I had my sights set high on this race as I had done well here in the past. I was looking forward to a nice hot day; as has been typical for this race in the past. Race day ended up being much cooler than normal--low to mid 70s. There was no reason not to have a good race, but....
The swim was fairly choppy. I watched the pro men and women start off and made note of what they were doing to handle the conditions. The men ran into the water and over the waves before starting the swim. The women dolphin dived. I decided to dolphin dive as well thinking that I was shorter than the men and wouldn't be able to lift my legs that high.
I lined up on the inside (closest to the buoy) and in the front row. When they started our wave, I went to dolphin dive right away and found that the water was much too shallow. I stumbled around several times, turned right too early (at the 1st buoy rather than the 2nd buoy), and had to backtrack to correct, swam off course a few times, and then finally made it in towards the finish line. The water was so shallow there, that people were walking in through the water to the beach. I tried to swim as far as I could, but eventually had to stand and walk/run onto the beach. This proved to be somewhat challenging as I weaved quite a bit.
Once out of the water, I ran up the beach and through transition. I noticed my stomach felt bloated and a bit funny. I ignored it and focused on the bike. The first thing I noticed was that my bike computer was frozen. It was not displaying time elapsed, power, or cadence. I tried multiple times to reset it without success. Finally I just resolved that I would have to just bike without it and do the best I could. I felt that I was biking ok because not too many people were passing me. This was deceiving though, as I had started in the 1st of 2 waves of my age-group, and early on in the race. My stomach continued to be troublesome and got fairly painful for a while. It was difficult to ride in the aero position because of it at times. Around mile 25 I started belching. My first thought was, "Gee, that feels pretty good" and I was relieved because my stomach felt a bit better. Then another one came and this time vomit came with it. YUCK. After that I lost motivation to push on the bike and tried to just ride and stay on top of my nutrition. I really didn't feel like eating much and had to really force down my gels and water. The stomach felt better eventually, but by then it was too late; I had just given up mentally.
When I got to transition, I racked my bike and decided to go run (although I had seriously contemplated not running many times). I didn't feel too bad. I ran around my goal pace for the first 5-6 miles and then just seemed to run out of gas. Again, it was hard to stay motivated and I really had to try hard to distract myself from "dark mental spots". Support from friends and family was very much appreciated during this time and kept me running. I ended up running shoulder to shoulder with another guy from Chicago for much of the 2nd 1/2 of the run. We didn't talk or anything, but it was nice to have someone to run with. I seemed to get a bit more energy in the last 2 miles of the run. I think it was just pure excitement and adrenaline because I knew the race was close to being over, and I was going to finish.
I crossed the finish line and was so happy to be done. This was not an especially fast race for me, but it was definitely a good challenging race; both mentally and physically. It has taken a couple of days for me to get past my frustration of not achieving the results that I wanted, but looking back there are many things that I can learn from my race and my mistakes. Also, I have learned to appreciate the mental strength that I had to use just to continue as well as complete the race.
From now until Kona, I am focusing on swim technique specific to open water and ways to modify for choppy water.
