So, there I was, moving to a new apartment. Hauling the boxes into and out of the car. I looked over at the Orbea with its Clif bar stickers, sexy new saddle, and time trial wheels and thought, "it needs to go race". I had read about the Oregon Trout City of Portland race in its inaugural last year. Inside Triathlon gave it high marks. And I was looking for an excuse to go to Portland anyway. Erika had her tribabe booth set up at the expo and I was all out of excuses.
I cruised up on Sunday morning, and amazingly got there with plenty of time. I had downloaded and printed out everything that I could possibly have wanted to know about the race... and left it at home. It was good I got there early because, without visible signage, I remember where to park and there were a few snafoos getting into transition... for one, they required that I be body-marked and have my number on my helmet and bike before I entered transition. That's a new one. But, I obliged without too much grumbling. Then, because I was a late entry, I had to run to the finish line to get my timing chip. The guy there was none to happy about it, commenting "Do you know how much I charge the race director for assigning a chip day-of-race?" I responded, "Probably, less than the $15 dollars extra I am charged for signing up late." And all he had to do was punch in three numbers on a key pad. It looked hard. I politely apologized for signing up late anyway.
My warm-up was a jog back to the transition and a quick change into my sunshine-Sunny Splish suit followed by a hurry-up-and-wait jog to the swim start. The swim was a down and back in the Willamette River (I love river swims) under two bridges. The men's got to go first, after a little bit of warm-up. Then it was the ladies turn. However, because the waves were set to go two minutes a part, we barely had time to get our feet in the water before the air horn sounded. I took off quickly, but as is usual, one or two girls jumped off the front immediately, dusting (splashing?) the rest of the field in their wake. Except for a tiny bit of trouble distinguishing the white buoys from the white swim caps of the men in front of me, the swim was fun and fast and over with before I knew it.
I actually gained some ground on a couple of girls toward the end of the swim.... and managed to come out of the water in third. Running through transition, someone yelled to me,"she is three minutes ahead!" Who? How did that happen? Fortunately, I was feeling like a studette, ready to make quick work of the three-loop 24 mile course. But first, I had to contend with the first four miles that were all uphill! Yeah, baby! Anyone who knows me knows that I love climbing uphill (however much I say I don't like them). And, what goes up must come down, and man did we come down: through a park, with descending angle turns and closed to traffic so that only locals were allowed to drive through. This meant taking the downhill turns like Hincapie in the Tour de Missouri, all the while in aerobars. I only got passed by one guy the entire race! The course got a little interesting on the second and third laps when I joined with people just beginning the bike portion of their race. But for the most part people knew to ride on the right side of the left of the road ;-) And coming through the cheering alley three times definitely jazzed me up.
One downfall of the three-loop course, I had no idea if I had passed the woman in front of me or not. But that question was quickly answered for me out of transition (had a little bit of an issue with mud and trying to get the shoes on that slowed me down a bit) when a familiar voice from my Pac Crest race yelled out, "she's only a minute up on you." Only! I was feeling good anyway (thanks to the cool temps and the caffeine jolt from a cola Clif Shot... which are sadly no more and I am on my last box... gonna have to try the espresso or mocha flavors), so I settled into a 5:55/mile pace, up a hill and over a bridge across the Wilamette I could just make out the Avia uniform ahead of me... but I wasn't sure that was the girl (there were some sprint racers already on the course) because she was a good 1:30 up on me. I bombed down some stairs and zigzagged on the pedestrian walkway before landing on the floating dock and confirming that Avia-girl was indeed who I was trying to catch... that left me trying to figure out who it was! I continued to gain ground on her, but only took 35 seconds out of her lead on the first 5K lap. I had some work to do , so I dropped a 5:40 mile on the slightly more downhill mile 4, but that only brought me so close. In the end, I came heart-breakingly close to catching her in the final straightaway, 10 seconds, before easing in for 2nd a new 10K PR of 36:36. When I saw who it was, my first thought was, you have got to be kidding... Emily Finanger, a fellow Boulderite Pro come to race this little race in Portland, OR. But then I found out that she was just visiting her sister and felt like racing. I can't argue with that, because I do it all the time.
All-in-all a great day. Great bread (see below my new pal Dave) at the expo. Great Post-race meal (Tillamook yoghurt, fresh bagels and cream cheese, and baked potato soup). Fun, fun, fun.
And 2nd, ain't so bad! |
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