Now that we finally have sweaty summer temps in DC, seems like it’s time to roll out a very wintry race report for Rev3’s Santa Shuffle 10k. Kinda weird to remember running in the snow when it’s 90 degrees out!

A few days after the Philadelphia Marathon I got a great Thanksgiving gift* when I learned I’d been selected to represent my favorite race organization, Rev3 as a member of their 2018 Triathlon Team.

*Being Native, the words “Thanksgiving gift” conjure fraught-to-negative historical memories, but in this case it was actually a great and welcome surprise.

Over the last few seasons I’ve volunteered,  raced 70.3s in Williamsburg and the Poconos, and done a sprint in Montclair, VA with Rev3 and I’ve come to adore the organization for the way they love triathlon and triathletes. I also watched a Speed Sherpa friend have an absolute blast on the Rev3 team last year and I wanted what she was having. (I’d also like to podium consistently and beastfully like Katie Palavecino but that’s another story and lifetime.) So with Philly and a second BQ behind me, and an invigorated commitment to all things Rev3 in front of me, I decided to end a pretty good 2017 (uh, pretty good race-wise and not in any general geopolitical sense) with Rev3’s Santa Shuffle 10K in Haymarket, VA on Dec. 9th.

I thought for sure I’d get a big group of Speed Sherpas to join me at a local, short fun race but the only one who took me up on the offer was Sherpette, Melissa. (The rest of you are dead to me. JKloveyoumeanit!) Quality over quantity though, because Melissa is awesome company – especially since she agreed to my suggestion that we race in ridiculous onesies. (In my defense, I had just bought an amaaaazing Rudolph onesie from Amazon and upon trying it on promptly declared my intention to wear it and only it until the end of winter, so naturally I felt the need to sweat out 6.2 miles in the furry get-up. I HAD MADE A COMMITMENT.) It turned out Melissa was the proud owner of a psychodelic onesie and questionable decision-making faculties, so she was onboard with the plan.

Leading up to race day I became increasingly concerned that running in a full suit of felt might not be the most comfortable thing in the world, and I feared I would hate my onesie and my choices by the first mile marker. Melissa expressed similar concerns, but neither of us backed down. Then the forecast began to turn frigid and snowy, and the onesies didn’t seem like such terrible ideas. (They still didn’t seem like great ideas, but by Dec. 8th they seemed much more survivable than they had on Dec. 2nd.)

On the morning of Saturday, Dec. 9th, I woke around 6:30 am to dress and head west to way-TFO-suburban Haymarket, Virginia. And I realized logistically, that since it was so cold out, and since I was planning on wearing very little under my onesie to run – just tiny shorts and a tank top – I was going to have to actually drive to Haymarket dressed as Rudolph the Reindeer. There was nowhere at the race site to change and I didn’t really want to be the perve changing in her car at a public park in Virginia. So I pulled on my itty bitty shorts and tank, dreaming of summer, and then zipped myself into my furry, questionable #OOTD. I raced as fast as I could from my front door to my car parked on the street, and made the trek to Haymarket crossing my hooves that I wouldn’t get pulled over or entertain too many truckers as they peered down into my reindeer-conducted Subaru. (The weather was snowy and icy enough that I decided to take Scott’s car instead of my seasonally-challenged lil Mini Cooper.)

I arrived at the James S Long Park a little before 9am and texted Melissa, embarrassed to leave the safe-ish harbor of my vehicle to walk alone in my onesie up the hill to packet pickup and the start line. Fortunately she had arrived around the same time and we were able to do the five minute uphill trek together. It’s amazing how a thing that feels mortifying when you’re on your own suddenly becomes a fun inside joke when you add a friend. I enjoyed the laughs we got from onlookers, and was happy to see we weren’t the only ones who had dressed up (weird) for the occasion.

It was bitterly cold out, and in addition to the couple inches of white powder already on the ground, more was coming down from the sky. I’m not great at predicting how hot or cold I’ll be in my clothes during a race, so I was still a little worried I would sweat through Rudolph and be uncomfortable, but as the snow fell I also thought maybe I’d in fact be more comfortable than the people who’d opted to wear actual run clothes.

We picked up our numbers and I got to meet a few new Rev3 people who were racing or kindly volunteering on such an icy day. At one point an overtaxed space heater gave up on life and melted – it was really cold – wreaking a little bit of havoc. At another more distressing point, I realized I had to hit the porta jon before racing and had to unzip myself in the freezing basically-outside stall and shiver-pee while keeping the onesie from touching the nasty porta potty floor.

Fortunately we didn’t have to hang out in the cold for too long before the 9:30am start. It was far too small and lowkey an event for any sort of corral situation. Everyone just gathered in the starting chute which would double later as the finisher’s chute and waited for the gun. Melissa and I were two of the last people to join the group there, so I was towards the middle of the pack as we waited to begin. I also can’t claim to have harbored any dreams about laying down a big 10K in my reindeer costume so I stayed pretty passive about my start position.

At 9:30 we were set loose on the double out and back loop 10K course. It was a few hundred meters downhill first to get to the Haymarket sidewalks that would comprise the bulk of the race. As soon as I was over the start line I tried to break free of the clump I was in, immediately realizing I was gunning for a little more speed than most of the pack.

By the time I was turning right onto the main stretch of course I was out in the front with a handful of other runners. I was clocking mid-7s, which would have been a pretty average 10K pace, except the sky was showering us in freezing sideways snow, and as soon as we turned out of the Park we were climbing. The race website calls the course mostly flat and that is, well, that is not true.

Haymarket is where you bring your bike in the DMV area when you want to ride serious hills. I had kind of considered that fact when planning for the race and then breezed past it knowing we wouldn’t be getting too far from the James S Long Park where the race started and ended – it wasn’t like we’d be getting tens of miles away where I’ve bike-struggled in the past. But the two loop or really, 4 out-and-backs course turns right out of the Park and heads up one long hill until a turnaround then back down that hill, past the park entrance onto another long uphill to the second turnaround and again back down. The 5K runners had to do this once and turned back into James S Long Park and the 10K runners did the two ascent/descents twice.

As I turned right and started the first long slog uphill, I also turned into the wind and found that, even in my furry getup I was still cold. The bare skin between the top of my onesie zipper and my chin (I guess that’s called your neck) was stinging in the wind and snow. I was wearing a Rev3 buff around my ears and had worn a headband around my wrist incase I needed extra coverage in the weather. As I climbed I gracelessly yanked the buff down to protect my neck and chin and pulled the extra headband over my ears. I thanked early-morning-Liz’s rare moment of foresight on that one.

As I adjusted my headgear my heartrate began to climb with my legs, even though my speed was pretty meh. I knew I hadn’t fully recovered in the less-than-three weeks since the Philly Marathon (and stomach flu I’d caught the same day) but I was expecting more from my body than it was giving me. The first mile was basically all that long climb and I turned in a disappointing 8:04. I hadn’t shown up to win, or even to podium, but I had shown up wanting to run well and I felt that I wasn’t. The footing was a little slippery, but not slick enough to justify that pace.

