34 days....

I know what you are are thinking...and no, I didn't die at Lobsterman-might have come a little close though :) Yes, it was pointed out to me that's it's been 34 days since I last posted in my blog (well, 35 because I write at night and then edit in the morning.) My apologies it has taken me this long and it really does touch my heart to check my blog analytics and see that people have been checking in on my blog.

Without further ado...here is the post I started writing umm maybe 25 days ago :)


I want to first start this post by thanking everyone who has supported me in all my triathlon pursuits. Especially my team Zoom Multisport for all their training, guidance and patience for my irrational triathlon fears. (new website looks great btw, quote on the gear page, all me) Also, to anyone who has swam, biked or run with me and pushed me through the many hills and pond monsters.

Now race here is how it all went down!

First of all, in case you were wondering, there is no ghost writer writing this blog post, I did the race and I survived.

Friday...wasn't the best day haha I was kind of a grump (didn't get much sleep the night before) I had several red exclamation point work emails in the morning and we still had to drive to Maine. I got my coffee, put my cowboy hat on to brighten my spirits and off we went! We met up with a fellow Lobsterman athlete at the Red Hook brewery and got some lunch and the first beer of the day. Finally we arrived at the campground and it was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l :)

After a couple beers and much talking me off the ledge due to how nervous I was, it was time to head to bed. I borrowed my roomie's bf's HUGE tent and there was enough room you could literally stand up and run around the thing. And of course I did. I'm not one for air mattresses in the woods but I borrowed one just because I wanted to make sure I got a good night sleep. For the most part I slept great except one little hitch...the animal death screams that woke us up at 2 am. As anyone would, after racking our bikes and gear the next morning I decided to calm my pre race nervous by doing a little demonstration of the noises we all heard the night prior:

Very funny Art...but seriously. That's exactly what it sounded like. Besides the death calls of the animals from the last surviving Spartan army, camping out before the triathlon was actually pretty awesome. It was really nice just walking 1 min down the dirt road to transition and leaving our swim stuff at the campsite.

The water was cold. I wore my calf sleeves this time around which proved to be an awesome idea because 1) I'm obsessed with them now 2) they make getting your wetsuit off much easier. Luckily I had a friend in my wave because we were the second to last wave to go (I hate that.) So we all walked on in the ocean and treaded water waiting for the start-not as bad as I thought. Holy crap did the swim look far! I just told myself to focus on the next buoy and go from there. As you all know, I'm terrible at swimming in a straight line so I made an extra effort to spot.  I was really in with the crowd as I was attempted to (finally) swim in a straight line and draft. I did get kicked, hit, punched in the boob a whole lot more than normal but eh, I guess that's part of the fun of triathlons. The whole swim my mind was already on the bike. No idea why. I just kept picturing the pretty course and how good I was going to feel after I got out of the water. I didn't feel any jelly fish but I did feel a couple questionable things. At first I thought it was just the hair of the girl in front of me and then a little while later I remembered that we are all wearing swim caps. Ugh. I guess it was some sort of squishy/spongy seaweed. Ahhhh. At one point I had seaweed stuck on my hands and feet and all I thought was HAHAHH who's the ocean monster now?! Might have lost my mind a little... o well. Apparently it also down poured during my swim and I completely missed that too :)

FINALLY I got out of the water and I was expecting to see a time of 43 mins or so. My watch said 34... My first thought was CRAP! My watch stopped! ...and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and saw my friend who was in the same wave as me. She was like, great swim! I was in disbelief. Actually, I'm still in disbelief. I've never come out of the water with people I know and I still keep wondering if I could have cheated some how (clearly not possible with all the guide kayaks out there.) I remember coming into transition floating on a cloud of confusion, happiness and hell yeah I swam the crap out of that course.

I quickly got on my bike and I nearly got run over several times by the gravel start coming out of transition onto the road. I just remembered being so happy with my swim I couldn't calm down. I was so excited! The bike beautiful and you know what? I had an awesome bike as well. No idea what got into me. I was passing a bunch of people especially on hills. One woman said to me, Nice climb! Who am I? I did leap frog with this chick couple times (who had the same bike that jerk!) and she wouldn't say "on your left" when she passed me while I always try to. On my final pass of her (she never passed me again) I gave a nice hearty happy On your left ! :) and went along my way. I did get stuck behind a tractor at one point. This guy was taking up the whole road and there was no way to get around. I was coming down a hill so I killed my speed and let another biker go in front of me to see how she was gong to get around him-she didn't. He finally turned off and her and I were like ahh how annoying! Let me stress again how beautiful this course was. It is definitely hilly but for some reason I got over my fears and easily saw 35 mph on my bike computer as I was cruising down the hills. What a difference from my performance at Lord of the Flies!

