Hey everyone. Here are some of my thoughts from the day. The whole day was pretty exciting. I got to the transition area around 6:30 a.m. Maria, Corey and I were in the same wave and racked our bikes pretty close together. Found Keanne who had a pump and made sure that we were all ready. We walked the transition area to make sure where to go. There were 1600 bikes racked in a small area so making sure you know where your bike is in relation to where you come out of the water is important.
The open water swim is an experience like no other. I completely panicked. I also wasted a lot of energy by forgetting all the freestyle technique that Lloyd has been teaching. I probably did not start calming down until I was 400 meters through the 800 meter loop. A lot of it is mental. One thing I would definitely do differently is sight more. It's pretty easy to start going wide of the buoys and then you have to swim more to make up the difference. My wave wore pink caps. After a while the next wave of swimmers wearing yellow caps passed me and then the orange caps started coming through. My 3 goals were to 1. get out of the water before another color of caps started showing up, 2. not hold on to a kayak and 3. not drown.
Transition 1 was OK. It's really easy to forget things - it's important to lay things out, even if it seems obvious. With all the adrenaline and excitement, things can get missed. I forgot to put my race number around my waist before the bike and did not realize it for about the 1st 5 miles. Also forgot the sunscreen. I probably should have walked from the swim to my bike, but I got caught up and was jogging. Had to wipe the dirt off my feet before putting on my shoes and socks and ended up sitting down to do it (nerves).
Bike course was nice. There were 2 hills that weren't too bad. Since I am on the slower side, I made sure that I stayed to the right. In fact I heard "passing on the left" an awful lot. I will say that there was a lot of encouragement offered by the participants in the race itself. One thing that I need to practice is drinking from my water bottle while riding. Another thing that is different from our rides is that there are no stop lights, stop signs, cars and other vehicles or people crossing the road. That means no stops that I like so much to "regroup". Lloyd was a pretty impressive cheering section all by himself. My boyfriend and some other friends were they also. They cheered so much that 2 participants in the race in the bike section were like "you have an awesome cheering section! We wish that we had people like that cheering for us".
Transition 2 was better than transition 1 because I only had to take of my helmet, bike gloves and put on my race number (made sure of that). I also drank some water and got some nutrition. The run was pretty hard for me, that is definitely one of my weakest areas. That first 1.5 miles seemed to last forever before I got to the turnaround. The course was not closed and by the time I came through, there were people on the street who would cycle by, roller blade, etc. It was the hottest part of the day by this point. I saw Cory and Maria heading back to the finish when I was heading out and they looked great. Keanne and Lloyd met me near mile 3 and encouraged me through the last few meters. It was an absolutely wonderful feeling to cross the finish line. The best part of the whole day was having Keanne, Maria, Cory, Lloyd there. My boyfriend Colin was awesome also and took a bunch of pictures. I will have to email a few once I download them.
Feel free to email me with any questions. Special thanks to Lloyd - I could never have done this without his coaching, training and most of all quiet encouragement and confidence that I could do this.
On to Nations!
Carla
The open water swim is an experience like no other. I completely panicked. I also wasted a lot of energy by forgetting all the freestyle technique that Lloyd has been teaching. I probably did not start calming down until I was 400 meters through the 800 meter loop. A lot of it is mental. One thing I would definitely do differently is sight more. It's pretty easy to start going wide of the buoys and then you have to swim more to make up the difference. My wave wore pink caps. After a while the next wave of swimmers wearing yellow caps passed me and then the orange caps started coming through. My 3 goals were to 1. get out of the water before another color of caps started showing up, 2. not hold on to a kayak and 3. not drown.
Transition 1 was OK. It's really easy to forget things - it's important to lay things out, even if it seems obvious. With all the adrenaline and excitement, things can get missed. I forgot to put my race number around my waist before the bike and did not realize it for about the 1st 5 miles. Also forgot the sunscreen. I probably should have walked from the swim to my bike, but I got caught up and was jogging. Had to wipe the dirt off my feet before putting on my shoes and socks and ended up sitting down to do it (nerves).
Bike course was nice. There were 2 hills that weren't too bad. Since I am on the slower side, I made sure that I stayed to the right. In fact I heard "passing on the left" an awful lot. I will say that there was a lot of encouragement offered by the participants in the race itself. One thing that I need to practice is drinking from my water bottle while riding. Another thing that is different from our rides is that there are no stop lights, stop signs, cars and other vehicles or people crossing the road. That means no stops that I like so much to "regroup". Lloyd was a pretty impressive cheering section all by himself. My boyfriend and some other friends were they also. They cheered so much that 2 participants in the race in the bike section were like "you have an awesome cheering section! We wish that we had people like that cheering for us".
Transition 2 was better than transition 1 because I only had to take of my helmet, bike gloves and put on my race number (made sure of that). I also drank some water and got some nutrition. The run was pretty hard for me, that is definitely one of my weakest areas. That first 1.5 miles seemed to last forever before I got to the turnaround. The course was not closed and by the time I came through, there were people on the street who would cycle by, roller blade, etc. It was the hottest part of the day by this point. I saw Cory and Maria heading back to the finish when I was heading out and they looked great. Keanne and Lloyd met me near mile 3 and encouraged me through the last few meters. It was an absolutely wonderful feeling to cross the finish line. The best part of the whole day was having Keanne, Maria, Cory, Lloyd there. My boyfriend Colin was awesome also and took a bunch of pictures. I will have to email a few once I download them.
Feel free to email me with any questions. Special thanks to Lloyd - I could never have done this without his coaching, training and most of all quiet encouragement and confidence that I could do this.
On to Nations!
Carla
1 comment:
Wow you are a real athlete!!!!
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