Lake Stevens 1/4 IM race report

SWIM TRANS BIKE TRANS RUN FINISH

13:50 1:32 1:31:22 0:57 52:31 2:40:11

Well, I signed up for this one recently, inspired by Cory and Nate and their post-eman racing. It was advertised as an Olympic distance race (frankly and un-pc-ly the ugly stepsister of a 70.3 series race), but it became clear to me as I was treading water waiting for the race to begin that it would actually be a 1/4 IM robbing me of my strength, the proportionally longer swim portion of the race- drat!

But, let's start at the beginning. So it's been hot here. And when I say hot, I mean DC hot. My apartment is like an oven in the afternoons. After suffering through Friday night attempting to sleep sans fan or air conditioning, I did manage to get a 9" baby fan at Target (their only available model) on Saturday morning. That did help me to sleep better the night before the race, but I still woke up without an alarm (well, if you don't count Fern) at 3:45 a.m. Now, the race was one hour away per google maps, packet pickup opened at 5 a.m. and the race began at 7. You all would be proud to know that I was able to contain my jitters enough to allow us to leave at a decent hour arriving in Lake Stevens around 5:25 a.m.

Packet pickup and transition setup went well with only one small hiccup. It seems I lost a handlebar plug somewhere along the way and so was deemed unfit to race until I got it squared away. A resourceful race organizer guy named Matt was a lifesaver with his fanny pack of wonders (which was a veritable cornucopia of plug options) and helped me to come into compliance with plenty of time to finish setting up and get out of the transition area before it closed.

I was a bit nervous as evidenced by the fact that I kept losing Alden pre-race (and he’s hard to miss)! We checked out the ins/outs of transition as well as the finish line and found a spot to stretch and hang out until my wave (the last behind all the half ironpeople) began.

The swim was, of course, too short for my taste. The water was calm and clear in Lake Stevens. We headed out a bit behind the other waves so I encountered no traffic on the way out and was able to keep track of the others in my wave. When we made the turn back towards the shore everything changed! I then merged into the thick of ½ Ironfolks and had the sun on the horizon to complicate sighting. My sighting of Alden, however, did improve and I managed to find him on the pier snapping pictures. T1 was a bit complicated by my new-found habit of sitting down to take off my wetsuit. I definitely need to re-train myself to do that standing. After cursing my way out of the wetsuit and noting the only person to beat me out of the water, I headed out on the bike leg.

I hadn’t even driven the course before so this was an adventure! I did know that the times last year were slower than I expected for an oly and noted the terrain on the way into town so I was prepared for it to be hilly. That was indeed the case. The screaming hills alternated with good climbs making the 28 miles fly by. I managed to get up to 35 mph in my aerobars (a bit much for my thrill tolerance) and 44 with my hands on the brakes with an overall average of 19.6 mph. I was frustrated by being passed by a ton of folks despite cranking as hard as I could which has strengthened my resolve improve my cycling this winter.

I headed out on the run noting how much warmer it was once I was out of the shade. The run course was mostly sunny and flat with one good hill at mile 4. The last 3 miles or so were out-and-back giving me a chance to check out the leader in a fabu cowboy hat and count the number of women in front of me (6 by the end). I surprised myself with how well I did averaging just over 8 minute miles.

It was hot, hot, hot post-race and they didn’t open the transition area up for bike removal for a while to allow ½ Ironpeople unfettered access. That meant that we had some downtime punctuated by the stage performance of a really memorable, terribly unfunny sounds effects guy moderated by yummy pork fried rice from the town festival going on around the finish line.

It was great to have Alden’s support throughout the race and I think he enjoyed himself despite the heat. He’s even talking about doing his first tri in the fall! For my part, I’m putting my training and my next race of the season on the back shelf to focus on getting ready our kayaking adventure to Croatia- yippee!