Wow! Get ready for a wild one.
I love racing in Vegas, it always presents the most amazing challenges. And I've had some of my most memorable adventures in and around the area. The Showdown at Sundown did not disappoint.
Major props to Sunset Racing for putting on their first half-ironman in the area. This was a no frills, just race event where the focus was "let's do a half-ironman". It was billed as a practice race for people training for ironman. But it was also a race designed for people that want more than 70.6 of racing. They want scenery and hills and technical challenge. In short, they want a race! And they don't want to get up at 4:00AM in the morning to do it.
Que? Yup, that's right. The race started at 1:00 PM. Which means, I rolled out of bed at my usual time of 6:18 AM to a beautiful sunrise across the dappled lake and red-painted hills of the high desert. I consumed coffee and oatmeal and eggs for breakfast and got about getting my race bag ready to go. I went for a short, short run with Gordie before we were turned back by the wind, deciding that we were going to get enough of that in the afternoon. I did about twenty minutes of yoga on the balcony over-looking the lake, busied myself with a few sundry details, and then chilled on the couch with Steig Larsson's latest novel. Around 11:00 AM, I had breakfast again: oatmeal and peanut butter and honey sandwich with a banana on the side, and a bit more coffee.
Gordie and I meandered over to the race start around 11:45. It took a bit of rearranging on the bike racks to squeeze my transition in, but I tried to be respectful of other people's space. Turns out I was surrounded on the rack by virtual newbies and we ended up having a mini-demonstration of transition set-up right there. My race compadres were pretty receptive as I explained about the best way to set up a transition so that it would stay relatively unmolested as people ran in and out during the race, no small feat.
I skipped my running warm-up, preferring to contort and wiggle into my wetsuit for a couple hundred yards pre-swim swim in the lake. Easier said than done... the swimming part that is (the contort and wiggle is always a difficult dance move). Why? The water was 63 °F! I jumped in anyway and spent the next five minutes trying to acclimate my freezing face in the water so that I could actually breath while swimming. After that I spent five minutes waving down the rescue boat with a few other swimmers... we were trying to draw attention to the 2ft. dead fish floating about 20 ft in front of the start line. Eee-oohhw!
I climbed out for the last pre-race briefing, humming the star-spangled banner, and waited for the first wave of 35 and younger men to take off. Then I jumped on in and had to re-acclimate my face. So much for that.
We spread out in a long line of wetsuit clad, neon-pink be-capped triathletes as the horn blew. I positioned myself smack in the middle, and immediately observed that I was the strongest swimmer in the group. Within a couple hundred yards, there were no more pink caps in my field of vision. And as I passed the first of three buoys on the way out, breast-stroking green caps came into view. I was in a rhythm immediately... left-right-breath-left-right-left-sight-breath. I held my line beautifully, even as the water got choppier from the wind and passing boats. Only one time, on the way back into the dock, did I lose sight of the buoys in the sun and have to take a few breaststrokes to find my bearings. At the dock, I swam to one of four ladders (the one I thoroughly tested for its steadiness) and found my friend Kirk ready to haul me the last few rungs. Cheers! I ran forward to my flip-flops, an absolute necessity for the pea-gravel run into transition. Then I made my awkward wet-suit-stripping, prancing-in-flip-flops-gallop toward my gear.
Immediately out of transition, the course proceeded up a rather steep hill that required me to do some climbing out of the saddle. The roll in to it was so short that I did not have any time to get my shoes on, so that had to wait until more than a half mile into the course. I did remember, however, to put the bike in a somewhat smaller gear for the start so I was doing any knee-busting grinding right off the bat (word on the street is that there were a couple of oops-c-daisies from other competitors who had forgotten... doh! I hate that!).
