Disclaimer: I’ve been working on this post for 3 days now, so it’s very long.
Last year, Lake Havasu was the first triathlon that I had trained for and I've been bitten by the tri bug ever since. After taking a 2.5 month Hiatus from training of any sort, I decided that I wanted to train for the Lake Havasu Tri to kick start my season. I wanted to see how much I've improved and how much I can beat my previous time by, and, I wanted to try to place in my age group, which is 25-29. You see, last year, I had the same goal in mind, to place in my age group, just once, just one tiny, measly little time but I just wasn't able to attain it.For the Havasu Tri, I had been training some what consistently for the last 5-6 weeks, which is a really short period of time, but I still wanted to see if I could pull it off.
So, excited, nervous and anxious, I set off for Havasu City on Friday the 21st with my good friend Karyn. This was her first triathlon ever, and, while I decided to ease into the triathlon season with a mere sprint (500m swim, 12.5 mi bike, 3.1 mi run), Karyn was going all out with a very tough, hilly, olympic distance tri (1500m swim, 25 mi bike, 6.2mi run). That's Karyn's style though, all or nothing. And she has the athleticism to be able to pull it off. Me on the other hand, I'm a little bit more calculated with my moves. I remember how overtrained and fatigued I felt by the end of the Tri season last year because I didnt' plan the season out properly. My goal this year was to NOT push it too much initially, be smarter about my race choices, increase training at a slow and steady rate, and peak in september or october for a half ironman. An olympic distance tri just wasn't in the game plan this early on.
Karyn drove us to Havasu, and I love her to death, but her driving scared the crap out of me! The drive to Havasu is generally rather uneventful, peppered with a few hills and brown desert terrain. With Karyn however, things were a little more interesting. From following cars a too closely for my comfort, to weaving in and out of the lanes to pick up speed, there was never a dull moment.
After what seemed like ages, we finally arrived at Havasu around 3:00pm, which gave us plenty of time to grab a bite to eat at Subways and make it to the race meeting by 4:00pm. The meeting was a whole bunch of the same old same old for me since I had done the race before. The Havasu olympic distance race doubles as a collegiate triathlon race, and it was amazing to see the amount of representation from universities near by, especially the ones from Colorado. There was a huge hoard of 50-60 of them at the race meeting and their presence and unity was intimidating yet very awe inspiring at the same time. Imagine the support system they must have and how they must push each other to achieve excellence. I must admit, I was a little envious.
After the race we decided to check out the bike race course and though it was the same exact course as last year’s, I could have sworn the number of hills had multiplied and gotten steeper since then! This was gonna be tougher than I had anticipated, but my concerns for myself completely vanished when we continued on and checked out the Olympic extension of the course, the one that Karyn had to ride.
We headed up the road to the infamous Crystal beach loop and drove up the first, steep, steep hill. The car shot straight upwards, struggling just a little to make it all the way up. Imagine that! The car was struggling! If the car was having a little trouble making it up, how were the bikers supposed to ride up it? But that wasn’t even the craziest part of the course. Following the gnarly ascent was an equally steep descent down a gravely road. My heart skipped a beat as I stared downwards out of the car and couldn’t see the bottom of the hill…it was that steep. A feeling of concern and anxiousness swept over me. How was Karyn gonna manage? My heart rate sped up and all the blood rushed to my face. All this and I wasn’t even going to ride that part of the course!
Karyn though, bless her heart, seemed to be even more pumped up about the race than she was before she saw the crazy hills. She had this fire in her eyes and a “I signed up for this, I’d better kill it” expression on her face. “Is it crazy that I can’t wait to tackle these hills tomorrow?” she asked me. Yes Karyn, it is crazy. But a good kind of crazy. The kind of crazy I wish I had more of in me. If it were me, I’d be scared to death wondering what if I lose control of my bike, crash, and break my ribs as I’m going down that crazy hill. Not Karyn though. I admire that about her.
After checking out the race course, the day was pretty much uneventful. We walked around some more, grabbed a bite to eat, I ate some ice-cream...well, a lot of ice cream, and then we went to bed.
Transition areas, i.e., the areas where you switch in and out of your swimming, biking and running gear opened at 6:30, so I made sure to be up and out by 6:20 to claim my stake on a sweet spot close to the bike exit. You see, the closer you are to the bike exit, the less distance you have to run with your bike along side you. Since transition time counts as part of your race time, this can save you precious seconds during a race.
