Morgantown lite

June 29th was our return to Morgantown, WV for another shot at the Mountaineer (alright, Spirit of Morgantown) races. This year I got the short course with the Olympic race while Bill moved up to the Half Iron to prepare for Ironman next summer. While I was a bit concerned about not having run a 10K since last August, I wasn't too worried about my biking in spite of only having three 20+ mile rides (and two of those were 20 - 20.5 . . . ). I felt strong from all the weight training (aka "booty work") and wasn't concerned about the hills on the course. The swim, well, I could motor through that even with minimal training.

Saturday we arrived in WV and did all the prerequisite stuff of checking in, racking the bikes, running into half of the Cleveland crowd before dinner. The big bummer was that my friend, Karen, broke her collarbone a month ago and couldn't race, but was there to cheer on Eddie. Both are preparing for IMKY and I have no doubt they'll have great races there.

Dinner was with about 20 assorted CTC members. It was great to see the Reddy swim group folks that I missed after being kicked out. . . I mean, dropping out of the group this winter! We had a great dinner then had to run back to the hotel in the pouring rain. Since we didn't bring long sleeves, Bill made a dash to WalMart to pick up sweatshirts for all of us.

Sunday started overcast, but the rain held off. At the start of the race, I did notice that the dam wasn't off and it looked like an Endless Pool as the swimmers had to take the long backstretch into the dam (damn??) current. The short section back to the finish had a draft, but couldn't that have been reversed? As usual, after the turns at the buoys, everyone moved off to the right and I just kept hauling straight along the buoy line. I don't usually draft since I don't trust anyone to swim straight (well, as staight as me), but when one of the 50+ guys tapped my calf, then my thigh, I figured, what the heck, here's one to follow and I held on as long as I could to have a little breakaway. When we got to the dam end, you could really feel the choppiness of the water, but the push back to the dock was nice at the end. I pulled myself out at 30:25 and went to my spare shoes to make sure I wouldn't hurt myself on the long transition run.

The bike started out with the usual choppiness through "Shanty town". I saw all the yellow nets from water bottles along with an assortment of other equipment that lept to freedom along the streets. No sooner did I hit mile one and my newest Polar bottle takes a flip out of my bottom bracket and lands off to the side of hte road. . . .^&)#%! Oh well, I only packed that one bottle, but had my aero mounted one, so I figured I'd just fill that and be fine for the 24 miles. Hmmm, two more miles I felt something hit my forearm and looked for my yellow net, but it was still there so I figured no problem . . . until I went to take a drink and my straw was GONE! The only thing left was a little stub where it used to be. I tried to bend all the way over to drink from it, but it was too far. so I figured I'd wait until the water stop. . . . if only I could remember when it was.

The hills weren't an issue and I found myself riding most of them seated and in the aero position. I traded back and forth with a guy that was probably getting sick of me passing him, but tough! I saw Bill looking good on the bike and finally put my head all the way over to get a drink from my mini straw before I got to the water stop, where I finally grabbed a couple bottles.

Coming in to town, the rain started . . . .and cars came out, so it made it tougher than I'd hoped to get back in. In spite of the challenges on the course, I was thrilled to come in with a 19.3 mph average pace. So, now it was off to the run -- my longest in 10 months AND up Devil's hill . . .

I took off out of transition and took some fluid at the first water stop where they guys said, "here you go, ma'am". . . . I damn near stopped dead in my tracks and shouted back, "Ma'am??? Come on! How about miss, babe, anything but ma'am" and they got a good laugh. So I headed down the path and saw my first girl to pass. My pace was a little faster than I wanted since I didn't want to die at the end, so I tried to balance racing and pulling back at the same time. I counted my self in the top 10 women and wanted to finish both top 10 and place in my age group. I rarely seem to pass women on the run anymore, so I was thrilled to pass a couple, but I knew a lady behind me looked strong. When I came back through the first water stop, I grabbed a cup and said something about ma'am and this time he yelled back, "Great job, hot stuff!" Much better!

We headed up out of the park and onto Devil's hill and I could sense the lady behind me. Sure enough just as we started up the hill she went (easily I may add) by me, dropped her inhaler, turned to pick it up, smiled at me, and sprinted (OK, maybe not really a sprint, but it was waaaaaayy faster than what I was going) past me again and was gone! Oh yeah, she was my age group. . . . I made it up the hill and through the campus for the last mile and back into the park -- no injuries this year -- and the boys were there working the finish and cheering. It was beautiful and sunny when I finished, but the rain, clouds, and sun kept taking turns to keep the day interesting.

I got cleaned up and went back to cheer Bill in. I could tell he was hurting, but he finished strong in spite of his cramping issues. I checked the results and a lot of CTCers did great. I ended up 2nd AG and 8th overall, so I was happy with my race.

Final times: 30:25 swim, T1 - 3:49, 1:17:01 bike, T2 - 1:08, 59:02 run (6.55 miles) 2:51:26 for 67th overall

Bill finished in 5:43:20! Now on to Lake Placid to get entered for 2009 . . . . :-)