Race Report: Syracuse 70.3

Tough race, but still a good time.

Pre-race: The plan for this race was to “race at Placid pace” which meant easy easy easier.  I knew this would be a challenge considering the course wasn’t easy AT ALL.  I left on Thursday evening to drive to CNY.  I grew up about 45 miles east of Syracuse.  I stayed with my brother, worked remotely on Friday and got to see my Nian (gramma in Welsh) and my grandmother Friday evening, along with my Aunt and Uncle.  I grabbed pizza and wings from my favorite pizza shop and gave them my number, they STILL have me in their system from over a year ago! I love it! 

Saturday morning I headed up to the race site to meet up with the MMTC crew.  Dan, Roy, Megan and Aileen and I all went for a quick practice swim.  They only let you swim out to the first buoy across to the 2 second from last and then back, so maybe 400-500m.  The water was murky, but a comfortable temperature.  There was some lake grass that made a few of us emerge from the water looking like swamp thing, Megan! Hahaha J  We got the tent set up, dropped bikes ate some yummy food from the village, got checked in, bought some gear and headed home.  Note to self: SUNBLOCK!  Didn’t think to spray myself down and got a pretty good burn going on before the race ever started.

Saturday evening 11 of us met for dinner at Grimaldi’s.  Grimaldi’s is an awesome Italian joint that I’ve been going to since I was a kid.  It was delicious and they accommodated all the special requests we had from MORE WATER, to gluten, vegan, etc.  I of course got side tracked by the dessert cooler on the way back from the bathroom.  I got a HUGE slice of coconut cream pie to go.  I only ate about half of it in the hotel for fear that it might come back to haunt me on Sunday.  In the meantime, my mom had called & said she was driving (from SOUTH CAROLINA) to come to the race!  I couldn’t believe it, but was super excited to have my mom see one of these crazy long races in person.  In bed & asleep by 10pm, boom!

4am wake up.  The prerace talk kept stressing how bad traffic was getting into the park, there’s only one way.  So I managed to get out the door by 4:30 with my breakfast in a takeout coffee cup.  Bonus of getting there so early, I got as close of a parking spot as you could get.  The lot was a good walk to the finish and even further to transition.  I set up transition, forgetting my helmet in the car (add an additional mile on to my race for all the times I walked back and forth) one more trip back to transition and several trips to the port a pots.  Pro’s went off at 7am and my wave wasn’t until 8:05.  We got wet suits on and walked down to the start, I jumped in to “warm up” and realized my wave went off in 4 minutes, which meant they were all out there in the water waiting to start! LOL I ran through all the men (we were the last female wave) and felt like Jenny in Forest Gump on the DC mall!  “Forest! Forest! Don’t start swimming without me!” I had plenty of time to spare!

"Hi Mom!" That's me waving!

Swim: 42:08 AG56/100

Nothing much to report here, which is good!  Swim is one long rectangle.  I was able to relax within the first 200m and bilateral breath the entire way.  I’ve finally come to the point where the swim is the most relaxing part of a race.  I could have easily done another lap in the water, and that was the point today, right?  I did get kicked in the chest by a fast man that swam by, that wasn’t you Dan Fulk was it?!  And I had a piece of lake grass wrapped around my foot the entire time, which I’m pretty sure someone tried to take off at some point because they grabbed my foot several times unsuccessfully.  I appreciate the effort though.

T1: 7:59 Nap time?

There was a very long walk from the lake up to transition. My neuroma in my foot makes it VERY difficult to even walk barefoot, so I was moving VERY gingerly and slow to get to my bike.  I figured I was going to take my time, make sure I didn’t forget anything, inhale half of my uncrustable and then head out.  Apparently that takes almost 8 minutes! J

Bike: 3:43:55 AG 64/100

And here comes the boom!  I’m going to use the elevation chart as an illustration of what happened here.  

I should be sponsored by Uncrustables!

Off we go

Miles 1-12 are INSANE, but broken down into doable hills, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had built it up in my head.  2-3 big steep climbs, but nothing a little granny gear and getting out of the saddle couldn’t fix.  I did see 2 men walking their bikes up the first hill, after that we all managed to grind it out.  I felt OK here, just sit and spin and keep the cadence up (thanks John Hughes!).  We got to the top of the last hill and I said to a girl in my AG next to me, “This is IT!!! Downhill”.  She was so excited she yelled, “REALLY?! YES!!”.  Then came “the punch in the face” around mile 20.  Look at the elevation chart, it looks like nothing.  Well I will tell you it is NOT nothing!  You come screaming down this awesome decline and then BAM! Your bike literally stops and you’re in granny gear and you’re only 1/3 of the way up this monster hill.  I literally felt like someone punched me in the face, no joke.  Maybe they also kicked me in the quads too for good measure.  