After setting up my gear, I still felt pretty sleepy and it was only 6:30am. The race wasn't starting till 8:30, so I decided to go back to the motel (motel 6 baby, that's high class) and take a wittle nap.
The nap was rather refreshing and I felt ready to go race! So, around 7:45, I grabbed my wetsuit and my swimming cap and goggles and was out the door. I usually get a lot gastro-intenstinal distress during races/long workouts so this time, I decided to take a little bit of Gas-X before the race. They say don't try anything new before a race but I was willing to take that risk if it meant less discomfort during the run course.Besides, I really didn't wanna be burpin and tootin my way to the finish line.
I got down to the race start just in time to check my transition area, suited up,and headed down to the water. The swim portion of the race is a wave start swim in Lake Havasu. This means that instead of dukin' it out all at once, they send the racers off wave by wave into the water to avoid overcrowding. My wave started at 9:00pm, we got in the water at 8:55. The director counted down the time until 9:00pm, sounded the bull horn and off we swam.
This year, I didn't line up wayyy in the back of the pack willing to let everyone go right ahead of me. No Sir. I started towards the middle of the pack, ready to throw down. With a few tris under my belt, I knew how the brutal swim worked. I wasn't scared of getting kicked in the face and clobbered over as people swam around and over me. Nor was I scared to throw out a few elbows and push people out of the way myself. Hey man, I know it sounds bad, but it's all part of the game!
The first half of the swim felt steady and good, which is unusual for me. I was able to sight the bouys that were set up for us no problem and I was also able to hang on to the pack for some time. The second half of the swim though wasn't nearly as nice. As the swim went on, the wind picked up and the waters got real choppy. It almost felt like I was swimming in the Ocean, not a nice little man made lake! I drank almost enough water during the swim to keep me hydrated through the rest of the race. Definitely snorted quite a bit of that water up my nose as well.
Gasping and choking, I finally reached the bank and dragged myself out of water. I looked down at my watch and saw that I was already off to a worse start than last year. But unlike usual, I finished with the middle back of the crowd as opposed to being one of the last people out. I guess every one must have had a tough time!
I didn't have time to think about how my swim went for too long and off to transition I went. My wetsuit slipped off like magic as I tore through the bikes, trying to find mine. Ahh there it was, my red silver and black Beast. One bike, helmet, shades, pair of socks and shoes later, I was out the transition ready to go. I was girl on a mission and I couldn't wait to get on the bike course.
The course started off as a slow uphill climb and I couldn’t help but go out a little harder than intended on the bike. What made it even more painful was a very strong head wind blowing directly into me. The same wind that made the waters so darn choppy earlier was out to get at me on the bike course as well. Try as I did, I just couldn't peddle faster. I was starting to get very frustrated, cursing at myself for not training enough, cursing at the hill for being so long, cursing at my bike for being so heavy and then I remembered, the person who has a successful race is the one who adapts to the conditions the best. Frustration was just going to tense me up and waste my precious energy. I decided to be smart, monitor my speed and cadence and push as hard as I could. I kept peddling, I didn’t coast on the bike and I didn't give up.
At around mile three, the course required us to make a right into a very hilly residential area sprinkled with race volunteers and spectators who were pointing us in the right direction and cheering us along the way. The cheers and shouts of encouragement helped me get into a better mood and pipe down the voice of disappointment and frustration in my head. Just tackle them hills as best as you can, I thought to myself. The very hills that feel so awful and defeating on the way up the course will feel, so, so good to fly down on the way back. Come on, come on, go go go. And with that mantra, I chugged on. Up Palo Verde, and down Honey Bee drive. Up and around Cantina lane, tackling each hill one at a time and not letting the wind get the best of me, until I finally reached the turn around point.
Here we go hills, it's payback time. With a new determination in my body and the wind now on my tail, I was ready to make up for lost time. It was mainly downhill from there, and I peddled as hard as I could. And, for the first time in my life, I felt like I was flying on the bike! It was surreal. I was consistently holding between 25-30MPH, even on the parts that weren't downhill. I couldn't believe it. I even managed to whiz by some people that had passed me earlier on! For once in my life, I was doing the passing and not being passed! I was the one yelling "Your left! Passing on your left!" instead of veering to the right to make way for others zooming past me. I was absolutely amazed at myself. I couldn't help but think, if I had started training earlier, if I had been more consistent, I could be doing even better than this.
