I know. I left you hanging after my Part 1 of Barrelman Adventures..... now its on to part two...aka... the bike and run of our adventure in Welland/Niagara Falls! As I exited the swim, I ran up the bleachers to get my bike. Once I arrived at my spot, I did the drunken octopus dance to get out of my wetsuit (So. Slow). and shoved it into my wetsuit bag. Grabbed my helmet, gum, shoes, and ran out of T1. And...up the longest grass hill ever. WTF. Totally missed that in the pre race talk (probably I should have stopped whispering with the boys. Whoops). As I neared the bike mount, I heard "GO RAE!" and saw my cousins Karen and Tom, who had come up from Rochester to cheer us on - it was so excellent to see them! I ran past the bike mount line, managed to mount my steed without making a total ass of myself, and was off for 56 miles of fun!
Bike: 2:48:37 (19.6 mph)
After our course recon the day before the race, I knew that the first 30k of the bike had many weird off center turns (we started calling them Canadian turns....sorry!), no elevation gain, and would likely be windy. This last part was no joke at all. The headwinds were fierce, and when we made our turns out of Welland, we either had headwind or crosswind. Excellent. I actually managed not to freak at the crosswind, which was blowing me all over the road, and heeded the advice of my coach and let the wind play with me a bit (TWSS?). I was really grateful I had done so many rides on Lake Rd, where it is always pretty breezy.
Regardless, the wind did shit for my speed, and 10 miles in, I was averaging 18.5. Lame. I had hoped to average anywhere from 19-19.8 on the ride so this kinda sucked. The bonus was that my legs felt awesome, like I was doing no work at all. I spun out in a gear that felt easy, and took nutrition in every two miles - one sip of super "Demko Drink" - DD- (homemade sports turbo mix) and then a sip of water. I looked down at mile 10 to assess my power and cadence and noticed...I had neither. WTF. This is now race 5 out out 5 where my bike data was either non existent or lame. I knew my coach would be annoyed AF, and so was I, as I felt I was finally nailing a great cadence (I'm usually a masher) and power output. Something to address in the off season - I did not buy a power meter for training only. But. Nothing to do now but go!
Pre race I had filled my aquacell with my DD and water, and my speedfill with water. I legit cannot take a bottle handoff to save my soul and while it's in the plans to fix that, now was not the time. The first 20 miles I did really well, drinking every two miles, picking people off one by one, and being patient with the wind. We made a turn onto bear hump road (yep, I said it) and I actually went intoaero arrow for a little bit to stretch out and spin in a different position - I was so proud of myself! This would be the first time I have ever ridden in "arrow" during a race - ever. I will say I'm not confident to do it anywhere but on a low traffic road and am not yet fast, but it felt good to switch it up!
As I came out of my bars to make the turn at mile 25, I felt pretty great and started to sing some songs to myself to occupy the time - my speed was gaining (I was spinning out over 20 mph now and over 19.0 avg overall, and I felt awesome!) "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons got caught in my head, and I spun through the course for the next ten miles, all smiles and looking like the biggest idiot as I actually enjoyed myself on the bike - no worries, no brake riding, just legit happy to be alive and be racing!
'Cause I'm on top of the world,
I'm on top of the world,
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I've been waiting to smile,
Been holding it in for a while, '
Take it with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I'm on top of the world
Life was good. I thought about my teammates out racing. I thought about how lucky I was to have my husband out there with me. About how damned much I loved life right now and this sport. And about all the people that helped me get to this race. And, you know it, guys...I started to dream. And think that I could probably break 5:30 today!
About mile 37, I passed the last aid station, and a few minutes later, I grabbed some water from my speed fill and the whole top snapped off. Holy shit. I had the piece in my mouth and was so shocked I spit it out. Well, there goes...most of the rest of my water. Dammit. I decided to handle the problem if it arose, gauging the rest of my nutrition and knowing I could pull over if I needed to and dump my speed fill into my aqua cell. I got a little low from mile 40-45, and tried to drink more DD to get my calories in, also slamming a gel and chasing with a tiny sip of water (as I was now in conserve mode). This worked pretty well - I was up to 19.3 average, doing the math in my head and thinking I would definitely break 3 hours on the bike and likely 2:55. I looked down at my trikit and reminded myself that it was not an option to go slow, as I was in the "magic kit" that pretty much only knew how to win races - so I better do it justice by doing everything fast!!
