"The race will grace the shores along iconic Olin Park in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. Start with a 1.2 mile swim in the historic waters of Lake Monona shared by Ironman Wisconsin, then bike 56 miles among the endless rolling hills of Dane County, south of Madison. Finally, a picturesque 13.1 mile run along the shores of Lake Monona."
I arrived in Madison hoping for a great race, the first half of two scheduled for this summer. I had unwisely signed up for both Naperville and Leon's Sprints the preceding two weeks and done well enough but used up some of my energy for those races I would need for Madison Milkman.
I will say that ricocheting around my brain all week had been the question, "Why are you doing this?" and "I may just quit on this one." This is not the best way to enter a race.
SWIM 44:19 T1 5:49 BIKE 3:57:56 T2 5:28 RUN 3:27:42
Swim:
The swim went well. It was at a different point on Lake Monona than where I had swum last year at the Madison OWS event. The entry was squishy with mud and shallow out to a pretty far point so you had to decide whether to walk or swim at the start. I got swimming at the starting shot and encountered a few obstacles in the way of poorer swimmers doing breast stroke and stopping but managed to get around them okay. I had remembered to start my garmin so I got out at about 44 mins and was happy with that. I stopped at one point to ask a lady if she was okay as she was gasping at the turn. It was a bit tough to see all the buoys and I had some trouble, as usual, with a tendency to swim to the right, away from the course so I had to sight more often than I like. Still working on that issue. I did enjoy seeing all my teammates at the start of the race: Chris Navin, Shelley Sarson, Lynn Flente, Dottie Johnson, Steve Inman, Scott Hutmacher, Masumi Yoneyama, and others. It's always nice to have support! You can see Steve's photo below, the photographer snapped it at the moment he whizzed by me and you can see me behind him. HA!
T1 5:49 was a long run to the bikes but I managed to jog the whole way without feeling out of breathe. That is unique for me, in the recent races I have begun to be able to do this. I got to the bikes and got myself into my bike shoes and helmet with no problems. I took longer than I like but that run added at least 2 mins to my normal time. I took my time though and put on sunscreen, ate a gu. I was not trying for a massive PR, but I did want to match some of my prior times.
BIKE " Riders leave Madison to the south using the Capital City Bike Path and travel scenic country roads through the Village of Oregon and west over the challenging Observatory Hill. Returning through the Town of Paoli and through Alliant Energy Center, riders finish using the bike trail under John Nolen Dr. to Olin Park." When they say challenging you should believe them. Observatory Hill was not the first point on the course where I that thought of "I may just quit" arose in my head. I was not feeling it that weekend, and it really presented a major challenge throughout this race. But Observatory Hill had me going 2 MPH, barely upright on that hill, and while there were plenty others slowly making their way up that hill, I was certainly one of the back of the pack riders that day. I hate that. My competitive Type A self does not like to be last. I was not last, I was 289/290 that day of all women competitors. So one other very tired person followed me off the course. There were actually many others behind me but they were DNF as they did not make the cut off. As I rode that "scenic" course, I was all kinds of miserable, but took care of myself by hydrating well and eating even as I was talking myself into and out of quitting. Each moment I got near to stopping, I'd get passed by a team mate who would shout out to me and I'd renew my efforts. That bike ride was a tough mental challenge as well as a tough physical one. I'm pretty sure I entered it in rather down condition to begin with. I had only recently done a Threshold test and my watts were down by 30 so I knew I was dealing with weaker condition than last fall. It was a test. I figured I'd miss the cutoff as I rode but decided to keep going. I do have a motto on hilly courses though: "Take all downhills as fast as I can tolerate." That day I did several at 45 mph. I was very surprised to enter the transition area with several other folks and to find that I was well within the cutoff. In fact, the time for the ride wasn't that bad considering. I usually do about 2+ to 3:30 and that day I finished in 3:57 so hey, the mental challenge was my worst enemy. I also almost quit at the transition, thinking I would not get it done in time but again figured, well hell, why not? It was getting very hot at that point though and the heat took quite a toll.