So, here's how the bike went... What goes up, surely, at some point, must come down. Right? But only after gusting head and side winds and after passing through a beautifully harsh landscape that resembled Mars with shrubs... that's right, the bike course. Good news is... I've still got it. The hill-climbing ability, that is. I actually caught and passed a number of my competitors on the glorious hills. But, I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was going much slower than I planned. I hit the turn around point near mile 30 and looked down at the computer only to discover that I had averaged a whopping 17.5 mph up to that point. Huh?! I normally put down around 21 mph for the bike course, so this was unchartered territory. But, my place among my competitors confirmed that this was probably not a bad result. So, I pushed it out of mind, stopped to fill my water bottle from the cooler, and took off... uphill.
But not for long... because within a mile, I realized that the wind was mostly at my back (with a few cross-gusts), and I was now bombing back down all that uphill! I hit 45 mph on three separate hills, and I am pretty sure that there was almost a 10-mile section of uninterrupted road where I never dropped below 25 mph. All the same, I still had to climb out of the park. And, and so with six miles to go, I was ready for the run to get there. I managed to maneuver my way out of the park and into the busy resort area without too much incident and switched gears and gear for the last stretch.
My legs were under me almost immediately. I virtually pranced through the cobbled pseudo-village of shops out onto the "neighborhood" road that made up the run course. I passed two guys almost immediately, one who commented that I was "making it look entirely too easy". Secret smile.
Check out me sweet Splish "duds":
The run course was an out-back-out-back with one giant hill in the middle that we went over four times. There was no flat. It literally was up for a mile and a half, down for a mile and a half, up for a mile and a half, down for a mile and a half.... you get the idea. I walked most of the aid stations and egged on Gordie every time I saw him. I even got "super-starred" by the second place woman who was no slouch herself. I took in a gulp of Heed (that's what they had) and a gulp of water at each aid station (spaced out at the ends and midway through each out-and-back). Every three miles or so, I sucked down one Cola Clif Blok that I had in my hand. Basically, that's how the run went. It was steady, not too stressful, and I had a lot left at the end to really hammer that last downhill and the approach to the finish. But before I got there, I ran past a wedding that was just starting on the veranda of the resort about a mile from the finish. I got a couple of "you-go-girl"s from the attendees. And then, I ran by the bride herself, who had the (mis)fortune of having to walk along the river path that was our race course to get to her wedding. I told her congrats on the way by and she yelled "you, too!" That's a first.
Well, I didn't finish at sundown, but the sun was definitely approaching the horizon. I managed a very respectable 4:50 on that crazy course, and finished 10th overall and 1st overall female. This was the first half-ironman since my poor showing at Wildflower last year, and only my second half-marathon in as much time. So, cheers to me... I'm a happy camper! Ready for the next one... whenever that will be (I'll let you know for sure). Thanks for watching!
Good morning!
Gordie and I meandered over to the race start around 11:45. It took a bit of rearranging on the bike racks to squeeze my transition in, but I tried to be respectful of other people's space. Turns out I was surrounded on the rack by virtual newbies and we ended up having a mini-demonstration of transition set-up right there. My race compadres were pretty receptive as I explained about the best way to set up a transition so that it would stay relatively unmolested as people ran in and out during the race, no small feat.
Gordie and I hamming it up before the race...
I skipped my running warm-up, preferring to contort and wiggle into my wetsuit for a couple hundred yards pre-swim swim in the lake. Easier said than done... the swimming part that is (the contort and wiggle is always a difficult dance move). Why? The water was 63 °F! I jumped in anyway and spent the next five minutes trying to acclimate my freezing face in the water so that I could actually breath while swimming. After that I spent five minutes waving down the rescue boat with a few other swimmers... we were trying to draw attention to the 2ft. dead fish floating about 20 ft in front of the start line. Eee-oohhw!
I climbed out for the last pre-race briefing, humming the star-spangled banner, and waited for the first wave of 35 and younger men to take off. Then I jumped on in and had to re-acclimate my face. So much for that.
