It was another fabulous weekend of racing in Racine with Madness. This is a huge MSM club event with tons of members racing and it seems to get bigger every year. The last time I actually raced the 1/2 was in 2005. The year it was 107 deg. or whatever the actual temp was it was an inferno. I remember crossing the line on fire, and crawling across the beach to the lake and to submerge myself and cool off. I think there was steam coming off the lake from all the hot bodies floating around to cool off. This year was much different. We felt like we needed to go apple picking, rake leaves then go inside to watch football. But..it made for great racing conditions. I didn't see anyone crawling through sand to get to the lake after crossing the line this year.
Last year I did the bike portion of a relay with my 40 yr old girl buds the day after doing Evergreen Tri. This year.....I chose to race the Blue Wave Racine sprint. I am truly seeing the SORT weekend from all angles! I had been trying to train fairly hard since returning from vacation, so decided to hop into the sprint as a workout (ouch hard!) For some reason they had an all women's race, and a sprint race the same morning. This was nice, because my race started at 9:00 a.m. I'll take a little more sleep and a little more sun and warmer temps. It was a perfect morning which made the 59 deg water a little easier to take!
Its been a couple years since I've done a sprint tri, they don't favor my strengths, but...I do like the pain they can inflict in just about 1 hr of racing.
The lake was cold but calm (thankfully since it took me a week to stop feeling dizzy after Bigfoot). I had a bit of a slow start, and just when I was getting a good rhythm going, I hit sand and sprinted (sort of ) accross the beach to T1. Adam yelled I was 1:50 down on 1st place. Yikes thats a lot in a sprint! But I knew #1 and she is an incredible swimmer. I made a quick transition and then decided to bike as hard as I could. I felt the good burn in the legs. It never went away. I am not sure if thats because I wasn't rested or I was trying to go so hard, but was having a good ride. I couldn't see 1st place, there were a lot of turns on this course making it difficult to see ahead. By the way this race wins the award for bumpiest road cracks. Once back in T2 I found it was weird running through a gigantic transition area, that seemed fairly empty compared to when it is full with all the 1/2 IM racers. I flew threw transition, and was on may way. This is a fun run course along the lake and over a couple hills around the zoo and then back over the hills to the finish. The hills were a bit of a suprise to me because I only remember the first hill. I was trying to run as hard as possible, even with a good quad burn going. There weren't mile markers, so I just ran as hard as possible. There were quite a few Madness members out cheering before doing their pre-race bricks and bike checks which was fun!
I finished 2nd OA female in 1:06, but they gave me 1st place master elite. I laughed at the guy and thought 2nd OA sounded better. When I saw the splits I was glad to see that even a bit tired, I went about as fast as I ever have in a sprint, even as a "master" :) What I know about sprint distance at age 41 is that you just get the rhythm down and all systems a go, then its time to switch gears. Congrats to Colin my client who won the male OA, in his 2nd tri ever!
Then I got to sit back and relax, play with the kids and enjoy the annual pasta dinner and Le Casa de Delgado. Thanks to D and D for letting us invade the beach house. They might need a bigger vacation home if the club pasta dinner gets any bigger. There was a great turn out with lots of club members carbo loading and looking nervous.
Sunday I was the spectator and tried to watch and cheer as much as possible with a couple rug rats in tow. They had sand from head to toe by the end of the day. Go figure its July, so I didn't think to bring fleece, and sweats for cheering clothes. I wanted to build a fire pit. Congratulations to all of Madness. Everyone looked so great and fast this year!
All my athletes have been rockin it; hooray to Lisa for a PR at Trek last weekend, and this weekend, John for finishing his first 1/2, Tonya for an age group win at Evergreen, and Wellman for his PR at Racine.