One irritating and laughable thing was that my garmin decided to think I was swimming the rest of the day, instead of forwarding to bike on the multisport setting. So I had some very impressive swim speeds all day. I only used my garmin for the total race time after the swim so I had no speeds for my bike or run. My bike computer worked but it's not set right for my race wheels and reads a bit fast so I was not sure how fast my average speed was which also irritated me. Hard to ride your race plan without feedback.
T2 5:28 Don't ask me why I took so long. I had to sit to get my shoes on and had to ask someone who had finished to help me get back up. My legs were very sore and I was tired. Tired of the internal fighting and tired of the ride and the heat. I have no idea why I dawdled in that transition area so long though.
RUN 3:27 "A counter-clockwise loop of the iconic Lake Monona Loop. Passing through Monona on the way back to Madison, the run course is scenic and challenging. Spectators will be plentiful in the many parks and great neighborhoods along the course."
I do know why the run took so long. When you don't run much you take longer. End of story. As the heat and humidity worsened, I walked out of T2 and saw Shelley Sarson. I was so glad to see someone one knew. It made a huge difference. She told me that Hootie was on the course and he was walking it. I understood why. Take a pair of legs, thrash them on a very steep and challenging course, add heat, humidity and a bad attitude and stir. You get NOTHING LEFT. I had expected the run to be pretty shady and close to the water in looking at the map. HOWEVER, that was not what happened. We were in subdivisions and at times you could see the lake but rarely were we alongside it. Plus there might be trees but at the time I was running the shade was often on the opposite side of the street. I took to the sidewalks to get the shade I could which helped. I stopped for ice at almost every aid station. I always carry my own water so I only got water if I needed a refill. I walked alot but ran when I could. Two volunteers put ice on my head and down my back after asking if they could. I agreed and then shouted my appreciation as they all laughed. That was the best part of the race I think. I could hear them laughing as I ran off. My normal stand along half is 3:15 so I was quite surprised to see my time come up so short.
FINISH LINE 8:20
The cutoff for this race was 8:30. I was shocked that I made it in time for the official finish. I got my medal and limped around but saw no one but John Dizon who commiserated with me about the toughness of the day. After listening to a great band and eating some food I limped over to my stuff and picked it up. I had decided to keep my hotel room that morning and maybe leave the next day and I was enormously glad I had. I went back to the hotel and just collapsed on the bed after taking a bath. At about 8 PM I got up and drove home and still had leg cramps and soreness. I did not want to drive home in the morning traffic though and worried that I'd be unable to get up really early so I decided to leave and drive home in Sunday evening lighter traffic.
Epilogue
Many of my team mates had a tough day as well. Many of us did less well than we would have liked but a shrug and a claim that it was a good training day let's you move forward. I had been struggling with my training all spring, thinking of it as more like work than like fun and this race just epitomized those feelings. I spent the recovery week doing fun things and considering why I do these races and what triathlons mean to me. I let myself do the training I wanted to do rather than following a proscribed plan. This year is more of a year off from the intensity of last year's racing and training schedule so I'm not out to blow the doors off any race really. I'm working on strength training, running speeds and just fitting the training into a balanced lifestyle. It's what I want to do long term and if I burn myself out now, I won't be happy with this choice. So I've done what I like and what I want and I'm getting some results that are good. My training yesterday was a long day of Metabolic efficiency activities. I swam a mile, did 25 on computrainer and ran 8 miles, all at Zone 2-3 levels. It took longer but I ended the training day feeling quite good and knew I'd used a good amount of fat that day. So this race taught me something about my mental attitude that needed repair and helped me to find the way to do that. While it was not my fastest race, it may well have helped me to figure out how to get to my fastest race. And my next threshold test I was back up above my last fall level at 161 Watts so indeed that "training race" put me on track.
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