We spread out in a long line of wetsuit clad, neon-pink be-capped triathletes as the horn blew. I positioned myself smack in the middle, and immediately observed that I was the strongest swimmer in the group. Within a couple hundred yards, there were no more pink caps in my field of vision. And as I passed the first of three buoys on the way out, breast-stroking green caps came into view. I was in a rhythm immediately... left-right-breath-left-right-left-sight-breath. I held my line beautifully, even as the water got choppier from the wind and passing boats. Only one time, on the way back into the dock, did I lose sight of the buoys in the sun and have to take a few breaststrokes to find my bearings. At the dock, I swam to one of four ladders (the one I thoroughly tested for its steadiness) and found my friend Kirk ready to haul me the last few rungs. Cheers! I ran forward to my flip-flops, an absolute necessity for the pea-gravel run into transition. Then I made my awkward wet-suit-stripping, prancing-in-flip-flops-gallop toward my gear.
Mounting up...
Immediately out of transition, the course proceeded up a rather steep hill that required me to do some climbing out of the saddle. The roll in to it was so short that I did not have any time to get my shoes on, so that had to wait until more than a half mile into the course. I did remember, however, to put the bike in a somewhat smaller gear for the start so I was doing any knee-busting grinding right off the bat (word on the street is that there were a couple of oops-c-daisies from other competitors who had forgotten... doh! I hate that!).
So, here's how the bike went... What goes up, surely, at some point, must come down. Right? But only after gusting head and side winds and after passing through a beautifully harsh landscape that resembled Mars with shrubs... that's right, the bike course. Good news is... I've still got it. The hill-climbing ability, that is. I actually caught and passed a number of my competitors on the glorious hills. But, I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was going much slower than I planned. I hit the turn around point near mile 30 and looked down at the computer only to discover that I had averaged a whopping 17.5 mph up to that point. Huh?! I normally put down around 21 mph for the bike course, so this was unchartered territory. But, my place among my competitors confirmed that this was probably not a bad result. So, I pushed it out of mind, stopped to fill my water bottle from the cooler, and took off... uphill.
But not for long... because within a mile, I realized that the wind was mostly at my back (with a few cross-gusts), and I was now bombing back down all that uphill! I hit 45 mph on three separate hills, and I am pretty sure that there was almost a 10-mile section of uninterrupted road where I never dropped below 25 mph. All the same, I still had to climb out of the park. And, and so with six miles to go, I was ready for the run to get there. I managed to maneuver my way out of the park and into the busy resort area without too much incident and switched gears and gear for the last stretch.
My legs were under me almost immediately. I virtually pranced through the cobbled pseudo-village of shops out onto the "neighborhood" road that made up the run course. I passed two guys almost immediately, one who commented that I was "making it look entirely too easy". Secret smile.
Check out me sweet Splish "duds":
How far am I about to run? And why do I look so happy about it... oh yeah.
I LOVE running.
The run course was an out-back-out-back with one giant hill in the middle that we went over four times. There was no flat. It literally was up for a mile and a half, down for a mile and a half, up for a mile and a half, down for a mile and a half.... you get the idea. I walked most of the aid stations and egged on Gordie every time I saw him. I even got "super-starred" by the second place woman who was no slouch herself. I took in a gulp of Heed (that's what they had) and a gulp of water at each aid station (spaced out at the ends and midway through each out-and-back). Every three miles or so, I sucked down one Cola Clif Blok that I had in my hand. Basically, that's how the run went. It was steady, not too stressful, and I had a lot left at the end to really hammer that last downhill and the approach to the finish. But before I got there, I ran past a wedding that was just starting on the veranda of the resort about a mile from the finish. I got a couple of "you-go-girl"s from the attendees. And then, I ran by the bride herself, who had the (mis)fortune of having to walk along the river path that was our race course to get to her wedding. I told her congrats on the way by and she yelled "you, too!" That's a first.
"Splishdown at Sundown"
Well, I didn't finish at sundown, but the sun was definitely approaching the horizon. I managed a very respectable 4:50 on that crazy course, and finished 10th overall and 1st overall female. This was the first half-ironman since my poor showing at Wildflower last year, and only my second half-marathon in as much time. So, cheers to me... I'm a happy camper! Ready for the next one... whenever that will be (I'll let you know for sure). Thanks for watching!