I felt good for the next 10 miles are so, but I was starting to get some pain in my shoulders and neck.  My alignment just didn’t feel right.  I had to crank my neck up to look ahead so aero was just super uncomfortable.  As the ride went on, my neck pain increased and slowly my head started to throb.  By mile 35 I had a raging migraine, was dizzy and felt like my eyes were focusing independently of one another.  I felt HORRIBLE.  I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew at the aid station at mile 41, I was getting off that damn bike if I had any hopes of finishing the day.  If I passed out while riding, I knew it would be bad and I was getting to the point where I wondered if running would even be a smart idea if my head felt this bad.  I hung out for a few minutes, hit the port a pot, chatted with some volunteers and then decided it was time to get the show on the road.  About 2 miles later I dropped my chain and it was wedged in between my frame and my small ring.  I was JUST about to take all my bottles off to flip it upside down when the support truck pulled up.  They were amazing, chain back on in 15 seconds and they even offered to give me a push to get going. I declined and headed on my way.  The last 16 miles were the most uncomfortable, painful miles I’ve ever ridden on a bike.  I couldn’t get into aero because my neck and head hurt so badly.  Sitting up on the horns on a tri bike is never really comfortable and I just felt like I had nothing left in the tank.  I’m looking at the profile and wondering how it was really downhill because it felt like a slow steady incline the entire way back.  Luckily for me, I was able to drink my Osmo & CarboPro the entire ride, had 2 packets of applesauce and an additional PBJ.  So one positive out of this ride was that my nutrition seemed to be spot on and I had no stomach issues.  I decided to get off the bike, head into T2 take my time, and test how I felt on the first few miles of the run.  If the head continued to throb with all the other symptoms I would stop at medical for a check.  (Post Script after looking at my times on the first half versus the second half, I can clearly tell that sometime was amiss, I actually slowed down after the halfway point and it was MUCH easier according to the map.)

T2: 6:29 shorter nap this time

As soon as I stood up the throbbing began to subside slightly.  I took my time, putting on sun block, shoes, race belt visor.  I hit the port a pot and even let the volunteers slather me with an extra layer of sun block.  Hell I was already starting with a burn from yesterday, it couldn't hurt and I knew there was not much shade coming my way.

Run: 2:30:43 AG 64/100

The first few miles are uphill, inside the park on grass and then you hit the nice downhill.  This hill is not really apparent in the elevation map.  I was taking it super easy and hoping my head cooperated with the rest of the race.  I forgot a piece to my Camelback so I decided to use on course hydration, this actually turned out well!  I took Ironman Perform and water at every stop, sometimes doubling up on the water and on the second loop started adding a handful of pretzels washed down with water.  On the first loop I decided to pick a landmark on each hill.  Almost everyone was walking up the hills and if you were trying to run, you weren’t really going any faster than the walkers.  At first I thought, halfway I can make it halfway, but I wanted to goal to be realistic for the second loop too.  So I chose a mailbox somewhere between 1/3 and ½ of the way up each hill.  (See my silly mailboxes on the elevation chart?!) I told myself, “you run to those markers and then you can walk and you can walk the aid stations, but you run the rest”.  The first loop was ok, legs were starting to shake out, headache was going away and I saw all of the MMTC folks out there (except Dan Dan the speedster man!).  

All smiles now...

Ok, stop taking pictures!

On the way back into the park for loop two I was really starting to feel like I was in a groove and for once EVER was feeling “good” on a run.  I was afraid it wasn’t going to last, so I tried to keep my pace in check.  After all, the goal of this race was Placid pace, so I needed to keep it easy.  I saw Roy on my way out as he was on his way in, he was complaining again about how hard it was, I smiled and said, “you’re almost done & I feel great, suck it up & stop complaining!” or something along those lines.  I managed to run to each of my landmarks and then walk the rest.  Sponges in the visor, ice in the sports bra and while it was HOTTTT out there, I managed to stay relatively cool.  Other athletes definitely laughed when they saw my sponge stuffed in the top of my visor, but who cares, I was cool!  I had been leap frogging with a girl in my age group all run, I finally put some distance between us because of my final marker on the last hill.  I ran further up the hill and created some space, then I power walked right past another girl in my AG, when I got to the top I ran easy knowing beating people was not the plan, but I was NOT to walk again until after the finish line and I bet they would need to.  (By the way, I NEVER pass people in my AG on the run)  

I ran into Aimee in the park as I was about to finish and she said, “When you see Erin, DO NOT let her quit!”.  No more than a minute later, there’s Erin! I told her good work & she started to say something about not finishing in time, I cut her off and said, somewhat sternly, “that doesn’t matter, you just keep moving forward and finish! We’ll be right there waiting!”  (By the way, both she and Aimee finished before the 8:30 cutoff!)  I hit the finish line shoot and got the craziest surge of adrenaline.  I was SOOOO happy to be done, so happy to have had such a good feeling (if not fast) run that I think I may have bolted to the finish (sorry I think I was totally that a-hole, but now I understand it a little, sometimes the crazy juice takes over) and did some sort of leap.  Note to self: practice your finish line shenanigans or you’ll end up with some extra special looking finish line photos.

Final 7:11:14 64/100

Take aways: I like swimming! I can’t believe I’m writing that! I use the swim as my meditation, relaxation, whatever you want to call it, at the beginning of the race.  I think about what the goals are and I just BREATHE! 

Bike was tough; it was hard both mentally and physically.  I need to get that neck issue situated ASAP.  I listened to my body and maybe by moving so damn slow in the second half, I was able to enjoy the run just a little more. Nutrition was good; keep with the Osmo/CarboPro mix, water, apple sauce & PBJ’s.  Add in one of those ADK cookies in bike special needs for Placid, though! J

Run may not have been a PR for a HIM run, but it was definitely the best I’ve ever felt on a run and considering the amount of hills I walked up, pace wasn’t too shabby.  Nutrition was good as well; maybe Ironman Perform will make an appearance in my last few weeks of run training.  I’d much rather prefer not wearing the camelback anyway.

P.S. I finished the rest of that coconut cream pie after my shower and pasta dinner on Sunday!  I LOVE PIE! J LOL  The MMTC/RIPIT support was absolutely incredible.  The 10 awesome athletes we had racing and also the love from back in MD.  It was an awesome day with awesome friends and my Momma! 

Ironman Lake Placid HERE WE COME!!!!!

And we're DONE!