Race report: It was sunny in Sunriver!

Well, I won.  And if that is all you need to know.... stop reading... now.  No, now.  No... now :-)  Oh, keep reading.  I promise you'll like the ending.

Erika, Bill, Marshall (the puppy), and I headed out of Corvallis on Friday afternoon. The logistics of a point-to-point race meant that we had to get our packets and set up T2 that day so that on race morning we didn't have to end up driving 70+ miles. Packet pick-up was pretty uneventful and switching out of my age group and into the elite wave proved to be merely a matter of finding the right blue-shirted person talking into a walkie-talkie. I dropped my shoes (tongues hanging out of course), Cola Clif Shot, race belt, and new Tribabe.com race visor (that awesomely matched my new suit) off at T2 in an out-of-the-way spot on the 1-20 bib-numbered rack. Then we folded ourselves into the car and drove the bike course in reverse to T1.
Seeing the bike course in reverse was beautiful, but you don't really get a feel for how steep the hills are or how long. But I was glad to have seen it before the race and it was pretty funny getting Bill's commentary on each turn while we were driving it. Parts of the road were lined with snow still. But the scenery! The ribbon of brand-new black top weaved through forests and around lakes and high desert prairies before climbing to the base of the ski slope at Mt. Bachelor.

The view from mile 20 on the bike section.

Our plan was to camp out somewhere near T1 and the start of the swim so that we could rack our bikes in the morning and not have to get up early to get ready and pack up the camping gear. "Near T1" turned out to be an understatement as we got the last spot in the campground that was essentially 1/4 mile away.

In the morning, we got up and wheeled our bikes over to T1, meeting up with the first of the racers to arrive from town (bunch of crazies that arrive more than 2 hours before the start... including several of the OSU crew including eventual winner Matt Lieto and runner-up Kirk Nelson from my old haunting grounds!). The sun had already been up for hours and I could feel the heat of the day beginning to gather. Bill and I walked back to our campsite and made breakfast. I had my traditional oatmeal + goodness + coffee and Bill wolfed down a chocolate eclair. Around 8:15, after packing up the car, applying liberal amounts of sunscreen, and saying bye to Erika and Marshal, we mosied on over to the start. I did a 10-minute jog up the road, stretched and then it was time to get into my wetsuit.

At the swim start, I stood on the dock with Erin Ford and met Kat Baker for the first time (even though we raced at Wildflower). We were just chatting away about racing and the weather when all of a sudden, the horn blew. We all whipped around, uttered a harmless expletive, pulled down our goggles and dove off the dock. Despite that, I had a pretty great as my dive got me right into the mix.

I was in a rhythm immediately, siting the far buoy on the first long straight-away (the middle buoy was slightly offset to the center and not in line) when I noticed a group of seven or eight swimmers from my wave way off to the left about 200 yds ahead of me. I continued to follow my line, all-the-while keeping an eye on them. Before long, they were back in-line with me and the buoy but now barely 20 yds ahead of me. I stopped and took a few backstroke pulls looking to see if I had missed a buoy on the course. Seeing nothing around me but the soul who was desperately clinging to my draft, I flipped back over and continued on, thankful I had learned to swim in a straight line early (thanks to Bettina!)

I came out of the swim feeling awesome and ran up the short ramp to my bike. I picked it out instantly with it's new white Specialized saddle (looking like a lighthouse beacon because it sits so high) that was meant to solve my girlie woes (Thank you, Tool! Tool is actually my friend Andrew and is a very good triathlete, but I have known him since he was 18 and unfortunately, the nickname stuck)... As I exited transition, Erika yelled that I was only 1:30 down on Erin and Kat was just :45 ahead of me. I yelled out, "you're kidding" and proceeded to do a terrible imitation of a flying mount.

The bike started out on rolling hills for about 15 miles before starting the fit-and-start ascent up Mt. Bachelor. I traded positions with an M-Dot on the bike, he passing me on the downhill and I passing him on the uphill. On one of his downhill passes, he yelled out "I'm maintaining 300 watts." When I passed him back, I yelled out "I'm racing". I don't think he liked that very much because on his next pass he put on a major surge, and I didn't see him for the rest of the race.