Just after the first mile we turned around and headed back down the hill and I was able to pick up a bit more speed, but my heartrate didn’t want to budge. At least I was more comfortable with the wind and snow at my back, and despite the high BPM I didn’t feel overheated at all in my plush reindeer onepiece – by the time I had descended the hill I was mulling wearing it for every winter race from now on.

I generally like out-and-back courses for the community they create. You get to see everyone in the race, whether they’re ahead of or behind you, and in triathlons and Rev3 events like this one, there are always high fives and words of encouragement as people run past each other. My new Rev3 teammate, Robert was proving this point dressed as a buff Santa and keeping everyone merry in the wintry conditions.

Out-and-backs are also good when you’re feeling (and racing) competitive(ly). You can see who’s ahead of you and how far back the people behind you are; this information lets you adjust accordingly and is also a kick in your spandex (or fur as the case may be) to keep the fight alive. When you’re not running your best it’s less great. I could see women in front of me as I approached and then made that first turnaround, and with my high heartrate I wasn’t gaining on them.

When we started up the second climb after passing the Park entrance I had accepted that it wasn’t my best morning and I wouldn’t be mounting any winners’ blocks at the end. But I was having a really good time running in the snow in my ridiculous costume. People were laughing at the onesie and I enjoyed putting smiles on people’s faces. There were kids out volunteering at the couple water (ice?) stations and there were moms and dads at the back of the race pack pushing littleones in strollers; it was especially fun when the youngin’s would wave and laugh at Rudolph as I/she ran by.

The second turnaround was at the top of hill number two about halfway between the second and third miles. A couple young women passed me there and I shrugged it off and started to descend back towards the Park and towards the second lap. Miles two and three were faster – 7:39 mostly downhill and then 7:48 over a mix of ascent and descent – but still not paces I would have been happy with for a cold-weather, non-multisport 10k. I didn’t have it in me to chase down the women who were getting away from me and bumping me further from podium-contention.

As the entrance to the Park came back into view (and the footing got slushier) I saw the handful of women in front of me all turning right. At first I was confused, and then I remembered that some people were running half what I was. I had totally forgotten that some of those women who were in front of me were not actually my 10k competition.

I approached the Park and could hear a volunteer calling for 5k runners to turn right back to the finish and for 10k runners to continue straight for their second loop. Just about everyone was turning right. I ran past the Park and volunteer straight onto hill number three (or hill number one for the second time) under suddenly-changed circumstances.

About halfway up this second mile-long climb a couple people cheered for me saying Rudolph was in the lead. I was pretty sure there was still one 10k female ahead of me but I was elated to have gone so quickly from no place to second. I had been having fun but now I was having extra fun, despite the uphill headwind and face-snow.

That hill wiped me out again and my split dropped back down to 8:07. A few minutes before I wouldn’t have cared but now I had to hold that second place slot. The third/penultimate turnaround came a little after the fourth mile marker and as I reversed and headed downhill I scanned the women behind me to gauge how much space I had. Robert snapped me out of my competitive streak with a high five as I ran past him, reminding me to keep having fun and not take it too seriously – I was still dressed as Rudolph and he as Santa Abs after all.

Reaching the bottom of the hill I was both having a great time and feeling the competition. My heartrate was high and my pace still not where I would have wanted but it was doing the trick and I just had a mile and a half to hold it. I climbed the last hill and hit the final turnaround a little after mille five. I hadn’t seen where the first woman was – with some people on their first laps and some on their second it had become harder to tell who was ahead and who behind – but I was sure I was still holding strong at second. Running back down the hill I scanned the competition and saw that I had plenty of cushion between myself and the third place female – I wasn’t in any danger of being overtaken.

Halfway down that final hill and mile I passed a group of ladies who were running up it on the other side and screamed at me that I was the first woman. Without absorbing the information I smiled and whooped and then got a few steps further and thought, ‘wait, am I?’ I hadn’t actually laid eyes on this phantom female who I was sure was up ahead of me. Had I made her up? Had I just been so sure that there was no way this far-from-my-best-10k performance could nab me a win that I’d fabricated a faster competitor?

I was starting to think, ‘maybe I am winning’ as I finished the second lap and turned right back into the Park and toward the finish line. I ran past the volunteers there and they too shouted that I was going to be the female winner. I was shocked and ecstatic.

As I turned my watch buzzed to mark the 6th mile – 7:47. My heartrate was still epically high and I knew I wasn’t in any danger of being passed in the last .2 miles so I didn’t step on the gas. I stayed at a 7:47 pace up a final climb to the finisher’s chute. Once back at the start/finish I wasn’t sure which direction to run through the chute as there were no signs or volunteers. I picked the most logical direction and just went with it – and fortunately I picked right. I crossed the finish line at a really unimpressive 48:27 for an average pace of 7:49.

A few minutes later the second place female came up the hill – she had a couple decades on me and had been encouraging every time I passed her on the course so I was there cheering her in. Melissa was not too far behind that, winning her age group in her excellent tie-dye onesie!

We were both excited and kind of floored to have nabbed the top of the blocks – and dressed like lunatics. We agreed that these ridiculous get-ups that we’d feared sweating miserably through had ended up being incredibly comfortable in the wintry weather. Not only were they warm, they allowed for all sorts of range of motion – no chafing! I had been happy in my wardrobe choice the whole way and will absolutely rewear it in the next Santa Shuffle.

As my heartrate finally slowed our body temps plummeted and Melissa and I agreed we’d need more layers to get through the podium ceremony. We hustled back to our cars for dry socks and gloves and coats. I happily pulled the Uggs about which I have no shame over my furry legs. Then we boogied back up the hill to take advantage of the french toast breakfast and stand atop the blocks in our fabulous get-ups.

After the ceremony – at which I also won a prize for my onesie! – I went out to my work wife’s house to meet her new baby boy. She also lives in Virginia and I just assume that all places in Virginia are close together. (They’re not.) I stayed in my costume because duh – baby-Rudolph photo opp! (Yes, this meant more driving in my onesie.)

After that I rounded out the Virginia day with Speed Sherpa’s holiday party where I decided to wear regular human clothes. (Oh and party hosts Coach Josh and his wife, Erica let [encouraged] me [to] bathe at their house before joining the celebration.) All in all it was a pretty spectacular day of friends and silliness and winning! I know most years that performance wouldn’t be enough to win it and I can’t blame the hills or the slick roads. If Rudolph wants to light the way again at the next Shuffle she’s gonna have to show up a little harder. But first, summer!

I’m spicing things up here to keep you, dear reader, (mommy!) on your toes and skipping some race reports I’m behind on to bring you my download of the Inaurgural National Women’d DC Half Marathon the week in which it actually happened. I’ll return to those other races – those reports are all in various stages of draft form – but wanted to try getting all my thoughts down and out into the universe when they were still fresh and people might actually still care. Without further (usual) ado:

At some point in 2017 I got an email from the National Women’s race organizers with an invite to register for a new DC half marathon in 2018. It was most of a year in advance, and I wasn’t doing anything on April 29th, 2018, so I thought, ‘sure! I’ll sign up for lady-running!’ And that was pretty much the last time I thought about it until I started getting athlete emails a week before race day.

