This Saturday I did the Yucca Triathlon at White Sands Missile Range. It was an odd distance race with an 8K run, 45K bike, and 400M swim. I wanted to do it for a couple of reasons: it was my birthday, it was a great tune up distance for the Olympic race Elephant Man in a couple of weeks, and the base is just 30 minutes from my daughter and son-in-law's house so I could spend the rest of the weekend visiting them in Las Cruces.
I left Fort Sumner on Friday afternoon at 4 and went to the school football game at Capitan and stayed until halftime (I had to do my duty as the school superintendent). The Foxes were winning, so I didn't feel to bad about being a ditcher, and I still had an hour and a half drive to Alamogordo (NM is a big state). I got up at 4 AM in order to make the next leg of the journey to get to the military base and was at the transition area and set up by 5:45 AM. I visited around transition and that was fun. There were a lot of college students from NMSU's triathlon team there, and I am helping them organize a triathlon for November 13th (put it on your calendars), so it was fun to chat about that race too.
We took off at 7:30, and I was really pleased with my 8K time of 58 minutes. I know most of you runners are much speedier than I am, but for me, this 12 minute mile pace is a SIGNIFICANT improvement and really surprised me. Frankly, I didn't know I could do five miles that fast. I guess it must be the gift of birthday magic and my new birthday orange Newtons. I was only three minutes behind this other Athena that ALWAYS beats me. I kid you not, she always comes in ahead of me. She went to nationals in Athena last year, and she is a great competitor.
I jumped on the bike, and took off, and the first four miles of the bike are an gradual decline, so I knew I would be crying on the way back to transition, but I cranked it pretty hard. At the six mile point, I passed her, and I know that caught her quite by surprise. I realize I am a pretty aggressive cyclist, and I know from looking at my bike splits in races this year that I am usually in the top third on bike times in races. I just pushed it hard because the swim is her best portion in triathlon. I saw her once more after the turnaround, and then beat it back to the transition point, and yes, that long slow incline was a beast. I did the bike in 1:33 and then my usual pitiful swim of 17 minutes. The great news was I still beat her by 11 minutes overall, and it feels AWESOME.
I have had other wins this season, but not over someone who is a recognized, regular winner. When they were giving out the medals, the race director just started to hand her the first place medal, and she had to say, "No, I got second, she got first." Yes, that is the sound of my head swelling. Yes, I am being little miss braggy pants. Yes, I have stapled my medal on my bulletin board in my office with all of my bib numbers. Yes, I wore my medal to lunch with my daughter and son-in-law. Yes, I know it is silly, and yes, I don't even care. I realize this is unseemly in a 52 year-old woman.
This strong competitor and I will both be in the same sprint race on Saturday, and I am sure she will be looking to redeem herself. I am going to try to keep her from doing so :-) She is not doing Elephant Man and that will be the last one I am doing in the Southwest Challenge Series. Right now I am third in that series and she is second. I don't know that I can unseat her from that position given the current points, but there is always next year <grin>
Patricia
Nice race!
ReplyDelete