ways, barefoot...i could go on. and only one of those is false, ok maybe 2. mat time is 27:42. got the chip handed off and roger was gone by 28:02. made it into transition and handed off almost 4min ahead of my GOAL TIME for just the swim. 

only met one of my teammates twice (roger - bike), had never met the other guy (gerardo - run). doesn’t help much with nerves. plus with the way saturday’s track/trainer workout went, instead of browsing the course map online and mentally preparing, i was sleeping and then drinking. nice. got there by 0545, had no food with me. not necessarily a bad thing. wasn’t hungry at all. arrived early to set up and say hi to everyone, probably not something i’ll make a point of in the future. with the exception of one group, the vibe in the transition area is just weird come race morning, especially today knowing all i had to do was knockout this small swim (hey, if i wasn’t there, i would probably have moved up to the 1.5 mile buoy at the MB swim today). by only having the oly swim ahead of me, i felt like i was back in high school cheating on my science exam, but with only the really cool people (all 6 of us really cool people subsequently got caught btw). it was kind of chilly, but not too bad. got into my suit, talked with my teammates about logistics for a sec. had the national anthem (that chick was impressive) during which i downed my only Gu with some Gatorade. figured neither could hurt at that point. and the wind was starting to pick up so who the hell knew what was waiting for my ass on the other side of the dunes. walk out to the beach with some guys, talking shit the whole way. ‘WHICH buoy do we swim to? that looks really far out there. running this coming back in is gonna SUCK.’ that last statement was me, but i’m sure you already knew that. i’ve figured out that i need to get in the water before the race starts. a friend of mine NEVER gets in the water before the swim. hell, she doesn’t even look at any part of the course beforehand. she doesn’t want to know. that freaks me out. so i go down, get my feet wet and think ‘well, that’s some damn cold water.’ i rationalize it out -  hey it’s just as cold as it is back in SM/MB, maybe i just need a minute to get used to it. so i go out a bit, get a couple strides in. no. not happening. there will be no ‘getting used to it’. face literally hurt. i get out and start fiddling with my goggles to get my mind off the water. this older lady walks up and stands next to me. we do the pleasantry smiles and so i say ‘that water is cold as hell!’ her response: ‘it’s been colder.’ just that. monotone, not inflection in her voice, just ‘it’s been colder.’ and with that i was walking back in. the second time in was much better, it must’ve been my mentality because that water didn’t warm up in the 2 min i was out of it. one of the USAT officials came up to a group of us and had the nerve to say the water was 64 degrees. i was the first to correct her, but once i opened my mouth there was a chorus backing me up. 

watched the first 4 heats go off. talked to my run leg guy. found the asian dude (i soooo wanted to do the “i’m watching you” hand gestures off Meet the Parents, but i resisted) and kept him in my sights. i was amazingly calm looking back on it. the gun went off and we ran. the kelp was absolutely ridiculous. never had any waves worth diving for, bummed me out. but in that kelp, it was definitely a good thing. it was a bit of a struggle to the first sprint buoy, purely jockeying for position. i never got kicked, but i hate following bubbles. have to have my own path, probably not a good thing. was surprised when i started seeing people flipping to backstroke so soon. i hit the first buoy fast, i can’t say faster than i expected because the course was different than what i had glanced at online. that threw me off. online it was a triangle, but this was more of a rectangle. so then i started the numbers game above trying to figure out what i was going to be able to pull out. i had no problems with bilateral breathing, every third really helps me keep everything in a nice pattern. only got one mouthful of water. at one point i even thought of yelling out ‘taxi’ to the boats at the 2 buoys, but then i worried they’d think i needed rescue, or worse, wouldn’t laugh. they didn’t look like very happy guys. so i kept to myself. i recently read a woman during her IM race was able to have a mental playlist and she’d just go through song after song. turns out, that must take practice because i couldn’t think of a single song. i think i was having to sight too much. maybe once the run or bike start i’ll be able to do that. 

anyway, i was stoked when i caught up with not only the next wave, but the wave in front of them. that really excited me - for a minute, until i realized that i probably was only passing the super slow people from those waves. it’s like stealing another kid’s halloween candy only to find black licorice and almond joys inside. boo. i tried to kick it into high gear for the last 400 or so, don’t know how much faster i really ended up going. was thrilled when i stood up and hit my watch. immediately started running. i made it to just before the top of the hill when the 4 letter words started tumbling off my tongue. that damn sand was killer.  ran once i hit pavement. got to transition, took off my chip along with a chunk of kelp and slapped it on roger. he was gone. talked briefly with gerardo about my times, what time roger got off. i disrobed and started my photography duties. 

the rest of the day went well, got to see lots of friends, made new ones. i honestly thought we had no chance in hell of even placing in the top 5. while we were waiting for roger to return from the bike, the asian dude and i (whom i did indeed whoop) started counting the racked relay bikes. we already counted 4, and he kept telling me about his super fast teammate. gerardo came back in and then went right back out, i just knew roger was going to come in only to find gerardo out warming up for the 5th time. 

when they first posted the results, i saw we placed 2nd. i told the other 2 guys, so excited. then gerardo noticed the first place team had an impossibly fast bike leg. turns out their bike leg (the asian dude’s ‘superfast’ teammate...ha-ha-ha) was short an entire loop, so they were disqualified. first place went to us. all three of us were stupid-happy about it. and by the time they got around to announcing relay winners, we not only were the only team left to even accept anything, but there were only maybe 5 other people left to see us accept anything. ah well. what can ya do?

overall, great race. great experience. great introduction to the sport. sucked because everyone was really fast at the swim = mismarked course. or shift of tide. either way, wasn’t a true time for that distance. bummer. but, first outing in Tri-Land, and placed first. gerardo has been doing this for years and it’s his first time placing first. that says tons.