Advertised Olympic distance: 1k swim/40k bike/10k run (.6 mi/24.8 mi/6.2 mi)
Actual distance: ? swim /30 mi bike/10k run

PROLOGUE (anything this long should have a prologue, I think…)
I wrote this the day after the race (on Sunday), when I was blissfully unaware of how false our American sense of security was. As many have said, most of my thoughts/concerns from before Tuesday seem so insignificant and trite now. However, I think many of us feel a certain comfort in returning to familiar things and, if nothing else, taking our minds off these unspeakable tragedies for a few minutes at least. This sounds stupid, but I can't tell you how glad I was this evening when I was flipping through the channels and the regular Friends rerun came on at 7:00. It was the first time I had watched something on TV that didn't have to do with terrorism. So…here is my report for my first olympic distance race!

PRE-RACE
Well, I've been a little down on training, racing, etc. the last couple of months. The low point was what was supposed to be a 23 mi. marathon training run 2 weeks ago which ended up being a 10-mile shuffle and ride home on the bus. Not one I'd like to remember. So, if we hadn't signed up for this race so long ago (and paid, of course), I may not have done it. But at this point, I figure every race I can do is a learning experience, if for nothing else than planning and executing good transitions and race nutrition. I decided to just do it, have fun and not worry about my times/place. So…off we go to the Dalles (a 90 minute drive from Portland). Race started at 9:00 so we didn't have to leave too early (5:30).

We were just about the first participants there, so we wandered around in the cold and checked out the transition and swim areas. About an hour before the race, we're setting up and the announcer keeps talking about this "Skippers Meeting". Since I'm not a "skipper", I just ignored it and figured they were talking about the people in the kayaks & rafts out on the swim course. He continues to announce it every five minutes or so for the next ½ hour. About 25 minutes before the race, I decided it's time to start getting the wetsuit on, etc. I forgot my baby shampoo mixture to defog the goggles so I went back to the car. As I'm coming back to get my wetsuit on, the announcer says, "We need ALL participants over by the speakers right now for the Skippers Meeting so we can get this race started". WHAT??? Look, if you're going to come up with cute little names for your stupid meeting, tell people what the HELL you're talking about!!! "Skipper????" I raced over to transition to deal with the Sportslick, Pam, etc. and get the wetsuit on (VERY easy to do, by the way…this new ProMotion wetsuit is awesome…).

So, I headed over to find Jeff at the "skippers meeting" (said with as much sarcasm as you can muster when reading this, please…). The guy in charge of the swim gets up to the microphone. Oh…side note. The race directors for this race were AA Sports, the same company that has put on all the races we have done/volunteered in this summer. So far (that I know of), they have over-measured a swim by ¼ mile for a sprint and ¾ mile for an olympic; and over-measured a bike by about 2 miles. The extra distance is not that big of a deal, but come on…how hard is it to measure distances??? If I can do it, anyone can do it!

So back to the swim guy…he says, "Well, the swim course is a bit shorter than what was advertised. You can thank the Native Americans who are fishing the river here because their nets are right in the way of our swim course." They didn't happen to mention how short it was, but I came out of the water in about 13 minutes. My last 800m race was 17:14 and this was supposed to be 1000m, so it had to be pretty dang short.

Then the guy who planned out the bike course gets up. Starts describing the course. Says, "The bike course is a bit longer than advertised - it's about 30 miles. And it's a little different from last year. I decided to add a couple of hills to make it interesting." Now, like I said, the extra distance isn't that big of a deal, but can they really be that arbitrary about distances??? I still would have done the race had I known it was 30 miles, but it would have been nice to train for that distance rather than 30 miles. I am so uncomfortable on my mountain bike that I decided about 2 months ago that I just was not going to do more than 25 miles for my training rides on that bike.

SWIM
We went down to the swim start area to warm up. We had been a little worried about swimming in the Columbia River, mostly because the part we were familiar with was much closer to the mouth. Very wide with a strong current - didn't exactly seem like the best place to swim. But the race area was in a pretty calm, narrow part of the river, and they shut off the dam immediately upriver to stabilize the current a little bit. You know how they say that swimming is so much slower than running because water is 4 times denser than air? Well…SEAWEED is about 40 times more dense than water!!! Yes, we swam through seaweed. Wrapping around our legs, necks, etc. I'm glad we did a little warmup or it would have really freaked me out during the race. I tried to get way over to the right so I wouldn't get pummeled. I'm still pretty paranoid about getting beat to a pulp during the swim.

