Vineman Race Report

*My detailed race report for anyone bored enough at work to read it*

As I already blogged, Vineman Aquabike is complete.  Last year, I remember somewhat balking when I found out there was an Aquabike event.  I probably said something like, "No running.  What a cop out.  If I'm going to do this thing, then I'm doing the real thing."  Oh how I would like to take those words back now.  Oh how very naive I was.  Completing Aquabike is no picnic, that's for sure.  

On Friday, we headed up north.  Lots of traffic on the way up so didn't get there when I wanted and missed the swim workout.  I ended up being an hour late to the Inspiration Luncheon and walked in while Laura, one of our honorees, was telling us she would be sitting 3/4s of way up Chalk Hill, ringing her cowbell, because that is where we would need her.  I realized I forgot some nutrition and had to make a quick run to the bike store.  From there I headed to the expo, went to the athlete meeting, picked up the registration packet, did a short mechanical ride to make sure the bike was ready, and enjoyed some Thai food before winding down for the evening.

Rise and shine at 4am and at Johnson's Beach by 5:45am.  Racked my bike, stood in a long bathroom line, and then set up my area.  I decided to screw vanity and wear the Ironteam tri-top.  I don't mind my own tri-tops, but all the girls complain about the rather small Ironteam top.  It's tight.  And, it rides up.  I already knew  I was going to change to bike shorts so I didn't want to change my top, too.  Speaking of vanity, it pains me to post these pictures!

My swim wave starts at 6:51 am.  It's a narrow river and the waves are 3 minutes a part.  There is no place to warm up.  I'm a little concerned about that.  Off we go.  

My fellow Aquabiker ladies Kristie, Aki, Jen, Emily, and Susie

Heading into the water

I think the first .6 miles of that swim was the longest 25 minutes of my life.  I was pushed down several times.  And because the male elites started 21 minutes before us, they were literally PLOWING through us toward the end of our first turn.  The second straight was a little easier, but I definitely swam off course a few places.  The water was super shallow in some spots and people were walking as fast as I was swimming.  I thought about standing up to walk.  But there will be no walking in Arizona.  So I kept swimming.  I could hear all the energy from the spectators as I passed the finish where the elites and speedy swimmers were running out of the water.  The 3rd straight was lonely.  I couldn't find any feet to draft behind. By this time, I am swimming past multiple colored caps (the natural fall out of the slower swimmers in the earlier waves).  The 3rd straight actually took me longer than the first.  It didn't feel longer.  But my watch told me so.  And, on the 4th straight I am finally picking it up.  It is really choppy now because Barb's Race just began.  So now there are 443 more people making waves next to me.  I get to a point where I no longer need to sight and I am booking it home.  And then I hit heads with someone.  Head on.  A group of girls were swimming on the wrong side of buoy against traffic.  I yell at them.  I probably only lost seconds there, but I felt like I lost minutes.  

Very happy to be out of the water.  

I get my wetsuit stripped, run to my bike, grab my shorts and run to the changing tent.  I should have grabbed all my things to bring to the changing tent.  That was dumb of me.  Once  in the changing tent, I am trying to put my shorts on, but the ground is full of dirt and mud, which is now on my feet, which is now getting on the chamois of my bike shorts.  Hell no!  My crotch is going to be sitting in that for 8 hours.  I don't need dirt where it doesn't belong.  Once that is all settled, I run back to the bike.  I'm trying to get some food in me as it has now been 4 hours since breakfast and I just swam 2.4 miles. I take a 3 bites of a sandwich (made with love by Sedonia) and eat half a banana.  

I forgot my food back home so Sedonia made me a sandwich
that morning and brought it to me before the  race started.

I'm trying to wash my feet of all the mud and get socks on without getting those dirty and get my shoes on.  Nick is yelling to me, "Sit down!"  But I'm stubborn and I don't.  I should listen to him from now on.  My AZ goal is be out of T1 in 7 minutes.  My Vineman goal was 10 minutes.  I took 16 minutes.  Yes, that's right. 16 minutes!  I think I broke a record.  Fortunately, IMAZ transition is set up more efficiently with your things in the change tent and the change tent on the way to bike.  And, none of this back and forth stuff I did.    

Heading out of the longest T1 in history

The bike began well.  Barb's Race is a women's half distance event going on at the same time.  I leapfrogged  with a pack of Barb's race girls the whole first loop.  It was nice to chat with people.  

