Tri Indy Olympic Distance

On Saturday August 6th I met up with my friends Melanie and Liz.  We were traveling together to the Tri Indy Triathlon in Indianapolis.  It has been such a long time since I have been in Indianapolis.  I think the last time I was there was when my aunt and uncle lived there, like when I was in junior high. We chatted about many topics on the way down and back.  One thing that was cool, no drama amongst the three of us, loved that.

So we arrive in Indianapolis and head to the venue to pick up our packets.  In this event, they allowed 1500 athletes  total for a duathon (run, bike, run ), sprint triathlon 9 500 swim, 12.5 bike, 5k run ), and Olympic distance triathlon (1500 swim, 24.9 bike, 10 K run).  Nice size.  The packet pick-up was small, which was fine, less chance for me to see something I want spend too much money.  At packet pick-up we ran into a colleague of Melanie's.  She told him that I was going to beat him, in a joking manner. I am sure that I turned beat red and just smiled. No pressure or anything. During packet pick-up we tried to find out when transition opened, we got a few different answers.  I was like oh boy, especially since I like to get to transition early, get my stuff put up, and sit down and relax. 

Then we decided to head to our hotel, which was about 15 minutes from the venue.  We got there, got ourselves settled, and then headed back into town to meet up with our other friends at Buca Di Peppo.  On the way into town we understood why every hotel in downtown was book, Gaming convention. By that I mean video games and man some of those people were out there.  They dress in costume and all.  Dinner was very good and relaxing.  We were heading back to the car when I noticed this gentlemen.  At first I was like oh my he has a REALLY bad sunburn, then I noticed the devil tail attached to his rear end.  If only I had my camera out.  All I have on him is oh dear.

We decided that we were going to leave the hotel at 5 and drive to the venue.  We parked and pumped our  bikes with air, then headed to transition and got set up.  At about 7 Melanie and I headed towards the start of the swim, which was about a 20 minute walk. We swam in a canal, which was about up to my hip.  The start was a time trial start, which is good if people are honest with themselves.  Of course some are not.  I started the swim about 11 minutes into the race.  You have to go down a ramp, which I think I granny walked because I thought I was going to slip.  The race director also let us know there was no driving or cannonballs, I was like come on, no cannonballs, what fun are you? So I get in and go.  When I would sight, I would check to see where people were at and try to catch them.  Again problem with the time trial start, I must have caught about 20 or people in swim.  I am a good swimmer, but I don't think  I should have caught that many people. The nice part was that the canal was so wide that it was easy to get around them. I am sure that some people put themselves higher on the swim, so they do get a good advantage on the bike and are probably decent cyclists. On this swim I liked how the course directors put buoys up so that no one hit the nice statues in the canal. I am one that would do something clutzy like that.  I made the last turn for the swim out. As I was making my way up the stairs a gentleman with a baby jogger looked like he was going to step in front of me, but he stopped. I told him thank you.  I got to transition and got my bike stuff on.  As I was making my way out there were a bunch of guys screwing around in the aisle.  I yelled excuse me, the volunteer yelled move out of her way. I was like thank you and better you than me.  They did run the risk of me just plowing them over.

Onto the bike. One thing that needs to be fixed.  We were heading out and first thing we do to get onto the road is go over a curb with plywood.  My back wheel got stuck briefly going over the curb.  I had a moment of panic, thinking, oh I am going to fall, but got over and off I was going.  The bike course was a two loop course.  This course has the potential to be a speedy course, but a lot of the roads needed to be repaved.  There were a lot of blind 90 degree turns.  Regardless I made it through.  On my second loop I had everything I could do not to laugh. Down one street, there was a bike lane, but eventually there was not enough space for all of us.  I see and car and I hear the police officer yelling at the guy in the car to get out of the way.  Then I hear the guy yelling hey cop, what the F.... do you want me to go, why you yelling at me and he had this really high pitch squeaky voice.  I was like I got to get out of here because I was laughing so hard. The laugh was a nice break from the amount of swearing going on in my head over all the huge bumps and potholes.  Finally back into transition and get my running stuff on.

Now, most people who know me, know the run is my  favorite part.  I came out of transition and grabbed a quick drink of water.  The run was also a two loop course.  I actually enjoyed that because at the end I didn't know who was on what loop, so I was motivated to go get some more people.  I came around the first loop and was feeling great. We made the turn to start the second loop and had to go down like 5 stairs.  As I am gingerly going down I was like really.  To start the second loop is a water station. I went for water and the girl dropped the cup.  This guy behind me tells me "you didn't want that anyway." I was like no, good thing there is another station in a mile. I continued to feel great and got to the next station. Unfortunately, there was only 3 people working the station.  I was able to speed up around a few people and grab a cup of water off the table and went.  I made my way around a few more people before I hit the bridge, which would have been hard to pass people.  Just after mile 5 I saw the gentleman my friend Melanie told I would beat him.  I was ahead of him coming out of the swim, he passed me on the bike, and I passed him back on the run.  At that moment we were crossing a street and one of the volunteers says go 150 (my bib number), which was a huge motivator as well. I got ahead of him.  I was like okay, I'm holding up my end of the bargain here. Phew!!!!.  As I was coming to the split again I could see the finish area.  I saw the clock and it said 2:44 and some change. I knew that I had start about 11 minutes in and bolted up the last bridged and into the finish.  I got some water and went back into the transition to grab my recovery drink and camera.

After I finished I made my way to an area before that last bridge so I could see my friends and get pictures of them.  I later learned that when Melanie and Brian were passing me, one guy running with Melanie told her there is you ( meaning me because we have the same uniform).  I was able to get some pictures. I stayed around that area for a while and then I thought awards were going on so I made my way back towards the finish area. They weren't doing awards, but I saw an area for results.  I went and found mine.  I was thrilled, 2:34:12, 2nd in my age. Here was the last bad part, I asked when the awards ceremony was.  She told me there was no awards ceremony and that I would have to call the race management because they ran out of awards.  OKAY, how does that happen?  Not a big deal, but still like oh.

I didn't know my splits until I got home.  MJ, my coach asked me where she thought I improved the most. I was like well, let me get back to you on that one, don't know splits. I didn't start my watch purposely today because I didn't want to know or spend my whole race looking at it. Great thing about the race, results were up when I went to look for them.  I am on cloud 109, forget 9.  Swim 28:58, bike 1:13:26 (average 20 mph), and run 48:13 ( average 7:45 per mile). So very excited.  5 weeks for now I will be at Ironman Wisconsin. I am very excited.  Let the fun begin!!!!!!!!!!!!