Black Diamond Oly Race Report

I have not been able to sit down and get my race report from a good month ago out of my head and into cyberspace despite fairly constant needling by Ms. Churches over im, but am here on this foggy Seattle Saturday afternoon to rectify the situation so here goes...

After a good 3 weeks off training for my Croatian adventure, I decided to go with the shorter of the options for my last race of the season. The Black Diamond was actually a whole weekend of events (dubbed a "festival") including a 1/2 IM on Saturday and an Oly & sprint tris + du and 1/2 marathon events. Alden and I went out to check out the venue a couple of weeks before the race. He took off after one loop of an approximation of the course (less-than-helpful cue sheets) to ride the 60 or so miles back to Seattle. I managed to get myself even more discombobulated on the second lap which caused me to ride quite a bit further than I had intended. Coupled with a big accident on I-5, the delay meant that Alden beat me home (without keys). Craziness. Fortunately, the course was marked and marshaled much better on race day so there was no repeat confusion with which to reckon.

The weekend of the race arrived and I was a bit concerned about the logistics given some flip-flopping on the race's website about parking/shuttling to the park. We decided to arrive early just in case they hadn't resolved things by race day. We planned to carpool down to the race with the two other run clubbers doing the race. After a nice panicky wake-up race morning (due to my own ineptitude at effectively setting the alarm), we still managed to make it to our rendezvous points on time. Tim was there on schedule, but we couldn't find or get a hold of Chris so we ended up leaving without him. Despite these initial logistic/timing snafus, our arrival, parking, registration and set-up went well. The race got started a bit late and that wouldn't have been awful except that Alden was sans wetsuit and the morning was chilly. We moved our position on the beach to try and stay as much in the full exposure to the rising sun as possible. Chris found us there and it was good to know that we hadn't connected because he had been waiting on the other side of the West Seattle bridge and not because he was still at home in bed sleeping through his first tri. The sprint race went off first so I was able to see Alden swim and get out of the water (1st without a wetsuit- woo hoo!) before I got in. The water was cold and I was glad for my full wetsuit! I ended up the 2nd out of the water despite the ice cream headache and slow time...

T1 went off without a hitch and I actually remembered to stay standing up until I had my wetsuit entirely off which I think was especially good as my manual dexterity was suffering from the chilly conditions.

My bike was good, although I spent most of the time thinking that I really, really need to work on my bike training this winter. I missed Alden on his way back in, but did see Tim changing a flat (doh!) out there. The bike was a sort-of lollipop course with a couple of little out-and-back sections in the middle to add mileage. That meant there was a fair bit of slowing down to corner. Watching people crash and doubting my own ability to avoid them also helped to convince me that this winter is a good time to work on those bike handling skills.

T2 was good and I took off on the run feeling great. The run course was a bit strange and I'll try to describe it here although a picture would be better. We ran out of the park, and then turned off to do a bit of a T-shaped loopy. We headed down a heavily-potholed dirt road (from the bottom of the T going up) where we had to go single-file to avoid the pothole/puddles. At this point, the 1/2 marathon course joined us so there were lots of differently-paced folks in the same space which was a bit problematic. We then came to the top of the T where there was a water station and lots of stuff going on! We turned left (counterintuitively) and went out to a turnaround, then back in to the intersection where we crossed to complete another turnaround (the top right part of the T). The whole passing by the intersection 3 times thing was a bit crazy and there was a lot of shouting, gesturing and sometimes swearing as folks tried to figure out where to go... Around this point, Chris passed me and I was glad to see that he was in good shape and on track to finish strong. We headed back into the park for a loop on the trail around the lake where the swim took place. At this point, I heard and saw Alden cheering so I knew that he had finished already which was great. My trip around the lake was good and I finished up strong knowing that I was going to PR- yippee!

So we all finished and felt good about our experiences. During the post-race noshing I found out that this was a particularly spectacular feat for Alden as it was not only his first tri, but he had a double whammy of falling during his bike dismount and being stung by a bee in the mouth (OUCH!) during T2. I think I would have sat down and cried, but he in his amazing way made it through. The race results weren't posted until after the awards ceremony so we found out from the announcer that Alden got second in his age group in his inaugural tri and I won mine in what was confirmed to be my best oly time. Overall, a spectacular showing for us if I do say so myself!

And here are my stats:

                                  BIKE              RUN   OVERALL
OVERALL       DIV   SWIM          TRAN  BIKE        TRAN  PL AFTER  RUN
PLACE   TIME  PLACE TIME   PLACE  TIME  TIME  PLACE TIME  BIKE      TIME PLACE

6   2:34:16   1    0:22:52   12   3:05 1:16:34  139  1:14  55     0:50:30 99

So that brings me to the end of my 2006 season looking to 2007... I'm considering a winter 1/2 marathon that I can hopefully coordinate with Molly. And I think that the Vineman 1/2 could be a good goal for the 35 & dry crew next season- whaddya say?