After the Rock n Roll Half Marathon on March 10th (race report coming…I won’t say soon…but eventually) and the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler April 8th, (Id.) work had taken over and I’d started mentally shifting gears from running to triathlon. I had nabbed the sub-1:40 13.1 I was gunning for at RnR (spoiler alert!) too, so I was already resting on my laurels a month into the 2018 season. I’d given this race so little thought that when Coach Josh loaded up my training peaks workouts on Monday I realized he didn’t even know I was running it. Feeling like the most neglectful, half-assed client ever I let him know I in fact had a race that weekend and then didn’t really think about it again until about 48 hours before I’d have to toe a start line somewhere in the District of Columbia.

Race organizers hadn’t done much in the way of advertising or pumping up the event so some of the neglect wasn’t my fault. Besides some emails here and there the general radio silence regarding this inaugural event didn’t inspire a ton of confidence or excitement in its execution, or even its existence. Part of me was concerned I was the only one registered and that I’d been duped out of some bills by a nonexistent online scammer – an athlete-targeting catfish situation. Upon receiving and perusing the athlete guide though I discovered there was indeed a packet pickup scheduled to take place in various Pacer’s stores around the DMV area. While the lack of an actual expo reinvigorated some of my initial concerns, at least I was being directed to real running stores that I knew for a fact existed.

I was going out of town for work Friday through Saturday afternoon so I stopped by the closest Pacer’s Friday morning to collect my packet for a half marathon I was like 65% sure was real at that point. Upon entering I found a tri friend, Dustin, checking women in. That seemed like a good sign – Dustin is a real person after all. (At least as real as any of us are in this simulation!) I approached the almost-surely real Dustin and he looked me up in some sort of computer database, found my info, and signed me in – more progress! Then he picked up a number from a chronological stack, entered it into the computer, and handed it to me. There were apparently no corrals, this was just a first-come-first-served bib situation. My confidence in this race’s existence which had been at an all-time high around 80% upon seeing Dustin and his computer now plummeted to the low 40s. I continued down the packet line though and got a tshirt – cotton and a children’s large – and saw a lot of other women picking up their apropo-of-no-seeding bibs, so heading into the weekend I was like 50-50 that I was running a real race on Sunday.

Mid-Friday I headed out for a work retreat in Cambridge, MD which was filled with wine-ing and schmoozing and staying up too late (for me that means 11:30pm) and generally not ideal pre-race type behavior. I got back to DC around 4pm on Saturday, took the dogs out, ate an entire Red Baron frozen pizza – not a personal pizza, a large feed-a-family-of-at-least-two-or-three pizza, and put together a spin class for the next day because race or not I was teaching at noon. At around 10pm I remembered I was running a half marathon, glanced at Sunday’s weather for clothes-planning purposes, posted a cynical instagram picture about my prospects, and was in bed around 11pm.

Josh often says the sleep the night before a race isn’t as important as the sleep two nights before, but in any case, I slept like crap Friday and Saturday and pretty much hated all of my choices (including that whole pizza pie) when the alarm went off at 5:41am.

Yes. 5:41. Because that was the number I had alighted upon six hours earlier as the last possible second I could get up and still make it to the (stilll hypothetical at this point) start line by 7am. I got up, dressed in whatever I had hastily chosen the night before as appropriate for the mid-spring, mid-climate change apocalypse, mid-40s weather we were getting, and ordered a Lyft.

The start area was back behind the Tidal Basin on the National Mall – a fact I’d learned only right before bed Saturday – so I plugged in the WWII Memorial as my destination figuring that was the closest landmark we’d be able to access given how roads were (hopefully) being closed. (I still harbored concerns that if there was indeed a real race we would be running it on sidewalks and into oncoming traffic.) We made it almost to WWII by 6:30am, and I disembarked to hoof it the rest of the way – about a mile walk.

I joined a sea of spandex-clad women which seemed like a good sign, though really that could be most weekend mornings on the Mall. Halfway to the start my tummy started rumbling like it had seen all the lycra-adorned ladies and now knew a race was at hand. Not trusting there to be sufficient (or any) porta potties I ducked into a bathroom near the MLK Jr Memoral and sated my grumpy belly. (Ok maybe it was race nerves, but more likely it was the entire Red Baron pepperoni pizza needing out.)

Because or in spite of my last-minute alarm-setting and laissez fairre approach to dressing for and arriving at the race, I managed to hit the start line perfectly at around 6:50 for a 7am start. It was just early enough to get properly positioned but not enough time for the chilly morning to become too torturous while standing and waiting.

As it was a self-seeding situation, there were pace-markers around the one long corral. Each marker denoted a full minute span of potential paces starting with 6:30-7:30 minutes per mile. I found the one that indicated 7:30-8:30 minute miles and squeezed through the metal barricades. I headed to the front of this small group of women. There was just about no one in the 6:30-7:30 area ahead of me, and a race organizer quickly came by and had me and the couple women around me move up to fill that space. It was little confusing and one of my neighbors asked nervously if we were still in the 7:30-8:30 group. I told her, stone-faced, “no, you now have to do a 6:30 mile the whole way.” She looked terrified. Some people don’t get me.

Right on time at 6:55 the National Anthem was sung and then a small elite(?) group ahead of us was sent off shortly thereafter. Then our 6:30-8:30 group was marched forward and just after 7am we were off. Kind of.

I had texted Josh the day before that I was feeling, and I quote, “blaaaaaaah” about the whole race, and he told me to just use it as a catered workout on some fatigued legs. I hadn’t really internalized what that was going to mean for me though: Was I going to race off my heartrate? Was I going to come out swinging and see what happened? Was I just gonna wing it off perceived exertion? As I traversed the start sensors I decided in the moment for a cross between the latter two. I didn’t want to run too uncomfortable but I realized I would be unhappy with anything too much slower than my recently-set PR of 1:38:57. (Again, I’m totally gonna write a RocknRoll report, it just might not be till July of 2019.)

So I decided in the very moment that my feet hit the sensors and my fingers, the Garmin, that I would go out in the 7:30s and see what happened. In what was maybe the first conscious decision I made about this race since the day I’d registered I opted not to look at my heartrate at all. I didn’t want to get into my head or get bogged down in too many metrics. I had been feeling lately that there was a disconnect between the heartrate I was capable of sustaining and what I intellectually thought was an appropriate number so it seemed better not to worry about that. I would find something in the 7:30s and just see how it felt and go from there.

Funny thing about self-seeding though: people are liars. Vain-glorious, delusional liars. This race really throws a wrench in my previously-stated men are worse about this than women theory because a number of the women who had chosen the clearly-marked 6:30-7:30/7:30-8:30 groups were rocking 9s and 10s. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with a 9 or 10 minute mile, but you knew you weren’t going to run a 7 so what are you doing?

I think the other problem is that there is a big difference between 7:30 and 8:30 miles. Really in thinking through the begining of the race that I think was the biggest problem. Most runners probably selected the appropriate pace window, but those windows were too wide and it created an irritating traffic jam down the first stretch. I would guess that a pace:population chart in an average race probably looks like a bell curve, so if organizers want to stick with self-seeding, they should plan for very few 6:30-ers and a whole lotta 9s and 10s, and mark the corral accordingly.

The race began heading southeast from below the tidal pool and down and around Hains Point. The sun was coming up but the air was crisp and felt great once we were moving. I loved that we started off on Hains and got it over with. It’s a pretty place to run, but true to form, once we started heading back north just after the Mile 2 marker the headwind picked up. My first two miles were a very comfortable-feeling 7:34 and 7:33 respectively, while my next three into the wind dropped into high 7:30s that I had to fight for.

The first two mile markers also seemed to be dead on the distance with my GPS, but even though we’d only rounded one turn – which I had hugged – mile 3 seemed to be .1 too long. Then mile 4 seemed to be back in sync with my GPS, but for a moment I was very anxious that the course would continue to get longer and my finish time would reflect it. (Yes I’d had to weave around the slower runners but I hadn’t weaved a tenth of a mile and that wouldn’t explain how the distance markers rectified themselves.)

The night before the race and right up to the start line I had been contemplating only running a few miles of it and then heading home. I’d been having some discomfort in my left hip and upper quad which felt like it was bordering on becoming a bigger issue. I’m always trying – biking, running, and lifting – to even out my right-side favoring monodexterity and I think I just overcorrected in the weeks preceding. I hadn’t run since Tuesday and was feeling much better, but I was also mentally giving myself permission to bow out if it was bothering me. Or if I found I just really wasn’t feeling the morning. Over the first few miles that left quad was speaking to me, objecting a little to the exertion. I focused on my form as I ran down Hains Point and by the time I got to that misplanted Mile 3 marker I seemed to have worked out whatever was going on. I didn’t feel any hip or quad pain the rest of the run. By focusing on perceived exertion I think I held back enough to keep my form in check and keep excessive wear and tear off the joints.

Around Mile 5 we ran back near the start area and began an out and back on Rock Creek Park that comprised most of the race. It was pretty similar to the Nation’s Tri bike course and I observed the many pot holes that were easy enough to navigate by foot but were less so on wheels. I got myself back into the low 7:30s and out of the wind felt much more comfortable hanging out there. The pack had thinned and I was far enough towards the front that there were only a few woman around me. I’d worried a little that as the sun came up the long sleeves I’d worn would be too warm but I’d thoughtlessly lucked into the perfect amount of clothing for the climate.

Hitting the halfway point I was just over 50 minutes and I started doing the mental math. The way I was currently running I would be a little over 1:40, and upon saying that number to myself I decided I didn’t like it. I knew if I picked up the pace just a little I could come in slightly under 1:40 and I would feel immensely better about my morning. I had been holding back most of the first seven miles and had plenty of gas in the tank, so I stepped it up into the high 7:20s.

That still felt pretty good. I was far from maxed out when we hit the turn around at mile 8, but I was also still feeling like it wasn’t really my morning – I had barely thought about the race basically until it was actually under way, and I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of really racing it. I held the high 7:20s for miles nine and ten and then ran my numbers again.

At this point I realized I was actually doing a lot better than I’d realized or expected. Even though I’d been running RnR harder than this race, that course had included a big climb at the 10k mark which had thrown my averages off in a way this course wasn’t going to do. If I could push the last few miles I could come in close to my PR, and I with only a 5k to go I knew I’d be mad at myself if I didn’t at least try for something under 1:39. So, still running off of perceived exertion and eschewing heartrate, I picked up the pace again and dropped mile 11 into the low 7:10s.

Besides the energy I’d been conserving, after the turnaround I got a boost in my confidence that made a big difference. I always find it inspiring to in races with a turnaround to see the elite runners fly by you in the opposite direction. I love looking for faces I know like Meb in this year’s Cherry Blossom, and my favorite is to look for and scream for the first female competitor. This wasn’t a big elite field, so even though I’m nowhere near those 5 and 6 minute miles, I was in the first handful of women after the turnaround. It was the coolest feeling. I was running mostly alone, just a sprinkling of women around me, and as I continued over the last few miles I could see the crowded field of ladies working their way towards the switchback. It totally made me feel like an elite badass. No I wasn’t running elite mile times, but it gave me an unabashed ego boost and made me want to push a little harder toward the finish – to earn that spot up front.

When I hit the Mile 11 marker I again did the adding and the multiplying and the carry-the-one-ing and thought, if I can really drop the hammer over the last 2.1 miles I could actually come in under 1:38. I wanted to be able to sprint the last mile point one so for mile 12 I stayed in the 7:10s, feeling prepared to turn in a final mile in the 7:00s.

I felt like I was holding back just enough to get that done or maybe even run a sub-7 for the last 1.1miles, when just after the Mile 12 marker the half marathon course merged with the 8K course. And here, with a 1:37:something in reach, is where the race planners fulfilled the very low expectations I had for them.

I went from only being able to see two other runners anywhere near me, both pushing for those low, low 7s, to an instant wall of women running (and walking) what I would guess (and based on the 8K’s 7:30 start time) were 12 and 13 minute miles. The 8K-ers were taking over all lanes of traffic and there were no signs or volunteers anywhere to direct people. At first I thought these women were just starting their half marathon since we were back tracking over the north end of Hains Point, and then I thought with a pang of panic that I must have gone off-course somehow thanks to the absolute absence of any sort of direction.

I looked around frantically for anyone to ask or any other 13.1 athletes and in both I came up empty. I literally thought about stopping and backtracking. I slowed way down, not just to weave around these women, (who I didn’t want to be angry with but honestly, I was, ) but also to scan everything I could see (I’m 4’10” so that’s not much) for some sort of guidance.

We came around the final turn and I finally I got a glimpse of the finish line ahead – according to my watch it was a half mile away.I now understood that organizers had just done a garbage job of merging the two distances and I was still on course. I ran the numbers and realized my 1:37 was fading from reach.  I stepped on the gas as much as I could with the oblivious 8K joggers still trotting way too many abreast across the wide road. The headwind was the worst it had been the whole morning which added to what must have been a sky-high heartrate but I charged as much as I could.

I passed the mile 13 marker and looked down toward the finish line. It was much further than .1 miles away. A DC east-to-west block is generally about .1 miles, so I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at eyeballing the distance, and this was way overshooting it. I sprinted as fast as I could, but even laying it all on the line, that miscalculated 160 meters was the final nail in the coffin of the 1:37 should have been mine.

I crossed the finish line at 1:38:45 and felt elated and furious. It was a 12 second PR! Totally surpassed my expectations for the morning. Hell, eleven miles ago I’d been considering quitting; and eleven hours ago I wasn’t convinced there was actually a real race happening! A PR was massive in the face of my pre-race doubts. But I had earned a 1:37:59. If the course had been measured correctly or, more importantly, if planners had thought through the implications of ending concurrent 8k and 13.1 mile races at the same place it would have been mine.

Most races measure a little long so really I was angry about the way the last mile point one had been orchestrated. The road was wide; it would have been so simple to lay down cones to divide the two distances. Organizers could have put up a sign to let runners know we were on course, and to ask the 8K-ers to be mindful of the half runners. I finished 58th overall out of almost 3500 women, so when my course merged with the shorter course, there weren’t a lot of us running the half and the women doing the 8K were pretty oblivious to the situation. In fact, in the final 100m when the chutes finally were divided and marked by distance, I had 8K-ers run across my toes to make it into the proper channel. I honestly think organizers didn’t concieved that, by starting the 8K 30 minutes after the 13.1, even though we had to run almost three times the distance, there would be half marathoners finishing when the 8K was still wrapping up.

Ok I’ll stop kvetching about the last 8% of a race that was for the most part a surprisingly great experience. I don’t think it was benefitting from low expectations either – it was a just a beautiful day on a nice course and my preference to be surrounded by female athletes is no secret. I know I’m not the only half marathoner who was frustrated by the way the last mile was handled so I expect, if the National Women’s Half lives on to a second year, race planners will probably address their mistake. And if planners do decide to keep going with it, and they send me an email at some point this summer, and I’m free that day, I will sign up. And maybe I’ll even tell Josh about it more than a few days out. I’ll probably still eat a whole pizza the night before though; hell that might be my new every-race night-before dinner now!

 

 

Back in the early/mid summer of 2017 I was hemming and hawing about a fall marathon. I knew I wanted to do one – to get my vengeance on Boston I would have to qualify to get back there after all.  I was torn between the Marine Corps Marathon and Philadelphia. I’ve been registered for MCM twice and been injured both times, plus it’s local and a fantastic race, so it’s always on my fall radar. Then there was Philly – not local but very easy to travel to from DC, and later in the season by a month.

Philly doesn’t sell out, but my access to an MCM charity bib had a deadline. As it approached I weighed the pros and cons of each race and changed my mind every hour or so for a week, testing Josh’s seemingly abundent well of patiene. (One day I’ll push him to the edge.) He pretty clearly wanted me to do Philly to give my legs more time after tri season to be BQ-ready. I wanted to run MCM after missing out twice but in my heart and hamstrings I knew PA was the better choice for the 2017 season. At just about the last possible second I pulled the Philly trigger and that was that.

Then a month or so later I came down with a stress fracture, which of course turned out to actually be tendinitis, but either way I was off running most of August and half of September, so the later date ended up being unequivocally the right decision. Even with race day not until Nov. 19th, I was looking at a more truncated marathon training cycle than I would have preferred, and I was starting a run fitness deficit.

After Nation’s Tri in mid-September I got back into regular slower, shorter distance run workouts, and after wrapping up tri season with Waterman’s Sprint the first weekend of October I started marathon training in earnest. (Seven weeks sounds like enough weeks, right??) I was also in weekly physical therapy which was painful and productive. After no running and then short, easy runs, in the short ramp up to Philly I was able to load the miles on pretty quickly and safely. Finding my speed was another question.

My long runs went decently each weekend, but I never felt like I had any of those big, breakthrough workouts – long or short – that keep runners and triathletes sustained and energized through often-tedious hours of training. I can’t recall anything too defeating either, it was just, I was running ok. Not my best, but probablymaybe strong enough for Boston.

Particularlyprobably because a few weeks out from race day I discovered that your Boston-qualifying threshold is based on the age you will be at Boston, rather than your age at your qualifying marathon. The Philly Marathon is late in the year which means it qualifies you for Boston seventeen months away, i.e. my November 2017 BQ would net me a 2019 Boston berth. And I will be 35 in April 2019. And that extra year nets me five minutes of wiggle room. I would only need to be sub-3:40* rather than 3:35 at Philly.

Come race day after my seven weeks of good-not-great running, I felt like I was probably fine for that sub-3:40, but sub by how much I had no idea. And I was definitely nervous from my terrible performance at Boston in April. My original summer goal had been to go under 3:20 and I knew at least that wasn’t in the cards. Josh of course never gives me a number like that, he just puts together race plans based on heart rates and RPE zones. I felt like I was a little unmoored heading toward race day. I made a vague plan to go out with the 3:30 pace group and see what happened.

I was a lot more anxious about the weather than my fitness as race day approached. I think I’ve documented here – and prolifically on Instagram – that I hate wind. Give me rain, cold, heat, just please, not wind. And wind was exactly what Philly was serving up on Nov. 19th. As is my wont I obsessively checked the forecast, horrified to see the predicted windspeeds. I thought I could probablymaybe BQ, but I was sure it was positivelydefinitely going to be a miserable morning.

And with that optimism in my pocket I caught a mid-morning Amtrak to Philadelphia on Nov. 18th. Keeping my cyncicism from really spinning out, my mommy was flying up from Atlanta to be my race support for the weekend. Scott’s mama and aunt were visiting in DC, and he deserves periodic breaks from my athletic neediness. And I love my mommy so much, so in the face of compulsive weather-checking and ambivalence toward my run-abilities, I was excited for the weekend.

I got to Philadelphia and a quick taxi from the train station got me to our hotel mid-day. I’d wisely (if I do say so myself) booked a hotel teh same night I registered for the race – about a month before the AACR race org sent out hotel recs. I’d found a good rate at the Embassy Suites about a half mile from the start/finish, and proximity to the finish line is where I always say, race-splurge if you’ve got the means. I was able to check in early, and my mama arrived soon after I got to our very nice suite.

It was past lunch time, so we headed right back out and much to my glee, found a great dim sum spot – Nom Wah – halfway between the hotel and the Expo at the PA Convention Center. We even lucked out and got a table right before several large groups showed up. Once sated on bao and scallion pancakes we rolled on to the Expo a few blocks away.

I picked up my bib and we did a loop through the booths. Between my probablymaybe BQ, feeling personally affronted by the weather, and my original MCM plans, I felt pretty blasé toward the whole Philadelphia Marathon apparatus – a sentiment that staid my credit card. We did jointly raid the Run Janji booth for Xmas presies for my dad and brother, and I stopped by the pacer station to make sure I didn’t have to offically register for the 3:30 group. I didn’t.

We walked back to the hotel, finances generally intact. On the way we passed lots of folks who had raced that morning’s half marathon. They all looked so happy to be done with their race day, and they’d gotten a pretty good day for running. It was grey and a little misty, cool, and the wind was keeping a low profile. I thought uselessly how unfair that the full marathon athletes – like ME!! – by contrast would have such crappy conditions.

That night mama and I got a good Italian meal at a restaurant called, 24. It was exactly what I want pre-race: decent but not too rich or decadent. I watched thirstily as she enjoyed some vino, while I contented myself with a perfectly bland pasta and a beet salad. At the hotel I laid out my clothes – a task that always feels disconcertingly simple when you transition from triathlon to plain running. I went to bed at my regular tried-for-9-didn’t-happen-till-10pm.

I was up around 5am. I force-fed myself some of the bagels, peanut butter, and bananas we’d bought the evening before, and my mommy took care of me by brewing some coffee. (I didn’t used to drink coffee before races but my caffeine addiction has gotten bad and I need a little to stave off a mid-run withdrawl headache. [Is that bad? That’s bad, right?]) I dressed in the tights, tank, sleeves, and windbreaker I would race in, as well as a throwaway sweatshirt and space blanket. Apprehensively and masochistically I stepped out onto our suite’s balcony to survey the bad weather that had been promised. Many stories below me I could see athletes leaning into an already-aggressive wind as well as sideways rain. The almost-dawn lighting was eerily magenta and my stomach reflexively clenched at the thought of decamping into that hellscape.

But head out I did, around 6am. What would have otherwise been a ten minute walk was around fifteen thanks to the wind and rain blowing not perpendicular from the sky but parallel to the ground and sharply into my face. I pulled the space blanket as tightly as I could around my torso and legs, but it inevitably billowed behind me like a heat-trapping sail. The race was an hour away and I was already miserable.

Perversely my early irritation with the weather and my lackluster training cycle had me so unanimated about my race prospects, that I just took the misery and the conditions in stride. I slowly got to the start area. Thanks to the proximity of the Embassy Suites I was there early enough to find short porta potty lines. And here too my ambivalence was a benefit: my stomach was as unenthused as the rest of me – no gastric pyrotechnics, not even a question of whether to take Imodium – I didn’t need it. I bathroomed just once and headed to my corral near the start line.

I staid bound up in my space blanket and old sweatshirt as long as I could. I tried some plyometric warmups, but mostly just huddled emotionlessly. The corrals and whole start area were remarkably empty until the last minute, I guessed people were lining up at the last possible second in the awful conditions. It was truly horrible out. There were no spectators – and who could blame them – it looked and felt apocalyptic. Around 6:45 the announcer became more consistent and energized, but the sky was still angry neon pink. The race started facing the east, so now my neck and back were being pelted by the sideways wind and rain – a minor improvement.

At 6:55 the gun went off for the handcycles, then the first run corral at 7am. My wave was second, and I was over the start sensors at 7:04. I thought I’d lined myself up close to the 3:30 pacer, but somehow within the first 50 meters he was out way ahead of me. I hadn’t felt too attached to finishing with the 3:30 group but I didn’t want to lose them in the first quarter mile! So I hussled toward the 3:30 sign faster than I had had any intention of going out of the gate. Once I was within twenty or so feet of the pacer I dug my heels into a steady pace and maintained that distance from him. I didn’t look at my pace or my heartrate – I knew both were already high but I decided to wing it to an extent, and to put more faith in the people around me than in my numbers. (AWWWWWW.)

When my Garmin buzzed to mark the first mile I looked down and saw 7:42. ‘Shit, that’s way too fast’ I thought. ‘Why the hell is he going this fast?’ My first thought was that the pacer was way off, but then I rationalized, we’re running the first few miles with the wind, he must want to bank extra time. And so I decided to keep pace with him, though there was a niggling voice in my head sounding the alarm that I might be dooming myself. (There was also a hubristic voice screaming, no! We’re gonna PR this bitch! 7:40s the whole way weeeeeee! [To be fair, I felt more deference to the warning voice than the asshole telling me to go win the Philadelphia Marathon.])

Just before the third mile marker we started heading south and up an incline, and after three miles in the 7:40s we dropped into the low 8s for a couple miles before turning back east and dropping back down into those 7:40s. At each aid station the pacer got a little further away from me and I tried to catch up, spiking my speed and my heartrate dangrously. At one point around the first 10k my heart was creeping into the 170s and I glanced at my pace to see myself in the 7:10 range. Even the hubris-asshole voice was like, ‘pump the breaks Icarus, you don’t have a sub-3:15 in you and you’re gonna burn out before the half.’ And so I let the pace group that I’d put all my (too much?) faith into drift further down the course away from me. I could still see them, and as we wound up some climbs I made up some ground, but they staid far enough in front of me that by mile ten I knew I wasn’t going to be in sub-3:30 territory.

For the first ten miles, the wind held back. At times we ran with it or across it, at other times downtown Philly’s buildings and the crowd acted as shields. Plus, being 4’10” has a few distinct advantages. When the breeze picked up I tried to find clumps of people – or a few times just one tall person – to run behind. After stressing for days about the wind, I was pleasantly surprised over most of the first half that it didn’t seem to be too big an issue.

That all changed in mile ten though, as we bore down a straight away near a number of circus tents and trailers – clowns (and animal abuse) shudder – a few miles outside downtown. For a quarter mile or so the wind huffed directly into our fronts and in the wider open spaces there was no one to run behind for cover. My pace dropped for several minutes into the 9 minute mile range. I wasn’t panicking about my BQ yet,  I was just unhappy. That stretch was misery plain and simple. It was brutal and sucked the joy out of what, to that point, had been a surprisingly pleasant course – weatherwise and aesthetically.

Just before mile 11 the course wound a wide u-turn and we were once again running with the wind at our backs – and after some early climbing we now got in a nice descent that helped me get my wind-elevated heartrate back down. The next few miles through the halfway point felt pretty good. The sun was getting to be right overhead and miles 13 and 14 were out in the open next to the Schuykill River, so my heartrate did start to head back up, and at one point I had to switch out my earbuds that I’d apprently sweat through. But I got my pace back into the 7s and started to enjoy myself again.

Just past the mile 14 marker we flipped another u-turn – a bitch if you will – and headed back north along the river. I knew this stretch of water-adjacent headwind was coming, fortunately the few miles before it had been pleasant enough to bolster my spirits as I entered the hardest stretch of race.

Also fortunately, I had banked some good time in the preceeding miles, so I was mostly unstressed as my pace slowed back out of the 7s and into, first the low 8s, and then the mid-8s. I ran the numbers manically in my head every few minutes, and despite the long-gone 3:30 pacer, I was still on track to do around a 3:31 assuming I could pick up the pace again once we hit the final turn around at mile 20.

I tried to remain bouyed by those calculations – my BQ was still safely in reach, even as miles 15 through 20 were miserable slogs into the 30mph headwinds. At times I was blown back into the 9s, at times I felt like I was just standing still. But I leaned forward, having mentally prepared for this  kind of slog. The course continued to be prettier than I had expected at least, and since the last ten miles are a switch back, I could see the elite runners on on the other side of the road but course-wise miles ahead of me heading toward the finish line. I enjoy seeing the first few men, but I always take these opportunities to watch for the first women and to yell my support and admiration as they pass.

