I am a triathlete, and a large
part of being a triathlete is transitioning from swim gear, to bike gear, and
then to run gear, etc., but I am not very speedy with my transitions, and can
easily admit that they are not my strong suit.
However, they are inevitable, the race is a “Tri”athlon, meaning three
sports disciplines in one, so whether I like it or not, I have to go through
transitions. Currently, I am in a real
life transition, and I like it just a little bit less than T1 and T2 on an
Ironman course, but the finish line is on the other side, so I have to go through
it.
This post will be celebrating my
sixteenth marathon, and second ironman, Vineman 2009. This race takes place near Sonoma in northern
California, a good seven hour drive from my house, but still considered a “local”
race in my mind because it lies within the boundaries of the Golden state. I rented a house for a week along the Russian
River for the whole Spates family to descend upon and have a real
vacation. There was fishing and canoe
paddling for Marion and Hannah, and stress and worry for me in a beautiful
place. We arrived on a Tuesday, the race
was the following Saturday, gulp. My
brother Peter came up the Friday night before the race to amp me up, while most
of my extended family arrived on race day to cheer me on. The swim and bike were beautiful, hard, bumpy,
and foggy, but the real juice of the day was squeezed from the marathon, so here
we go.
I rolled into the transition area
from the 112 mile bike portion of the race both naive and excited about the marathon
up ahead. I had only the bar set at Ironman
Louisville to hit or dip below, and I had already slashed a lot of time, so I started
the run stress free. Except for the lead
logs below my waist, I felt awesome.
Luckily, I had a tremendous support team for this race, and they were
stationed right where I needed them, near the “Run in and out” portion of the
three loop course, so I would be seeing them six times throughout the day which
was like tackling the leprechaun with the pot of gold.
The course travels up and around
the farmland of Windsor, California where many locals lined the streets along
with their horses and cows to cheer us on.
The course was flanked with trees along the difficult hilly sections, and
wide open to sunshine during the character building straight away section
leading up to the turn-a-round point. I
had no idea where I ranked among the masses that were trodding along with me,
but I felt good considering it was 2:30 in the afternoon and I was just starting
out on a marathon. I noticed many men,
and not very many women, which is par for the course for triathlon, but
somewhat annoying; come on ladies, let’s rally and build up our numbers! Anyway, I am certain my pace was not swift,
but I was happy all day long. I was so
thrilled to have so much family cheering me on, that I just wanted to finish as
quickly as possible to spend time with them. I did add on some time because of
necessary pit stops three or four times throughout the day, but since this was
only my second ironman, I was still learning a lot from my hard-working bod on
race day, and was giving her the attention she required.
I cherish this race because it was
the end of my innocence as a triathlete, because after I crossed the finish
line with a forty four minute personal best over my time at Louisville, I was
flooded with delusional dreams of becoming one of the elite. My family did not aid in bringing me down to
earth at all, they were so proud of me, and boosted my ego to the heavens. We all
celebrated an evening of pure bliss back at our rental fueled by pizza, beer,
and ice cream.
Marion, Hannah, and our dogs loaded
up our truck and headed home that following Monday. It was a lovely, but a knawing eight hour
drive down the coast as I planned and plotted my next race, and training plans. I had crossed over from spirited athlete, to
obsessed goal setter. All I could think
about was what I needed to do to qualify for Kona, what race I should sign up
for, how much I should train, etc.
Miraculously, Hannah slept through my crazed jabberings most of the trip, but
Marion listened and just lent fuel to fire, professing there was no reason I could
not become a pro, in fact there should be no excuse why I shouldn’t, and challenged
me to go for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment