Before the race, Katrina and I had to quickly set up the TA. I raked the TA, since it had tons of pine straw, rocks and pine cones. Katrina set up for check-in and started checking in the racers. She worked her tail off and did a great job. There were tons of people to check in for one person. I helped a little and then her mom showed up and helped a lot.
It was about 9:57 and I had barely prepared myself to race. The rain showers had started to taper off, though, so things were looking up. Finally, to start on time, I told Chris Clemmons to start the race whenever he was ready.
Run 1:
At the race start, all 65 racers took off and headed to Loop A. It was a bit congested at first, so I ran on the side of the trail to pass a couple of people. There were about 6 people ahead of me for most of the trail, but I planned to just stay relaxed and run at a comfortable pace for me. I finished the first run in 6th place, after passing two people and getting passed by one at the end. I finished the run in 19:59, which was a faster time than my training runs.
MBike:
I had a quick transition to the bike and took off. My TA was so fast, I passed a couple of people. Two more passed me on the bike, but I actually felt really good and strong on the bike. I was trying to save a little bit for the last run, but I had a pretty fast ride time. The pre-race rain had packed the trails VERY nicely, which made them fast.
The park had done a controlled burn a couple of days before, so it looked like we were riding around Hawaii's smoking volcanoes. This did not pose a problem, except on D-loop. There were about 4 trees down on the trails. This caused me to dismount and go over or under. One wasn't really on the trail, but right beside it. I could not see where the trail was, so I stopped and looked around. I finally found it, so dragged by back tire to help other racers behind me see the route more easily.
I did not use my brakes much, since the trails were so packed, it was pretty easy to corner without slowing. Plus, I wasn't trying to go fast. I was just trying to stay steady. I knew I would finish the ride in less than an hour, so I didn't figure too many people would pass me.
I finished the mountain bike at 59:30, which included my transition time from run to bike. I was pretty impressed with how fast I did that, since it was less than an hour for the ride + TA. My legs still felt very strong, so I quickly transitioned to the run.
Run 2:
As I was running out of the TA past the TA Tent, Katrina said, "Good job, baby". I could tell she was as surprised as I was by how fast I was going ;-P . I saw both of the guys who passed me on the mountain bike while on the run. One guy was 2 minutes 6 seconds ahead and the other was about 44 seconds ahead.
About that time, Chris' family was volunteering at the intersection of loops A & B. His daughter said, "You're in like 5th place!" I was kind of surprised and said, "Wow!".
I passed the closest guy to me at the start of A loop, just past the volunteers. I didn't know if he would be strong enough to pass me later, since I have NEVER previously run the whole loop without walking up a hill or two. I felt strong, so decided to push myself to a faster pace and just see what happened.
I kept seeing the other guy ahead of me that was over 2 minutes ahead. I finished the first run just ahead of that guy, so I was thinking I could beat him on the run, especially, if he pushed real hard on the bike and had drained his legs.
I ended up running the whole trail on BOTH running legs, which was a first for me. I closed the gap on the guy ahead, but finished 10 seconds behind him. I was pretty happy that I was able to close 2 minutes, but wished I had another 200 meters :)
My second run was 21:52, for a total race time of 1:41:21. I finished in 5th place overall and 3rd place in my division.
I was very happy with this time. This was almost seven minutes faster than any of my training times.
As a joke before the race, I told Justin I was going to try to beat his time from last year. I didn't really think I could, but I was ribbing him for not being able to come :). Turns out, I did beat his time by over a minute, which amazed me too. Justin's FAST!