The last 10 miles of the bike were mostly by the Niagara River. Freaking gorgeous....hot...and windy as shit. It was easily 90 out, and I was baking. My legs never felt bad, but I knew I needed water. I sipped the final sip of my drink at mile 51 of the bike and knew I should stop and refill - but my bike computer read 19.5 average and I knew if I pushed it I could make a 2:50 bike split. This was a horrible mistake, I would later pay for it - but 70.3's and longer are races where it doesn't come down to if something will happen....it's what will happen and when. You need to make decisions and move on, then reassess on the fly if they don't work. In my little "racing box" this was the way to go. One of my fellow Rochesterians, Jim, passed me about mile 53 and yelled "Run's gonna be hot!" I yelled back "THERE WILL BE ICE!" and gunned it to the finish, where I ditched my bike in T2 for a final bike split of 2:48 and change, or, an 19.6 mph. Another goal destroyed. I saw Greg in T2 where he yelled out a good luck! I grabbed my running shoes, race belt, and I was off to my favorite part....THE RUN!!!
Run: 1:50:37 (8:36/mi)
As I headed out of T2, I realized right away I was in trouble. I was hot. Baking, actually. And no water in sight. I swung by the finishers line and begged a bottle of water, which they told me was for the finishers but Ihave such charm that they of course gave me some had such a desperate crazed look on my face that they felt sorry for me and relented. I swigged half the bottle and dumped the rest on my head. Better. At that point I realized I had a weird feeling in my shoe and that the toe condom Bruce gave me for my busted nail was....still in my shoe. A smart woman would have stopped and taken it out. I'm not smart. So yes, I raced 13 miles with a prophylactic on me. At least I was prepared for...um...anything? Ahem.
I took the first mile a little fast at 7:51, and knew that I was in real trouble. I couldn't breathe. I was hot. I was miserable. I stopped to walk (totally unheard of for me for this early.). I did most of mile 2 in a run walk fashion, grabbing water and ice and dumping it all over myself (bonus of a one piece - my ass was totally cool when the ice slid all the way down. Tingly!) I saw Ryan and Bruce on their way out for loop two and estimated they were about 5-6 minutes back, and it became my immediate goal to hold them off as long as possible (I know. They were 6 miles ahead of me. Race logic...is not always logical). At mile 2 I encountered what we had dubbed "Dumbass hill" which is exactly as it sounds. It's a steep hill that's 1/4 mile long and better off walked. I grabbed some ice from my bra and tried to cool it off. No dice. Mile 3 - was a hot mess. I have never been so miserable on the run. I knew at that point that I had made a really foolish decision on the bike and was not only hot, but dehydrated. My legs felt awesome. The rest of my body said....eff off. I did a run walk strategy and played with time. I knew if I could pull off a 2 hour half marathon I would go under 5:30, which seemed to be a reasonable time to me at this point. 9 minute miles became the mile split goal.
At mile 4 I picked it up a bit and looked up, where there was a clock by the tourist falls area - it read 34 degrees. Now, I'm pretty good at converting kilometres to miles, but the Celsius to Fahrenheit eludes me. I caught up with a dude who was looking strong ahead of me and prefaced my question with - "Pardon me - I'm a stupid American - but do you know how hot 34C is in Fahrenheit?" He looked at me, deadpan, and said "Really Fucking Hot!!" and we both started laughing. Well, now I have a friend! This was Mike, who turned into b a great running buddy for the next 5 miles. He was from Ottawa, also had two kids, and was really looking forward to hockey season...like....in the next 5 minutes. We had a great time chatting and forgot about the heat (OK, no we didn't) as we ticked the miles off.
At mile 4.5, I found the magic answer to my run dilemma. Coke! I'd never tried it in a race before, but I figured why the hell not and took a cup. IT WAS MAGIC. I immediately felt better, and my pace went form 8:45-9:00 minute miles to 8:30s. I continued to take in a few sips of coke every mile, and I will 100% say this changed my life on the run. Once again, I was having fun!!
I finished Lap 1 in 57 minutes for 6.5 miles and felt I could likely keep the pace for lap two, and maybe even make my goal window of 5:15-5:25 overall. Risky business halfway through, but sometimes the math is all that gets you from mile to mile...err...kilometre to kilometre. As I headed out for lap two, I saw Bruce coming in and yelled out "GO BRUCE!" really loudly - I had to shelve the "Dammit Bruce" ....as he never passed me. Woot. How, I don't know. I saw Ryan about a mile in and he looked shot - the heat was brutal. I stopped to give him a hug and to tell him to finish it strong, and was off for 5.5 more miles of fun!
Lap 2 felt amazing. It was balls hot out (I later found out that 34C = 93F. Lovely). but I finally had a great strategy - coke every mile, ice, and running 90% of the course, walk the uphills and aid stations. This netted an 8:20-8:40 mile, and I was FINALLY having a blast! I started picking off people left and right and smiling and joking with everyone. I had to pass three runners in the middle of their little pack and felt badly about doing it, so I yelled out "Sorry!" as I passed and they called out after me "That's ok! Will you take our chips, too??" And I laughed. I got so many cheers from passerby telling me how happy and strong I looked and that they "feared the reaper!" (damn this kit WAS magic!) As I neared the final two miles, I did some quick watch math and realized if I kept it up, I would go under 5:20. Holy shit.
While this was not quite the level of my coach peeing himself (it was really no worries, I had done it myself about 50 times that day) it was pretty freaking epic to me to actually hit my damned goal, especially on such a hot, windy day. The last mile was a total blur as I brought it in, a huge smile on my face, totally on top of the world!! Right before I crossed the line I heard some dude yell "Move that sexy ass!" (Hey thanks buddy, can I get your number?) and I sprinted in for a final overall finish of 5:18:36.
Post race featured plenty of pics with friends (Mike caught up to me and we got a great selfie and I now have a Canadian tri friend - sweet!). I found Bruce and Ryan, who both finished in 4:36 (Ryan edged Bruce out by less than a minute!) which was a great PR for both of them (I seriously need to train more with them. For real.)
My final overall placement was 20th out of 272 women, 5th in my age group, and 6th overall American woman. Guys, I have no idea what to do with that. I PRed by 18 minutes in this race - totalling a whopping 2019 Half Ironman PR of one hour 15 minutes from my old PR of 6:33- INSANE. I had the biggest damned smile on my face for the rest of the day and don't remember much of what happened - there were hugs, a drive home, and a sunburn to contend with, but who cares.
Bike: 2:48:37 (19.6 mph)
After our course recon the day before the race, I knew that the first 30k of the bike had many weird off center turns (we started calling them Canadian turns....sorry!), no elevation gain, and would likely be windy. This last part was no joke at all. The headwinds were fierce, and when we made our turns out of Welland, we either had headwind or crosswind. Excellent. I actually managed not to freak at the crosswind, which was blowing me all over the road, and heeded the advice of my coach and let the wind play with me a bit (TWSS?). I was really grateful I had done so many rides on Lake Rd, where it is always pretty breezy.
Regardless, the wind did shit for my speed, and 10 miles in, I was averaging 18.5. Lame. I had hoped to average anywhere from 19-19.8 on the ride so this kinda sucked. The bonus was that my legs felt awesome, like I was doing no work at all. I spun out in a gear that felt easy, and took nutrition in every two miles - one sip of super "Demko Drink" - DD- (homemade sports turbo mix) and then a sip of water. I looked down at mile 10 to assess my power and cadence and noticed...I had neither. WTF. This is now race 5 out out 5 where my bike data was either non existent or lame. I knew my coach would be annoyed AF, and so was I, as I felt I was finally nailing a great cadence (I'm usually a masher) and power output. Something to address in the off season - I did not buy a power meter for training only. But. Nothing to do now but go!
 |
| You can't see it....but these bad boys are spinning away!! |
Pre race I had filled my aquacell with my DD and water, and my speedfill with water. I legit cannot take a bottle handoff to save my soul and while it's in the plans to fix that, now was not the time. The first 20 miles I did really well, drinking every two miles, picking people off one by one, and being patient with the wind. We made a turn onto bear hump road (yep, I said it) and I actually went into
As I came out of my bars to make the turn at mile 25, I felt pretty great and started to sing some songs to myself to occupy the time - my speed was gaining (I was spinning out over 20 mph now and over 19.0 avg overall, and I felt awesome!) "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons got caught in my head, and I spun through the course for the next ten miles, all smiles and looking like the biggest idiot as I actually enjoyed myself on the bike - no worries, no brake riding, just legit happy to be alive and be racing!
'Cause I'm on top of the world,
I'm on top of the world,
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I've been waiting to smile,
Been holding it in for a while, '
Take it with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
I'm on top of the world
Life was good. I thought about my teammates out racing. I thought about how lucky I was to have my husband out there with me. About how damned much I loved life right now and this sport. And about all the people that helped me get to this race. And, you know it, guys...I started to dream. And think that I could probably break 5:30 today!
About mile 37, I passed the last aid station, and a few minutes later, I grabbed some water from my speed fill and the whole top snapped off. Holy shit. I had the piece in my mouth and was so shocked I spit it out. Well, there goes...most of the rest of my water. Dammit. I decided to handle the problem if it arose, gauging the rest of my nutrition and knowing I could pull over if I needed to and dump my speed fill into my aqua cell. I got a little low from mile 40-45, and tried to drink more DD to get my calories in, also slamming a gel and chasing with a tiny sip of water (as I was now in conserve mode). This worked pretty well - I was up to 19.3 average, doing the math in my head and thinking I would definitely break 3 hours on the bike and likely 2:55. I looked down at my trikit and reminded myself that it was not an option to go slow, as I was in the "magic kit" that pretty much only knew how to win races - so I better do it justice by doing everything fast!!