One weird thing I did notice the while on the bike ride was that I had this weird tightness in the back of my throat. I just thought it was excitement because I was way ahead of my goal time and was feeling so great the whole time. I ignored it and just took as deep of breathes as I could while trying to keep my enthusiastic mental happy dance party to a minimum so I didn't wear myself out more. Bike was over, racked it and high-fived Mudge Mudge (Curmudgeon)  who was filming the race and headed out on the run. I was in for quite the surprise on that run...

The first 2 miles went by fairly easy and I was happy about how good I felt. I do really hate being the final waves because you know everyone else is ahead of you and have probably finished already. I tried to be better about consuming GU so I had some just before mile 3. I was really looking forward to mile 3 because mentally I really like to reach the halfway point because I just tell myself all you have to do is run home! I hit mile 3 and kept chugging along. I realized I was way ahead of my pace and was changing my goal finishing time (apparently you can't do that mid race haha). Crowd support was great and I was just super happy...until I hit mile 4. Asthma. Attack.

You might be surprised because I believe this is my first mention of asthma on the blog and that's simply because I'm still in denial that I have it. It all started last September when I had this ridiculous cough for a mouth (just as I started my new job) and just had such a hard time breathing. I had NO other symptoms so I knew I wasn't sick but I finally caved in and went to the doctor. She told me my lungs were barely expanding and my throat was incredibly tight and that I was experiencing asthma like symptoms due my allergies. Woof. So yes, now I have an inhaler. I barely use it. However, I know when my allergies are going to be bad so if I *remember* to take it in the morning I'm fine and I usually have no problems. Given that Lobsterman was in my peak allergy season I made sure to take all of my allergy medicine that morning including my inhaler.

Imagine my frustration when this feeling hit. I feel like I'm usually great at taking long deep breaths especially after going up hills or just to keep my anxiety down. As much as I was trying, it just wasn't happening. I know I probably sounded horrible to other runners I as I was wheezing and gasping and someone asked me if I was ok and I just said, "this sucks." I feel bad because I didn't want her to think I thought the race sucks. I couldn't believe I had come so far, did so well and in the final 2 miles of a 32 mile race I had to do what I haven't done in any race so far. I walked.

It felt terrible. I felt so defeated. I struggled to get my breath back and walking was helping. I felt my eyes start to water with sadness at the thought of how such a happy successful race just turned so sour. However, the triathlon gods were looking out for me that day.

As I was walking, I happened to come across another woman who was walking because her legs were cramping horribly. I struggling to get the words out that my asthma was acting terribly and then she said the most amazing thing: "That's happened to me before. I have an inhaler if you would like to use it."  Umm, what? You are the best stranger ever. I thanked her profusely and took two puffs. Mandy from VT, you are amazing. Thank you so much. We walked together a little bit longer and she told me about where she was from in VT and I told her about this blog. I remember telling her, the name of the blog will be easy to remember, it's what I'm doing right now! Bad triathlete! I do feel really really bad I didn't update this blog until now because I wanted to give her a proper shoutout and thank her again.

The inhaler really helped. I didn't feel 100% better, but I definitely felt like 60-70% better. I wanted to try and at least run as much as I could so I started to. It was painful. My friend Greg had come down the road to look for me and had a whole group of spectators cheer for me. I just still felt so defeated I had to walk during the race. I'm editing this post because it was pointed out that I did very much start running again, ran into the finish hard and finished strong. But ouch, it was a painful finish to run into. The race also makes you run a circle around the finish line before you actually cross it so I was ahhh just let me finish! Finally I did :)

Here is my finish line race photo (and the only professional race photo I have ever bought):

I also have to note, my actual finish time was 3 hour 20 min. 10 min below my goal of 3:30. I laugh every time I see this photo because Mudge Mudge told me to do a finish line dance and in my head I was just like ahhhhh I have nothing left...I'll just do X. And I can't actually remember what X was. But hey, I guess this is what it looked like haha

I was able to find Mandy after the race, thank her again, meet her son and assure her I had no communicable diseases. 

Afterwards, Greg surprised Art and I with first Olympic Distance Triathlon celebration champagne!

I will admit, I did feel pretty upset about walking. I still do. I know I should be so happy with my swim time, bike time and overall completion of my longest distance race but ah! I was just so close to having the best race ever!

O well, that's what keeps you coming back for more right?

Here are some pics of the rest of the weekend:

Ahhh such an intimidating swim! Look at that buoy way out there!

Luckily I was provided with some swim instructions

Thanks Greg.

Beautiful transition zone :)

Such a great place for a race!

Nothing like a little post race flannel and cowboy hat :)

So there you have it. There is also a video for me running around the campsite and exploring which I tried to upload but it seems to be failing. I'll try to get that up later.

I've also been up to lots of other things, buying a new car, creating new injuries, marathon application, hiking, etc...

But more to come on that later (under 34 days this time) :)

Still your bad triathlete,
-cat