tried and true…
Sunday, October 4th, 20092:42 AM — gotta pee. Can’t get back to sleep.
3:15 AM — 20 minutes of internal horrorshow considering why I never bothered to get a spare tire kit and practice changing tires. A flat tire will end my race today–yay!
3:41 AM — Grim realization that since I’m in the last wave, it’s conceivable that I might be the actual LAST PERSON to cross the finish line today.
3:52 AM — left foot cramps up for no damn good reason at all.
4:30 AM — alarm goes off, I was back to sleep. Sigh.
4:42 AM — I DON’T WANNA!
5:14 AM — Typing this, about to head out the door.
5:45 AM — Arrive at the race site, park very far away…sigh.
6:10 AM — Racked and transition area set up. Unfortunately, my wave doesn’t start until 7:55 AM, so stand around in the cold for a looong time, trying to keep the adrenaline flowing.
7:45 AM — Enter water (it’s not that cold), and get ready to start.
7:55 AM — The “Clydes 40+” wave is full of slow swimmers, whom I keep bumping into trying to hit my stride. I’m in the last third by the time I get out of the water.
At this point, I thought I was doing pretty damn good, but apparently I languished too long in the transitions, because even though I passed many people on the ride, my results weren’t nearly as good as I thought they were…
~8:45 AM — Because I have no watch, I have no real sense of how I’m doing time-wise. There’s a nasty headwind all the way around Fiesta Island, but I manage to keep my head down and my feet pedaling, passing several folks.
~9:00 AM — Short T2 transition, because I’m wearing everything and only need to shed stuff. Still, I do a LOT of walking the first half-mile, as my calves has seized up solid.
~9:30 AM — Cross the finish line, pretty beat, tired of going, and not nearly as exhilarated as was promised. I’m glad I finished the damn thing, but it’s not something I’d choose to do on purpose more in the future. Who knows?
Result: 1:36:07, which is about 20 minutes slower than I’d first roughly calculated. I’m kinda bummed, because I was shooting for 1:30:00, and my original calcs had me coming in under that. Oh well: again, I finished, it’s an accomplishment, and now I can move on (in several ways).
Pics to follow.