2 Weeks Overdue: Vineman Race Report

It all started 2 weeks ago – packing up for California and Vineman 70.3. While I was so excited to have Davey G coming along with me this trip, it seemed like I was breaking down everywhere else…..Garmin 310 died; back to the shop. Tweaking the Kestrel 4000 to get her working the way she should be; camped out at Fast Splits for the week. SRM needing service; back to the shop. Bike box with wonky wheel, no doubt an excuse for TSA to drag and torture my bike more than usual; 2 trips to the hardware store to find the proper wheel and beg Davey G to fix ‘er up right.

All last minute hassles….part of life and nothing ever goes as smoothly as you think.

I dropped Riley off at “camp” on Wednesday morning, breaking my heart, more than hers, I am sure.

By Thursday, we’d made it to the airport with most of my equipment issues resolved.

No one had told us that it was “first time traveler” day at Logan Airport. You know the ones…..they neglect to take their shoes off before going thru the metal detector. We can all thank Richard Reid for that one…..but seriously? How can you not know that by now?

Then, once they get their shoes off, they go thru the metal detector, not realizing they had all their change and their pocket Swiss army knife in their pockets. Great. Now security descends upon them like flies on poop. Once they remedy the concealed weapon issue, we are slowed once again, in honor of “first time traveler” day because jack-ass forgot to take his laptop out of his backpack.

And that was just one dude….seemed like everyone had their heads up their bums. Thankfully, because I live in fear of missing a fight, we had ample time and could laugh at “first time flier” day and had plenty of time to make out flight.

God bless Jet Blue. 5.5 hours of TV. Love it. DaveyG was engrossed in the British Open golf, while I opted for some great trash TV on MTV; “Teen Mom” marathon and a few episodes of “The Real World”, both of which made me thankful for my stable upbringing!

We arrived in San Fran, had a quick swim at the Olympic Club and drove north to Guerneville. By the time we settled in and caught up with our housemates, Monica and Tim, it was well past bedtime; having been up for 22 hours.

Race weekend went by quickly, catching up with our good friends, and preparing for the race ahead. Before I knew it, we were off and racing. I had a solid swim, trying not to do too much work, but also knowing that the swim is my strength, and every second counts so I didn’t just want to sit in. I exited the water first, but with 2 girls close by. Out on the bike, I had settled in to a good pace, and then suddenly heard a crash. I immediately looked down, fearing I’d launched my race nutrition on a bump in the road. Nope! Thank goodness!! I figured, then, that maybe it’d been the water bottle behind me, but when I reached around, it was still there, too. Huh. Maybe my spare? Reached my other hand around and the spare was there as well.

Perplexed, I rode on and re-focused, glancing down to take a peek at my wattage to make sure I was executing the plan coach Jesse had laid out (for once in my life). Yep….suddenly, I thought, “Hey bump in the road? Come on back and take my race nutrition, or my water bottle ….or my spare, but for the love of GOD, give me back my SRM head unit!”. Suddenly, it’d become a costly bump in the road.

I spent about 10 seconds wondering if I should go back……I was only 40 minutes into the race….I was reluctant to bike blind, not to mention, the replacement cost meant I’d have to race my butt off to earn it back! Ultimately, I pedaled on, figuring DaveyG and I could go back for it later.

I managed to sync my Garmin 310 to read my wattage on my watch. I had no idea how accurate it’d be…but it gave me a line in the sand at least. I knew I wanted to execute my race plan as instructed, so I used the wattage as a relative number, rather than an absolute, and moved on with my business.

T2 was whirlwind. And then we were running. Rinny was gone before I could blink, in a plume of smoke that would make even the Road Runner blush (meep, meeep). I was running with Tyler for a while and we chatted. She’s such a character, and she made me laugh which isn’t always easy to do when I am running, as mostly, I just want to cry. Pretty soon, though, in glancing at my pace, it seemed that I was running way faster than coach Jesse had instructed. Fearful of blowing, as I am known to do, from time to time, I laid up a bit and tried to settle in; checking my pace, running hard, but controlled. At the turnaround, I could see I was putting time into some of the girls ahead who had run the first half perhaps too aggressively.

I kept telling myself “you are a runner” and “you can catch them”. Suddenly at mile 8 or so, the girl who was running just ahead of me multiplied and was two! Out of nowhere, another girl appeared on the course. Who the heck is that? She was dressed in black, and I didn’t recognize her from anywhere else in the run. For the next 3 miles, I put the hammer down, giving it all I had to catch, now 2 girls I thought were in reach.

The girl in black kept looking over her shoulder; I took it as a sign that she was fading and was worried about what was coming. I think I took it that way as it’s something I do……nearly every time I run!

I’d closed the gap to about 10 seconds with 1 mile to go, and suddenly, the girl in black peels of the course and makes a b-line back toward transition thru the residential neighborhood. She ran along the sidewalk for a bit, talking to the girl just ahead. I busted a gut to close that 10 second gap, fueled by even the hint of impropriety, but alas, the tank was empty.

6th place overall. :20 out of 4th. I came out at the wrong end of a very tight race.

Still, I executed my race very well negative splitting both bike and run. Lots of work left to do, but moving in the right direction.

As for the pacer, I am told it was nothing of the sort. Though lines were blurred, it was just a misunderstanding; unfortunate, but reality.

After some light training that afternoon (thanks, Coach Jesse), we said goodbye to our friends Tim and Monica who had to travel home that night and DaveyG and I enjoyed a quiet night with some good wine; hey…when in Rome…….

Vineman is always such a special race for me; it was my first triathlon back in 1997 when I raced the full Ironman. I love traveling back to the Bay Area, home of my beloved Stanford and while we didn’t have time to catch up with Stanford buddies this trip, we’ll be back again soon.

Special thanks to the Vineman crew, particularly Amy Latourette; she takes such good care of us! To all my awesome sponsors – Steve Harad in particular for designing the Kestrel 4000. First time racing it; LOVE IT! Shimano, Di2?? ..... will change your life! and Saucony? One word…..KINVARA! …… Fuel Belt, Trakkers and all my great sponsors…..just a mid-season shout out! .....couldn’t do it without you all!

And an extra special added thanks to my friends at SRM for helping a girl out. DaveyG and I went back and combed every inch of that stretch of road; we recovered some 6 empty gel packets, 2 empty cigarette boxes and a host of other road debris, but (sigh), no SRM head unit. PC7 arrives Wednesday! Thank you SRM!

And of course, my DaveyG! ….don’t have the words. ‘Nuff said. Awesome to have him travel with me this time around! Wish we could do it this way more often!!

Back into training mode. It's go time!