Aside: ...until afterward when he explained to me that he has done several Ironman races at that power and yadda, yadda, yadda. I am sure he is very nice. This is the second race that we have met up, but to each his own...I was trying to catch women, but only during the race.

By this time, it was staring to heat up. I caught and passed JoeB around the 15 mile mark and he told me I was doing really well on the bike. I encouraged him along and continued to power up the hill. About 5 miles later he passed me back, and yelled out "Now it is on". Thank God whatever "it" was that got turned on..I was really worried I had been going too fast. Because of the heat, I took ice water bottles at aid station 1 and 3 and poured these on my back and legs. Not even the cool air pockets coming off the snow could take the heat edge off the day. But after all the build-up of the climb, it only registered a 4.7 on my devastation scale (remember, I've done Flagstaff, repeatedly). At the top, I switched into the highest gear I had and prepared to bomb down the last 16 miles. And while it was a wickedly fast descent, between the newly straightened and paved road and the absence of most vehicles, a head wind kept me from opening it up much over 40 mph. And I cruised into Sunriver with an average of 21.0 mph for the 56 miles course.

In T2, I could see that careful placement of my shoes had come to no avail as there was a bike racked squarely on top of them. But, no matter, I racked my bike further down the rack, took off my helmet, and ran back for my stuff. I had no trouble getting all my elasticized pieces in place and I bounded out on to the run course.

At this point, I knew that I had passed Erin earlier on the bike, but I had never seen Kat and I wasn't sure if she was still in front of me or behind because of all the half-iron duathletes that had invaded the bike course while we swam and required passing. I decided to run like I was in second, but the bounding only lasted a half-mile as the waves of heat off the blacktop running path began to slow my steps. The first two aid stations only had warm water and Hammer Heed (nothing I have ever trained with) and not to mention the volunteer on his cell phone that I almost had to push out of the way to get at the drinks on the table. Then there was a long stretch to the third aid station in which I began to mentally write a letter to the race director about the hazards of not having ice and regular aid station on a 95 degree run in the sun at altitude. Somewhere in there, I finally spotted Kat and "convincingly " (or, so I thought) passed her. At station three which was actually closer to mile 4, there was cold water, ice, more Heed, and super helpful volunteers... and I had to start redrafting my letter :-)

It was about this time that I decided the best way to survive the heat was too walk through every aid station, taking on as much -ice cold water on my skin as possible.  I would leap-frog from aid station to aid station, spotting the ridiculously bright neon yellow T-shirts of the volunteers through the trees, spurring me on to certain cooling.  This lasted through mile 7 at which point I ran into Erika on the course.  She yelled for me to "dig deep" as Kat was right behind me.  I realized two things at this point.  One, I would come up empty-handed if I tried to dig deep and Kat had not been convinced when I passed her.  TIme for drastic measures.  I was dimly aware that the announcer had mentioned something about Red Bull at mile 8.  I decided then and there that all that caffeine-taurine-sugar-carbonated goodness would be mine.  I sprinted up to the station, grabbed the can, chugged every drop and slammed the empty into the trash can.  Two points!

The only immediate effect was the refreshment of drinking something ice cold.  But, within a mile I had a Red-Bull-induced 2nd wind that lasted 'til mile 12 and was enough to seal the deal on 1st place.  I cruised in the last mile, winning by less than a minute, threw my arms up in victory, and slowly sauntered to the med tent and to be covered with ice cold towels by sexy EMTs.  My personal reward for sticking it out and scraping the bottom of the barrel for every last ounce of energy and motivation.

Some post-race reflections:

1) The new saddle worked out great, but next time I should at least do one ride on it before racing.

2) Given that I consumed about 6000 calories in the next 24 hours (and only about 200 of that was frothy beverage), it would have been a good idea to have one more Clif shot at some point.

3) Point-to-point races require a little bit more planning than one would expect.

4) There really isn't much more I could have done to be ready for the heat and the altitude (except maybe move back to Boulder).

5) Winning isn't everything.  I was definitely hurting out there.  But I am proud of my race strategy and my effort, if not the actual race.

Vital statistics:

Swim: 30:01

Bike: 2:40:44

Run 1:35:53 (fastest female on the day; 13th overall)

Overall: 4:48:55 (1st female; 18th overall)