Gun goes off, start swimming/untangling myself from the seaweed/people. This was a small race - something like 250 total competitors for both the sprint and the olympic. But no wave starts. I sort of tried to draft off some different pairs of feet, but I kept looking up to see if they were going the right direction and either they were going the wrong way or they were dog-paddling, so I figured I should move on. I'm not brave enough to swim over the top of people, so I swam around a lot of people. I never really got a calm stretch of swimming, and I could tell my heart rate was way up. Got to the finish, stood up, wiped the seaweed off my watch and looked at my heart rate - 173 (which is top of zone 4/bottom of zone 5 for me; or just about out of breath if you're not familiar with the zone stuff). Note to self: don't start the bike in Zone 5.

T1
Uneventful. Jeff and I share a towel for transitions, and he does a remarkable job of not destroying my setup. I realized that when I was thrashing around getting my wetsuit off and throwing stuff around. Very easy to get the suit off, by the way.

BIKE
Hopped on the trusty steed and got going. Nothing really too eventful on the bike. Got passed by a lot of people. Caught some of them on the ascents. There were a couple of killer hills that went forever. I tried to take it relatively easy for about ¾ of the climbs, then stand up and crank toward the top - that's where I passed people. Then they'd fly past me on the descent. My heart rate never really did come down - stayed in the 175-180 range the whole ride, except for a couple of major downhill portions. Tried to get into some type of aero position, but I have this aversion to ramming my knees into my boobs while trying to pedal in an aero position on a mountain bike. Plus my triceps were beginning to ache so I just sat up and pedaled as best I could. There was one lady who I was going back and forth with for a while who had an F7 on her calf. Just in case you're not familiar with the divisions here, I am 28 and had an F2. Yes, you got it. She was in the FREAKING 70-79 age group (more on her later). And she was passing my sorry butt. Um…because she had a better bike, right??? I was trying not to get discouraged by getting passed so much, so I told myself that they were all on the sprint course and I was leading the pack for the olympic race. Bunch of freaking bull-crap but put a smile on my face. Lying is wrong, unless it's to yourself in the middle of a race. That's from the book of Gina, chapter 4, verse 2.

T2
Again, uneventful. I had used Yankz before, but not with this pair of shoes. Note to self: try out the shoes w/Yankz in before race. Left shoe felt a little loose but I got used to it. Heart rate was still high - 180ish. Which I'm sure, for most of you, is blow-up territory. For me it's pretty darn close.

RUN
My 70+ year old friend from the bike passed me on the run. Hey…at least my transition was faster than hers. I think my HR actually reached 187 at one point during the run. That's when I decided to take a walk break. Got the HR down to 160 and started up again, only to get back in the 175-180 range within a few strides. Got passed by a lot of people, three of whom were in my age group. Every time someone would pass me, I would say…okay…I'm not going to let them get out of my sight. But they'd get farther and farther away and I'd say, oh well…at least I'm still running. It was very hot and very dry. They had 2 or 3 aid stations - on a day that hot it would have been nice to have twice as many. They mapped the run so that at the end, you run through the parking lot and back to the finish line. Let me just tell you how bad it sucks to be finishing your race as people are loading up their cars and driving away. Maybe they were all from the sprint course… But Jeff cheered me on to my spectacular finish at 3:08ish. I was shooting for under 3 hours, which would have been right-on if the bike hadn't been 5 miles longer than I expected.

POST-RACE
There was NO WATER anywhere in sight. If Jeff hadn't had a cup ready for me I would have been in some serious trouble. They were also out of Gatorade. Jeff had grabbed a banana for me, which I devoured. They had a pretty decent BBQ chicken lunch afterwards. As we were getting in line for lunch, my right foot cramped up big time. I've never had that happen before. Could barely walk. After eating some of that salty chicken it was better, but still a little sore even the next morning. Must have been from the shoes not being laced quite right.

We looked at the results once about 15 minutes after I finished - I was DFL in my age group at the time. I don't know if anyone staggered in after that. But I'm looking to really improve over the next year and have a better showing at either Pacific Crest or Troika ½ IM next summer, so I can only go up from here! They haven't posted the results online, but I can't say I'm that interested to see them, anyway. I'm satisfied with the race - my first olympic distance. Looking to improve, but satisfied.

As I was taking my bike out of transition to the car, some guy walking next to me with his bike said, "You did that thing on a mountain bike???" I said, "Yep, last race for this baby." He said, "Wow. You're strong." He walked by me with a group of people later when I was watching the awards ceremony and said, "That is one strong woman." So…I didn't feel quite as bad about my back-of-the-pack finish.

Oh, and by the way, that 71-year-old woman was Sister Madonna Buder. Just about every one of you, knowingly or unknowingly, have probably run in a race with her. I know of at least 4 races that she has done in the past 2 months, including IMC. She's a complete stud. I didn't feel so bad after I found that out.

Next up - trying to get motivated to follow the training plan for the marathon - 2 ½ weeks from Sunday. Haven't felt much like working out since Tuesday.

Thanks for reading!

- Mamma G