Race Report: Bare Hill Triathlon

Bare Hill Sprint Triathlon (Relay)

.5 mile swim / 10.5 mile bike / 3.2 mile run

June 30, 2013
Harvard, MA
Start time 8am
Swim time (14:45)

The only thing that beats doing a triathlon relay with your parents is doing a triathlon relay with your boss. A week after last week's sprint relay with the folks, I find myself at another sprint triathlon, doing the swim portion again, but this time with two of my co-workers (one of them being the aforementioned boss.) I might have a slight reputation around the office for coercing people into signing up for races encouraging others to follow their dreams. Last year the entire office participated in a local 5k race. 5k's are so 2012, so I have been working the triathlon angle this year. I had just signed up for the JCC tri, without my coach's permission, even though she supported the decision (or pretended she did). Then she said that the more open water swim practice I can get, the better, which led me to sign up for the Hoyt tri, and then here I was in the office with a triathlon in mind and 8 other participants ripe for the picking. My boss, let's call her "Kendra" so you don't keep picturing Bruce Springsteen, takes a spinning class regularly, and owns a bike, so naturally she was a shoe-in for the bike portion. Connie, who ran the Boston Marathon with me, was the natural choice for the runner, and she just so happens to have the most easily twistable arm too. Voila, a relay team was formed! These texts exchanged the night before the tri between me & Kendra should set the stage for the following day:

My texts in blue, Kendra's in yellow.

I wasn't too worried about the race since I was just using it as practice, and knew it would only be 15-16 minutes of activity. Luckily I still went to the race website the night before and that's when I saw that the swim finish was .2 miles away from transition, and they were allowing swimmers to leave footwear down at the beach for the run back. I'm glad I saw that because I definitely need sneakers to run that far. Our team got to the race on race morning and threw all of our stuff down near the bike in transition, then decided to walk over to the water. I put my wetsuit on before we walked down because it was so hot & humid that I was afraid it might take many, many minutes to squeeze into that badboy. I also took my cap & goggles with me in case I felt the need to do a test dip in the water. As we were walking down to the water, which we couldn't even see, we all slowly came to the consensus that this was much longer than .2 miles. By the time we got down there, I knew I wouldn't have time to walk back up to transition again, so I just stayed down at the water. 

There were 3 waves in this triathlon: the first wave of white swim caps was men under 40 years old; the second wave of blue swim caps was men 40+, plus all clydesdales (men over 220 lbs.), plus all the relay swimmers (ME!); and the third wave of red swim caps was all of the women. There were about 300 participants, so figure 100 swimmers per wave, and of the relay teams, there were 12 women swimmers. So, I was one of the 12 women lined up with the big, older men. I could have easily skulked to the back of the pack or off to the side, but even in last week's tri when I did line up closer to the front, I was still fighting to get by some swimmers. So, I lined up at the front of the pack, and it was a little terrifying. One guy said to me, "Oh, you must be fast, you go ahead of me" and I said, "I expect to swim it in about 15 minutes" and then he said, "we're about the same then." Crap! Should I hang back? Should I try to out sprint him when the gun goes off? I didn't know, so I just stood my ground and hoped for the best. When the gun went off, it was definitely the most aggressive swim start I've ever been in (ok, so it was only my 4th one ever, but still!) I definitely got swam over, and collided a lot with big biceps, but I just kept swimming as hard as I could. The thing that made this course tough was that the buoys were not exactly lined up straight. We started on the left side of a floating dock, but the yellow buoys were lined up way over to the right leading to the orange turn buoy. It would have been a perfect triangle if we weren't on the opposite side of the dock. I was sighting to the orange turn buoy, but it seemed that most other people in this wave were sighting to the next nearest yellow buoys, which resulted in them swimming across me almost the entire first leg. I was either cut-off, or nearly bashing heads, or pushed down as someone swam over my back. Here's a diagram so you can see what I mean. I'm the pink cap in the sea of blue. (I really did wear a pink cap since my latex allergy prevents me from wearing the latex cap they give you at check-in.)

One rogue pink swimmer in a sea of blue caps, aiming for orange turn buoys.

I passed quite a few white caps from the wave that started 3 minutes before us, including at least 2 before I got to the first turn buoy. When I got out of the water, I glanced at my watch and saw 14:xx. I couldn't believe it! It was faster than last week, and I really felt like I lost a lot of time in that first leg because I was just colliding with people the entire way. Now I just had to get my wetsuit clad body up to transition and I'd be done. I left my sneakers on the first mat on the beach, which was on the inside of the timing mat. Most people left their sneakers on the outside of the timing mat, which makes sense because then your recorded swim time is faster and your putting-on-your-shoes time is clocked as part of your transition which is where it belongs. I just knew I wanted to put my shoes on as quickly as possible before running through sand in wet feet. It was really hard putting sneakers on because 1) I had no balance, 2) my legs were wobbly from the swim, 3) my feet were wet and sandy, and 4) I'm wearing a wetsuit which didn't give me the best flexibilty. I finally got my shoes on and started running. My garmin tells me that this stretch (all up-hill, I might add) was indeed longer than .2 miles. It was .41 miles. YIKES! My wetsuit was filled was water so I felt like I was running with each leg inside a water balloon. The chest of my wetsuit started to feel constricting on my breathing and general mobility, so I unzipped the top of my suit and took my arms out so it just gathered at my waist. The problem with this was that I wasn't wearing a sports bra under my bathing suit since I didn't think I'd be doing anything besides swimming. I don't need to go into detail here, and I certainly don't need to draw you another diagram. Don't need to, but totally will!

I was the fourth female out of the water for my swim wave (3rd for all female relay teams, and one of the mixed relay teams female swimmers beat me). But then..... it took me...... 5 minutes and 40 seconds of grueling agony to run to transition. I'm not even kidding, I think about 50 people passed me during that .41 miles. One guy who was sprinting past me said, "You're a really fast swimmer!" It was nice to get a compliment, but I couldn't help but feel a little mocked as he sprinted by me, as if he was also saying, "and it doesn't matter, slowpoke!" Lesson learned: look at the length of the swim-to-bike transition run before signing up for your next tri! And never leave home without a sports bra.

Kendra had a good bike ride, even though her chain fell off and she lost a couple of minutes putting it back on. She definitely exceeded the expectations she set the night before (ahem, sandbagger!). Connie and Kellan ran the 3.2 miles together, and by the time they started the run, it was brutally hot, but they still managed to have a good run and finish strong. We also managed to plant the seed in Kellan's mind, and he'll be doing his first ever triathlon this coming Saturday, specifically for 7 & 8 year olds. What can I say? We are inspirational.

The whole time Kendra was on the bike and Connie was on the run, I kept thinking, "Thank GOD I am done! I would never want to do all 3 events. Oh crap, wait, no I can't think like that. What the hell have I gotten myself into?!" So I think I'm glad that I am done with the swim-only relays. At least for this year. Next year I think I might only ever do the swim portion of a relay. Or I'll just volunteer. Or cheer from the couch. Or what the hell, maybe I'll just do a full ironman. I mean, geez, I already have the bathing suit. That counts for something, right?