Mile 1 of 112

I did stop at the Aid stations.  I heard all these horror stories about people not peeing for 8 hours and I didn't want to be one of them.  Peeing on myself on the bike is just not worth it to me.  I'm not winning, so why would I ever do that?  Plus, it ruins your components.  So I forced myself to stop and go as much as possible.  Another lesson learned and something I won't be doing in Arizona.  I think 2-3 times is probably sufficient and not 6.  TMI?  There's more to come.

I make it up Chalk Hill and tear up when I see Laura 3/4s of the way up.  She is living with an incurable cancer and there she is waiting for us with her cowbell exactly where she said she would be.  

Marina putting up Laura's honoree sign on the run course

A group of people (I think the Los Angeles Ironteam supporters) are near the top of the hill with a sign that says, "Insert Name Here" and they yell, "What's your name?"  "Wooooooo, Jessica!"  They gave me so much energy.  It was awesome.  I make it to the top and I see our bike coach, Lorraine.  I tell her she is going to make me cry tears of happiness.  Around Mile 48, my bag of food flies out of my bento box.  I can't stop to pick it up.  I have more food at Special Needs in 10 miles, but not the same kind.  I am kicking myself for another lesson learned.  I finish the first loop under 4 hours.  My goal was 4:15 so I'm really happy.  

I stop at Special Needs and get more nutrition, reapply sunscreen, refill my bottles, eat some food, take Aleve (my knees and my sit bones hurt).  Surprisingly my crotch is doing well.  Yes, I am going there.  Tony recommended that I "marinate" my bike shorts the night before.  Tyler was watching me apply it all and advised I needed to frost it like a cake.  So I did.  And, it worked.  I get myself together for what will now be a lonely ride because all the Barb's Race girls are done.  I'm ready to be done with the hills on the second loop.  It's a lot of rollers and I'm tired of changing gears every 30 seconds.  I can't really eat when I'm going uphill and I can't when I'm going downhill, and I just want a break.  By now my pedals are bothering me.  The ones I use (Speedplays) provide the most float so my knees don't hurt so much.  However, I had been warned by others that Speedplays hurt and burn your feet during long rides.  Yeah, they weren't joking.  The pain was awful.  I am thankful for one legged drills during Spin class because I had to keep clipping out with one foot to shake it and relieve the pressure while still continuing to move forward.  By the end of the ride, I am emphatic that I will be purchasing different pedals this week.  There is no way I could tolerate this again.   

I run in to Steve at mile 84 and ride with him for a little bit.  He says he is pooped from this second loop.  I agree.  The headwinds have picked up and I'm going 13mph where I was going 18mph only 4 hours earlier.  At this point, I am just reminding myself that it is beautiful here, telling myself to look around  and enjoy the vineyards and old barns and to check out all the wineries that I will come visit one day.  My stomach starts to bother me and I'm getting stitches.  I stop at the last aid station before Chalk Hill to shake my feet out and try to get my stomach settled.  After a few minutes, I feel much better.  Steve and Jen catch up to me there and we talk about how we have 1:10 to make it 17 miles.  We will be cutting it close because we still have Chalk Hill again.  Chalk Hill, the second time around, is at Mile 100.  Yeah, that sucks. Lorraine drove up next to me in her car and reminded me I only had one mile left of that road. My team put signs halfway up the hill.  The honey badger sign kept me going. Laura was still there waiting.  I think I cried tears of happiness again.  From there I have 12 miles to book it home.  

About 7 miles out, I see some volunteers are gone.  The cones are still up thankfully.  Then I get to a left turn and the volunteer tells me I need to obey the traffic light.  Are you kidding me?  This course doesn't close until 5:30pm.  I know I'm cutting it close, but I am doing the math.  I can still make it.  But, instead I have to wait in the left turn lane.  I have to stop at stop signs.  I have to ride up the 101 overpass and deal with onramp traffic merging into the road.  I am incredulous.  I arrive at an intersection where there is no cones.  There is no chalk.  There is a volunteer there chatting away on her Blackberry.  She is flippantly swaying her big pointer foam hand to the right.  I turn right.  I ride a few minutes and I see the 101 overpass again.  No effin way.  I know I don't go over this twice.  I turn around and ride on the wrong side of the road.  I scream at the girl (mind you I thanked every single volunteer and police officer on the course that day so now I feel awful for yelling at her).  I can see one of the drivers is very confused by my yelling at a random woman on the road and he lets me go through the light even though it is his green.  I find two other girls that are lost and riding backwards like I was.  They don't know where to turn.  I remember a road called Skylane and we find it.  I hauled ass back to town, but I missed the cutoff by 5 minutes.  As I said in my post yesterday, I was devastated.