I stayed mostly-patient and expletive-free counting down the minutes and miles until the wind would be at my back again. The last mile before the turnaround snaked downhill through a cute town where many spectators had come out to cheer. The descent and the people were great boosts – I wasn’t worried about having to run back up the hill since at least no more blowing in my face and I’d still have the crowd support.

Right at the mile 20 marker we flipped around for the final 10k to the finish. I knew I needed to pick up the pace on the way home to hold onto that 3:31 finish. Careful not to spike my heartrate too much I stepped on the gas a little uphill, passing some people and riding off the goodwill of the crowd lining this cute suburban Main Street. I got myself out of the mid-8s and back into the low 8s, still holding back some to really push the final 5k.

The tailwind didn’t feel like it was helping as much as I’d been hoping, but when does it ever? Admittedly I’d been expecting to reclaim some 7:40s or something like that once we’d turned around, and of course I still had delusions of a sub-3:30 if I could really pull some speed out of the last six miles. I was a little deflated to face the reality that that wasn’t going to happen, but I stayed the 3:31 course. And as I’d been inspired by the elite seeded athletes running past me earlier, now I was sadistly cheering myself, ‘at least I’m not still running into the wind with double digit miles to go like the people on the other side of the road.’ It sounds mean but I’m sure the elites thought the same, at-least-I’m-not-that-person of me when they were in the home stretch and I still had ten to go!

Just before Mile 24 I was feeling pretty solid, uncomfortable and ready to be done, and unable to dig back into the 7s like I’d hoped, but still solid and like I could do what I needed to finish with a 3:31:something. I was focusing on staying in those low 8s and keeping just enough gas in the tank to sprint the last few minutes when a runner maybe fifty feet ahead of me staggered suddenly to the left and collapsed into the hill on the side of the road.

There were five or six runners between this injured athlete and myself; they all glanced at her, some paused, but then every last shitty one of them kept going. I know exactly what they were thinking: they all did the quick mental math that they were on BQ-track and if they stopped for someone in trouble they’d jeapordize their qualifying time. I know that’s what went through their heads, I know how hard they’d worked to be on that BQ cusp, and I think every last one of them is despicable.**

I ran to the shoulder of road where this young woman who was now lying in the dirt and rolling around agitatedly. Another woman from the other side of the course also dashed across the foot traffic to help. The injured runner couldn’t speak, I was instantly terrified by how dire her situation appeared to be. She was moaning and clearly in some kind of agony. She started making a sort of open close motion with one of her hands. The woman who had run over to join us – who happened to be a nurse I think she said – astutely questioned, “inhaler???” Then the injured young woman slapped her right thigh as if we’d gotten the clue in the highest-ever stakes game of charades. I saw she had a pocket in her tights by where she had slapped, I reached in and found a pro-air/albuterol inhaler – the same rescue one I use! I felt like, oh my god I can actually help, I know how to use this!’ I shook it and told her I was getting it ready then brought it to her mouth, cupped her head, and discharged it twice. She gasped in right as two more people came running up saying they were doctors. I gave them the inhaler and they took over as I took a step back, unsure what to do. They started calming her and assessing her vitals. One of them looked back to me and asked, “are you racing?” I nodded and she said, “then go! Go!”

I was really grateful she had told me exactly what to do because I was standing there at a loss – do I continue to try to help? Am I that one cook too many in this kitchen? I turned back to the course and took off for the final two miles.

The whole episode I would guess took about four, maybe five minutes, thought it is admittedly a blur. Obviously my 3:31 was out the window; I glanced at my Garmin and did some quick math to figure out what I needed to still secure that Boston berth – if it was even still possible. It had been a wholly terrifying encounter but my heartrate had come down quite a bit, so as I got going I was able to start making up some time with a faster pace than I could have managed without the unplanned pitstop. I’d been hanging onto around an 8:15 before the incident, and now I dropped down into the 7:50s and then 7:40s. I couldn’t make up all the time I’d lost but I clawed back at least a minute of it.

As I came down the final few hundred meters I found a repleneished reserve of energy and sprinted into the low 7s. I crossed the finish line with a 3:34:38. With that extra five minutes (thanks, aging!) that should be more than enough to secure a spot at the 2019 Boston Marathon.

All told I think the emergency stop at mile 24 cost me about three minutes – a small price to pay compared to the debasement of one’s soul that I assume occurs when you turn your back on a fellow athlete in crisis. The stop took longer than three minutes but the unscheduled rest stop meant I was able to deliver a much faster final two miles than I would have if I’d run straight through.

The Philly Marathon starts and ends at approximately the same spot near the Museum of Art. Crossing the finish line there was none of the sideways rain and gloom that had marked the begining of the race. It was chilly but sunny and, with the wind at your back, pretty pleasant. I collected my medal, some food and water, and exited the finish area to find my mama right there waiting. She was a sight for shivering, conflicted, quickly-becoming-sore, eyes.

She gave me a warm coat and was enthusiastic about my finish time. I was feeling too off still from seeing an athlete in a medical emergency to soak in the BQ and the usually inevitable excitement that accompanies finishing a marathon. I recounted the story as we walked the few blocks back to the hotel. I was so happy to have her there – even as I age into more forgiving BQ thresholds, I revert to being a needy mommy’s girl when she’s around, and it’s been so nice to have her support and company in Philly and at Boston back in April.

Unlike Boston, I could actually walk the whole way to the hotel without too much pain or pitstops in the middle of the road this time. Once we got there mama sadly had to pack up and head to the airport pretty quickly. We said goodbye and I was happy to know I would get to see her in just three days for Thanksgiving. I packed up my stuff as well, checked out, and got some lunch (and champagne) before catching an Amtrak back to DC.

The Aftermath…or more bathroom talk, just different kind…

I was excited once home for a night with my legs up and feasting on whatever called to me – which that night happened to be, as is so often the case, ramen. We feasted and Walking Deaded, I normatec’ed and wined, and afterward, as I was taking the pups out for a final walk, I started getting terrible heart burn. My penchant for always ordering the spiciest food I can find, and then slathering it in hot sauce to the point of physical discomfort – I like my hobbies and my eats to be a little painful! – means I’ve always got tums and zantac on hand. I popped an antacid and went to bed not thinking much more of it.

Within a few minutes of pulling up the covers though, I knew something wasn’t right in my belly and throat. The agita wasn’t subsiding at all, it was actually getting more intense and uncomfortable. I got up and tried another tums. I started to get back in bed, but before I could even lie back down I knew that whatever was unhappy in my stomach was coming back out the way it went in. I rushed to the bathroom and, ya know.

I thought, ok, maybe a bad piece of chicken or something, it’s out now, that’s done. I tried to get back in bed again, telling Scott that I’d weirdly just thrown up. Before even completing that thought though I knew I was in intestinal trouble again and rushed back to the bathroom.