The last 10 miles of the bike were mostly by the Niagara River. Freaking gorgeous....hot...and windy as shit. It was easily 90 out, and I was baking. My legs never felt bad, but I knew I needed water. I sipped the final sip of my drink at mile 51 of the bike and knew I should stop and refill - but my bike computer read 19.5 average and I knew if I pushed it I could make a 2:50 bike split. This was a horrible mistake, I would later pay for it - but 70.3's and longer are races where it doesn't come down to if something will happen....it's what will happen and when. You need to make decisions and move on, then reassess on the fly if they don't work. In my little "racing box" this was the way to go. One of my fellow Rochesterians, Jim, passed me about mile 53 and yelled "Run's gonna be hot!" I yelled back "THERE WILL BE ICE!" and gunned it to the finish, where I ditched my bike in T2 for a final bike split of 2:48 and change, or, an 19.6 mph. Another goal destroyed. I saw Greg in T2 where he yelled out a good luck! I grabbed my running shoes, race belt, and I was off to my favorite part....THE RUN!!!
Run: 1:50:37 (8:36/mi)
As I headed out of T2, I realized right away I was in trouble. I was hot. Baking, actually. And no water in sight. I swung by the finishers line and begged a bottle of water, which they told me was for the finishers but I
I took the first mile a little fast at 7:51, and knew that I was in real trouble. I couldn't breathe. I was hot. I was miserable. I stopped to walk (totally unheard of for me for this early.). I did most of mile 2 in a run walk fashion, grabbing water and ice and dumping it all over myself (bonus of a one piece - my ass was totally cool when the ice slid all the way down. Tingly!) I saw Ryan and Bruce on their way out for loop two and estimated they were about 5-6 minutes back, and it became my immediate goal to hold them off as long as possible (I know. They were 6 miles ahead of me. Race logic...is not always logical). At mile 2 I encountered what we had dubbed "Dumbass hill" which is exactly as it sounds. It's a steep hill that's 1/4 mile long and better off walked. I grabbed some ice from my bra and tried to cool it off. No dice. Mile 3 - was a hot mess. I have never been so miserable on the run. I knew at that point that I had made a really foolish decision on the bike and was not only hot, but dehydrated. My legs felt awesome. The rest of my body said....eff off. I did a run walk strategy and played with time. I knew if I could pull off a 2 hour half marathon I would go under 5:30, which seemed to be a reasonable time to me at this point. 9 minute miles became the mile split goal.
At mile 4 I picked it up a bit and looked up, where there was a clock by the tourist falls area - it read 34 degrees. Now, I'm pretty good at converting kilometres to miles, but the Celsius to Fahrenheit eludes me. I caught up with a dude who was looking strong ahead of me and prefaced my question with - "Pardon me - I'm a stupid American - but do you know how hot 34C is in Fahrenheit?" He looked at me, deadpan, and said "Really Fucking Hot!!" and we both started laughing. Well, now I have a friend! This was Mike, who turned into b a great running buddy for the next 5 miles. He was from Ottawa, also had two kids, and was really looking forward to hockey season...like....in the next 5 minutes. We had a great time chatting and forgot about the heat (OK, no we didn't) as we ticked the miles off.
 |
| Me and my new buddy Mike! |
I finished Lap 1 in 57 minutes for 6.5 miles and felt I could likely keep the pace for lap two, and maybe even make my goal window of 5:15-5:25 overall. Risky business halfway through, but sometimes the math is all that gets you from mile to mile...err...kilometre to kilometre. As I headed out for lap two, I saw Bruce coming in and yelled out "GO BRUCE!" really loudly - I had to shelve the "Dammit Bruce" ....as he never passed me. Woot. How, I don't know. I saw Ryan about a mile in and he looked shot - the heat was brutal. I stopped to give him a hug and to tell him to finish it strong, and was off for 5.5 more miles of fun!
While this was not quite the level of my coach peeing himself (it was really no worries, I had done it myself about 50 times that day) it was pretty freaking epic to me to actually hit my damned goal, especially on such a hot, windy day. The last mile was a total blur as I brought it in, a huge smile on my face, totally on top of the world!! Right before I crossed the line I heard some dude yell "Move that sexy ass!" (Hey thanks buddy, can I get your number?) and I sprinted in for a final overall finish of 5:18:36.
 |
| Miles of Smiles |
 |
| Surrounded by greatness. |
Greg finished in 6:40, which was a 40 minute PR for him and completely stellar in the crazy heat
- he did great!
 |
| Glaser's represent! |
Barrelman 2019 -you were epic. Stay tuned for the last part of this series - post race reflections. You know I have thoughts. A lot of them. It's been one hell of a year. I'm still processing all of it....and where to go from here!
Oh. And lest I forget - a special thanks to the Outlaw on his stellar magic trikit. I don't know what you put in it, buddy (And...uhhh.... I really don't want to know, TBH) but it freaking worked.
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PS...I'm not giving it back. Just kidding. Or am I?
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