GENERAL STUFF: Well, it was quite a weekend in Mesa. I drove up on Saturday morning and went directly to registration. I picked up my stuff and was told that there would be no race meetings since no one was sticking around for one. I asked a couple of questions and then headed over to the transition area to set up my bike and stuff. I set up and got my stuff out and realized that I had forgotten chamois butter. Now, that should have been a sign that the weekend wasn’t going to go as planned.

I got back to the hotel and tried to go to sleep. I turned off the lights at 8:30pm, and finally fell asleep around 9:30pm. I woke up at 1:33am, and that was that: no more sleep for me. I finally got out of bed at 3am and got ready to go. I checked out, filled up my camelback, loaded it with perpetuem and sat in the car until 4am, when Anne met me outside and we drove off to the race. We finished getting our transition set up and I decided to leave my glasses in my bike helmet so Anne got to drive us to the water user’s parking lot. There was a shuttle from there to the race start and so we got body marked and climbed on the bus.

THE RACE: When we got to the swim start, we found that the lifeguards hadn’t shown up yet, and the buoys hadn’t been placed in the water. Everyone eventually showed up and the buoys were set up and we only started the race 15 minutes late. To get into the water, you had to go down a narrow path that was littered with old concrete blocks (all tilted) that were coated with slime. As some of you know, my balance is the pits and after I started slipping and almost shoved some poor woman down the slope into the water, I got plenty of space from the other racers and plenty of help from the guys making sure no one died getting into the water. We had a 150 yard swim to the starting place and then, we were off!

The swim was interesting for me in that I felt good and I didn’t have any of those panicky feelings that I had a Sahuarita, and the water temperature was great. The biggest problem I had was that I couldn’t see the buoys. Now, you know those things are about 8 feet tall, and I still couldn’t see them. I got off course a couple of times and had to stop swimming and either ask the lifeguards where I was, or scan the entire lake until I could finally spot a buoy or another swimmer. I just kept on keepin’ on until finally, I made it around the giant yellow buoy and headed back to Butcher Jones Cove. When I got out of the water, I realized that I was one of the last people out of the water. I started across the beach and the wash to get to transition and when I got there, I saw that I was the second to last person to get to transition. All I saw was a sea of empty bike racks. This was another clue that things weren’t going to go quite the way I wanted them to that day. The race coordinator came over and was helping to shove my stuff into the transition bag and I finally got out and on the road.

The road out of transition is a big hill. I was feeling kind of upset about taking so long on the swim that everyone else was gone, with the exception of one other woman, but I figured that it was all going to be ok, just keep pedaling. Then that last woman passed me. Then all the event staff passed me in their cars to go to the next transition spot. I kept pedaling. I got to the top of the hill and headed down the course and felt not so great. I couldn’t seem to get into the rhythm of the race. I arrived at Usury Pass and made the left turn without slowing down too much and started up the big hill. I had been worried about this hill since the trip up to check out the course and here it was. I originally thought that I might have exaggerated how bad it was in my own mind, but this ride confirmed that it was as bad as I thought it was. About a mile into it, the two guys who did the half-Ironman in 4.5 hours that day passed me. I just kept going.

As I am pedaling along at a stately 6mph, I realize that there is a truck behind me, on the shoulder. I keep hearing this “vroom, vroom, crunch crunch crunch” sound and I am thinking, “why doesn’t this guy just pass??” Well, finally I stop and ask him what he is doing and I find out that he is the end guy who stays with the last person in the race and that he will be behind me for the rest of the race. The “vroom, vroom, crunch crunch crunch” sound is when he is pressing on the accelerator to get closer to me and then the crunch of the gravel under the car tires. This was not great moment for me. I was sitting there on the bike and realizing that I was dead last. Psychologically, it was a killer. However, I thought that I would just keep going and I was bound to catch up with someone. About every minute or so, I hear the “vroom, vroom, crunch crunch crunch” of the truck behind me. I make it off Usury Pass and around the turns and keep going, still being reminded every couple of minutes that I was last by the “vroom, vroom, crunch crunch crunch” of the truck. I got back on Power Road and I thought that I could get things going now – I was done with Usury Pass and I could make up some time. I kept pedaling and tried to hope for the best. However, by now, I was feeling pretty bad mentally and yes, here comes the “vroom, vroom, crunch crunch crunch” of the truck, yet again. It was awful. It was 28 miles of hearing that damn truck behind me.

By the time I got to the turn around I was not at my best in any way. I was feeling defeated and so sad because I had gotten there (after one loop of the bike course) in 2 hours and 45 minutes. I was also hurting – the lack of chamois butter had really made itself felt, my lower back was killing me, I realized that during the swim I had yanked a muscle in my right arm and it was hard to hold on to the handlebars, and I had managed to chafe my neck during the swim too. However, mostly I was just upset about the the race and the bike ride – the whole thing. Then, the guy in the truck got out and told me (very delicately) that he didn’t think that the race people were going to let me finish the ride. I lost it – and cried, right there in public – but only in front of the volunteers since there were no racers around because they were so far ahead of me. I rode my bike over to my car and kept on crying… I was so disappointed in myself and what was happening. I had given in – mentally I came up way short and I try very hard to not do that. Generally, I can just overcome the inclination to quit and keep on going, even if I am hurting and having a tough time. I feel like I should have just tried anyway and kept going – headed back out on the course for the second loop for as long as I could, but I gave up.

WHAT I LEARNED: I really need a pair of prescription goggles. I need to ignore what is going on around me and not pay any attention to the other racers or race staff. I need to do even more hills while training.