Mile 111 of 112

Nick, my brother, and dad are there.  I am obviously in a bad mood and cussing a storm about what just happened.  I rack my bike and find my morning clothes.  I'm glad Bryce is there to hug me and my dad keeps telling me that I finished.  I keep saying I didn't.  He reminds me that I did.  I see Steve walking around and he says, "Well at least I missed it by 20 minutes.  I would feel worse if I missed it by 5."  And, I say, "I missed it by 5."  I cry again. And, I tear up every time someone sees me and wants to talk about what happened.  Finally, I wash up and change in to my run gear and decide I will do at least 6 miles (I wanted to do the first loop, but now I am defeated).  

A quick note about Vineman:  it was created to be a casual full distance event.  It's easy to register for and doesn't sell out in 2 hours like the Ironman events. And, it does not have all the pomp and circumstance and rigidity that goes along with an Ironman event, even though it's the same distance.  So while there are rules about the course, they aren't exactly enforced.  Therefore, there were all kinds of people out running the course that weren't *supposed* to be, including me.  

OK, so the first 2 miles suck (physically).  Whether I ride 25 miles, 50 miles, or 112 miles, it appears that I don't get my legs until Mile 2.  

I'm still replaying the days events and going through all the "ifs" and "should have's" in my head.  Slowly, I am beginning to realize all the things I learned.  And I start to become grateful about everything that happened.  Because if it didn't happen here, it would have happened in November.  And that wouldn't be good.  

I find Les on his loop and he tells me that Dana is back there and needs some help.  I keep going until I find her.  She's not feeling well.  I give her some friction block for her toes and she starts running again.  We make it back from her first loop.  

Running with Dana as she finishes up her first loop

I had gone just over 5 miles.  Dana knew she was not finishing before 11pm.  So she had her friend, Rowena, lined up to ride on her mountain bike with her because the course gets pitch black.  I go back out with Dana and I was going to run to about the same place where I found her on Loop 1 and turn around.  But, the sun went down.  I did not have my headlamp.  So at that point, I knew I was running the 8.7 mile loop so I could stick with her and Rowena.

It was actually a pretty amazing experience.  Because it wasn't my race anymore, I was having fun.  I sang to people.  I cheered people on.  It didn't matter if I backtracked and then caught back up to Dana because I didn't have to "keep moving forward" like everyone else was.  I was taking people's cups for them.  I was getting my groove on at water stops.  And, I got to pass almost all of my teammates coming in for their last loop.  I was trying to encourage Dana with point to point running.  "Where we running to next?"  "Ok, what's the plan now?"  "Let's get to the mailbox."  "How about to the crest of that hill?"  "Let's start after this pole."  "Let's walk with purpose!"  I also learned I get blisters on my left toes.  Nine months of training and I finally got blisters.  She still had another loop to go.  That girl showed the entire team what the word "Determination" means.

Dana's finish

I was starving.  I didn't want to see another pretzel or cookie again.  We did an In-N-Out run.  What else is open after midnight in the sleepy town of Windsor?  Nick was shocked I wanted it (see earlier post that the last thing I want after a workout is a cheeseburger).  But, this wasn't exactly a workout.  I hadn't eaten any semblance of a meal in 32 hours.  I devoured a double cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake.  I was so tired.  But I went back to the hotel, took an ice bath, then a very warm shower, and very briefly stretched.  Nick says I was passed out within 30 seconds of hitting the pillow.  

I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep since my feet were still in pain from the bike pedals.  I iced my feet and knees some more.  We went to the Team In Training Victory Breakfast.  I don't think I have ever seen so many people consume so much bacon in a single sitting before.  

Then it was dim sum time for lunch!  

Phil has taught me how to properly order har gow and gai lan

By the time we got back home from Santa Rosa and unpacked and vegged out, it was dinner time already.  And, after dinner, I finally got to see Harry Potter! 

As I said in yesterday's post, I completed 92% of 140.6 miles.  I bet those last 12 miles are the hardest of the entire day.  But, my energy was good on Saturday.  I had a bounce in my run.  I shuffled in the beginning and shuffled in the end.  I walked a lot.  But, I had more fuel in the tank.  Anyway, I'm just really grateful that I had this experience.  I'm grateful to my team for guiding me here.  I'm impressed that I raised over $6500 for LLS.  And, I'm proud of myself for doing what I did on Saturday.  

Believe it or not, it was very difficult to smile right here.