Usually the run part is my favorite part of the triathlon and I always hold back a little on the bike so I have enough energy to finish strong on the run. This time, however, I decided to go all out on the bike and I loved it! As I rolled back into transition, however, I started coming back down from my biker's high and realized that I still had the run portion ahead of me. I started becoming very aware of the sting in my shins, the pain in my quads, the soreness in my calves and the dehydration in my body as a result of not drinking enough water on the bike. I knew that the run was not going to be nearly as fun and uplifting as it had been in the past.
As I was getting out of my bike gear and slipping into my running shoes, I glanced down at the time. No way. It’s already been an hour and ten minutes. No way I’m placing in my age group. I’ll be lucky if I beat my time by more than a couple of minutes. As disappointed as I was, I couldn’t dwell on that now. I had a 5k run ahead of me.
As if that wasn’t enough, they changed the run course around to make us run through sand for the first 200m or so. Why? Why would you do that race course organizers? Do you wanna kick us while we’re already down? I felt exponentially slower than I did during my practice Bike-Run transition bricks and I had such a hard time running straight and steady through the sand. I was out of breath, in pain and dizzy and then I remembered, I still had to climb the set of stairs leading up to the London Bridge ahead of me.
Climbing those stairs damn near defeated my morale and I started giving up. For a good 3-4min I stopped pushing the pace. Who cares? I’m not gonna place any way. I suck at this anyway. What’s the point? Here’s the point Azra. You can’t let this course defeat you. So maybe you won’t place, you still have to try your best. If you never give it your all, you’ll never know what you’re capable of. Stop this negativity and pick it up. And that is exactly what I did. I had a new goal in mind: Don’t let anyone, I mean ANYONE in your age group pass you.
With this in mind I carried on, and I started passing people. I’d have my eyes set on the person directly ahead of me, hunt em down and check em off my mental list as I passed em. With this attitude, I rounded the turn around point and picked up my pace a little more. I felt this new energy come over me and I continued to pass people left and right. My lungs hurt so bad, but I tried not to pay attention to that. My shins were throbbing out, threatening to give in at any moment, but I kept going. One foot in front of the other, I kept on running.
Alas, the last stretch of the course was finally in sight, and, as I rounded the corner to the finish line, I saw this girl slowly inch past me out of the corner of my eye. In panic, I looked down at her calf. 26. Her age was marked on her calf and it was 26. She was in my age group and she was sneaking past me, trying to beat me to the finish line. Nuh uh. No way was I gonna let that happen. A surge of adrenaline welled up inside me and I started sprinting with everything that I had left in my body. I huffed, and I puffed and I flew past her to the finish line, beating her by a mere 2 seconds. I wanted to puke.
I hobbled across the finisher’s mat to a tree and hunched over, getting ready for the contents of my stomach to hurtle out my esophagus and splatter onto the ground. Luckily, nothing came out. I just burped a bunch (thank God) and, once I felt like I could walk, I limped over to check the race results.
It turns out that those 2 seconds that I beat the 26 year old by were very monumental because I ended up placing 3rd in my division! That’s right! Little old slow poke me! I actually did it! I actually placed in my division! Nevermind that this was a small time race, I accomplished what I had set out to do! I beat my previous time, though by only 2 minutes and even though I was slow, I guess so was everyone else this year.
As for Karyn, she got through her first triathlon just fine! She panicked a tiny bit during the swim but tackled it like a champ and though her bike was giving her grief because it wouldn’t shift through the gears properly, she made it up and down those hills A-okay! She can’t wait to do her next triathlon and is very happy that I nudged her to get into the sport.
The award ceremony afterwards was rather uneventful and I couldn’t manage to get someone to take a picture of me since they were rushing everyone to claim their awards and clear the area. The award itself is an ashtray/jewelry box looking chotchky that has no real use but I don’t care. I am on top of the world.
I can’t wait for my next race. My tri spirit is back baby, and it’s bigger than ever.
So here are the lessons I learned from this race:
1) Adapt to the race. No two races are the same, even if they’re on the same race course
2) Stay positive and focus on doing well instead of being negative and letting things not in your control get you down
3) Take Gas X before the race. I realized afterwards that I didn’t experience any GI issues during the race and I think I have Gas X to thank for that.
4)Take more liquids on the bike! I thought I didn't need as much on the sprint but turns out that dehydration, even for the shorter distances, is a killer!
5) Be more consistent with training for cryin' out loud! That's one lesson I really need to drill down in my head.
6) Don't give up no matter what! It ain’t over till it’s over and you may end up surprising yourself if you give it your all.
