This was my first attempt at Elephant Man and my last race of the season. We headed down to the lake on Friday to camp for a couple of nights and take advantage of free fishing day that Saturday (there's a reason we tend to only fish on free fishing day - we caught nothing!). Anyway, packet pick up was Saturday afternoon and I was really impressed with how professional the whole set up was. Its all centered down at the beach and there were a handful of tents up with the packet pick up underneath and it was operated with great efficiency. I got my stuff and numbers and headed back to the camp ground for a nap. Later in the afternoon we headed back to the lake for a quick swim and everything felt pretty good and me and Jaclyn bumped into Clay, Dina and Sanna enjoying the beach and Frank when we were on our way out.
The morning of the race we packed all the tent and stuff up and headed to the lake. I racked the bike next to Frank and picked up my chip and got everything set up in transition. Didn't really get chance for a warm up but saw a bunch of other Triatomics - Bill, Amy Regan, Chuck, Amy Lee, Karen and I've probably missed a few - as usual my apologies if I've not mentioned you! The swim started in 4 waves, women first, then men under 39, men over 40 and Clydes and Athenas. I was in the second wave and the swim started about 30 mins later than scheduled. The first leg of the triangle swim was OK, the wind had got stronger and there were some white caps throughout the whole swim, after the first buoy it was into the headwind and the water started to get pretty rough and I was bounced around while trying to make forward progress and probably swallowed more of the lake that would be ideal! I finally got to the second buoy and made the final turn to the shore - I think I tried to overcompensate for the wind and in trying to stay straight ended up heading too far right rather than staying to the left and had a couple of attempts to get back on track before finally getting to shore which probably added a little bit to my swim. I got my wetsuit off at the lake front while it was still wet and did the short run up to transition. The transition was set up really nice, they had these wooden racks on the floor which just had slots in for a wheel - the good thing about this is that it forced you to be a certain distance from your neighbor so everyone had a good amount of room, especially when alternating slots had bikes pointing in the opposite direction. T1 was pretty good, I didn't rush and just got everything done before heading out on to the bike.
The initial climb out of the lake area wasn't bad, it was definitely no Cochiti! The wind was still blowing pretty hard and it was full on into the face, kinda like early spring riding around here. And of course there was the hills, it was mainly rollers so it was easy to crank on the downhill and see how far you could get up the other side with the momentum which was a little tricky with the headwind. The hills went on for about 12 miles or so before the 17% grade climb I was warned about - thankfully it wasn't a long climb but there was another incline after it which was a gentle grade but seemed to go on for about 2 or 3 miles. At around mile 15 we crossed I-25 and the terrain seemed mainly flat or a slight downhill so it was easy to tuck into the aero position and try and get that average speed up. The last couple of miles were through town and back to the lake to T2. Every bump or uneven pavement was marked with green crosses so they were easy to avoid and there were arrows marked all the way on the bike course - couldn't fault a thing about it and if you're used to riding the Bandelier Loop there's nothing about this bike course to scare you.
This is where things got a little tough, transition was fine, no problems, but as soon as I started running I had terrible stomach pains (which I thought were cramps up until after the race) and it seemed like it was going to be when, not if, I launched. It was at this point it stopped being a race and turned into something I just wanted to complete. I was hoping that the pains would stop at some point but they kept with me throughout all 6 miles coming back in waves and slowing me to a slow jog and I had to stop every so often to let the pain subside. - at one point it crossed my mind that maybe my appendix had burst!!!! I have two theories on what caused this - the first year I did Splash'n'Dash I used to get stomach pains on the run from swallowing air on the swim - if I did the same on this swim and with the bike leg in there, that swallowed air would probably be lower in my GI tract and could be causing the pain I was having. I managed to fix this for SnD by paying more attention to not swallowing and swimming faster also helped as I was forced to take deeper breaths. The other possibility is that what I was drinking in my bottles was heavier than my usual stuff and I seemed to drink more of it that I possibly should have done - this could also have had an effect on my GI tract and maybe in conjunction with the amount of lake and air I swallowed may have added to the problem. I'd used the same fuel for a Brick the week before though doing the Loop and doing a hilly 6 mile run in White Rock with no problems but consuming less of it. Unfortunately every step I took hurt and the downhill, which was more physically jarring hurt even more so the run was a little disappointing for me. The run course itself was pretty nice - it starts off with a sandy section and a good climb for about a mile or so and then its out onto the dam and around the lake before a final slight climb to the turn around. There was a good crowd at the finish line and I dragged my butt over the line before heading to the lake to cool down and have a soak. Everyone seemed to do really well, there was plenty of silverware taken home, Clay won overall, Amy Regan got 5th woman and Dina, Amy Lee, Chuck, Frank, Sanna, Char, Greg all took home awards. The organization of this race I was outstanding, it was definitely the best Tri I've been to, its well organized, efficient and the course support was excellent, I couldn't recommend it enough.
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