And I’ll just skip ahead now for everyone’s sake. That was about 11pm, the throwing up…and other belly-evacuating stuff…continued through the night. Everything I’d eaten or drank that day demanded to be released back into the wilds of the DC sewer system. (Which is just the Potomac, right?) When I tried to put water back in, my stomach said hell no and expelled that would-be helper too. And so twelve hours after a marathon – an exceedingly dehydrating and calorie-depleting activity – my body rejected all rehydration and calories, leaving me feeling like death by 5am when I finally stopped wretching. I’ve rarely felt that horrible in my life and Josh was concerned that maybe I should get myself to a hospital.

Around 7am I was finally able to sip water and the pedialyte and gingerale Scott had gotten me. By noon I could nibble slowly on saltines. I slept through most of that Monday, writhing feverishly on the couch, then the bed, trying but failing to get comfortable. And then I woke up on Tuesday and felt 90% better. It was a bitch of a bug, but a shortlived one.

This may seem like an unpleasant tangent down which to lead you, dear reader, but when I think back on the 2017 Philadelphia Marathon, my marathon night of puking…and other stuff-ing…is inextricably linked. Between the young woman who collapsed and the 8 hours spent curled around my toilet, the race left a bad taste in my mouth, quite literally.

But that’s really not my final verdict for the Philly Marathon. I found that I liked the course a lot more than I thought I would, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Philadelphia the last few years and really enjoy the city. I came away with a BQ, I got a weekend with my mama, and logistically it was smooth sailing. So the bad taste isn’t really fair and I’m actually considering going back this fall. If you’ve made it this far and want some sort of qualitative recommendation I say I would highly recommend Philly Marathon to any and all.

Oh and whatever I contracted turned out not to be food poisoning because Scott got it next and was down for the same count on Thanksgiving. A much worse day to be sick, although at least he hadn’t just run a marathon before? Yay?

*Minus whatever next year’s BQ cushion will be. To be safe I really wanted to be actually sub-3:35, whereas for my last BQ I felt like I needed to be sub-3:30 to have enough cushion to safely qualify.

**I was appalled in the moment but this runner’s health emergency distracted me from my anger. In the ensuing months that ire has grown though and I’m actually surprised by how mad and disgusted I am by my fellow marathoners’ behavior.

 

This will be a short one (for me) because I didn’t take my usual notes at the end of it so recreating a race report months later proves challenging. Maybe this will teach me a lesson about timely reporting/consistent note-taking, but I think the real issue is this race was pretty miserable and I just wanted to mentally block it.

Scott and I sign up for Army Ten every year because it’s usually an inspiring morning with a fun course and crowd. While we’re registered most years it’s a little hit and miss whether we get to participate – it sells out quickly so we always just sign up in the spring as soon as registration opens, and then it remains to be seen what the October schedule will actually have in store for us. This year the stars-or more accurately, race and wedding seasons-aligned to permit Scott and I to use our prepaid bibs!

The Friday before race day (Oct. 6) I met a friend and hit the expo, picking up both aforementioned bibs. I was six weeks away from my A race, the Philly Marathon, so I felt lowkey about everything, which was good for my credit card. I picked up some gus and Clif products and that was it. Given the impending goal race, Army 10 was just going to be a training run. In fact, that Friday after hitting the expo, I put in an hour running in the bizarro-October heat. (At the time I praised the late summer surge, oh the naiveté….spoiler alert?)

The Saturday before the race I put in some quality swim mileage as well, so come Sunday morning I was far from my freshest self. I wasn’t too worried since I wasn’t racing for time or doing anything more than putting some miles on the pre-marathon, post-injury legs. At this point I was still only a few weeks back into any sort of real run program after the stress fracture/tendinitis scare so I knew while the calendar-stars had aligned to leave me free to participate on Army 10 morning, the speed-stars had not aligned for any sort of PR. I just had a vague goal of being sub 1:20 for ego’s sake.

Come Sunday morning I advocated Lyft over the metro, fearing the train’s proclivity for delays and spontaneous combustion would hinder a punctual arrival. My first of so many mistakes. In years past it’s been a quick shot down to the Pentagon and easy to get dropped off a few blocks from the start area. This year the police closed exit ramps apparently at least 90 minutes before the race started. (Nation’s Tri flashbacks anyone? No? Just me?) Our saintly Lyft driver was rerouted repeatedly until the patient and creative man finally made it off the highway and up backstreets to get us close-ish enough. We thanked him (and tipped him) heartily and joined the already-sweaty athletes hoofing it to the start.

A few minutes out of the Lyft and we were already-sweaty because that heat wave that I’d loved so much on Friday had only gotten warmer and weirder. The last time I did Army Ten I had shivered uncomfortably beneath numerous layers at the frigid start line. It had been in the 40s that morning and warmed into the 50s once we got going. And the pre-race freezies notwithstanding, it had been perfect run-weather. I was wishing nostalgically for those shivers this year. Before the mid-October sun was even up it was in the 60s and the humidity was oppressive.

Scott and I filed in past security – no joke at Army Ten given the Pentagon proximity – and headed to gear-check; or we tried to find gear-check. The pre-race layout was a little different this year and there was confusing signage and all of no volunteers pointing the way. I was pretty grumpy when we finally found the table tucked off to the left side sort of close-ish to the barely-visible above the crowd (for this smidge anyhow) gear-check sign. Once that was done it was porta-party time. (Obsessive bathroom habits: not just for triathlons!)

Organizers get an A+++ for potty:participant ratio. First we hit johns on the side of the massive Pentagon parking lot closest to us. Then we walked down toward the faster corrals, and I took the opportunity to go again! No waiting either time despite the massive crowd. I may have been uncomfortable from the rising mercury but at least my tummy was feeling ready.

This second bathroom break had brought Scott and I closer to our corrals but we still had a long trek to get to our assigned spots. This is some actual race reporting advice for anyone who hasn’t done Army Ten before: leave yourself a lot of time to find your corral, especially if you run towards the front of the pack. I was in the yellow wave which was the first main group, and Scott was one wave behind me in green. This meant close to a mile walk from security to our corrals.

As we walked down a stretch of closed freeway, past volunteers checking bib colors for line-jumpers (thank you Army Ten! Do better Cherry Blossom Ten!) there were athletes warming up on the other side of the median from the corrals. I decided to join them, bid Scott good luck and hopped over the cement barriers for some light yogging.

I jogged it out for maybe five minutes and the heat, and more than that, the humidity were making themselves known early. My heart rate was worryingly high and my asthma-y lungs were wheezily protesting. In capris and a tank top I was sticky with sweat from just that light effort, but I dismissed it reminding myself the day was just Philly Marathon prep – just my long run for the weekend.

Unlike years past and despite (or because of?) our near-disasterous Lyft ride in, we’d timed things better this year, and after shaking the legs out I only had to wait a few minutes in my corral before the race got underway. While I waited there was a flyover which always gets a big cheer from the crowd. And which I never remember is happening until it’s too late to get a decent picture.

After the flyover and the anthem, it was time to “race.” Knowing it wasn’t to be a big fast morning I’d staked an unambitious spot toward the back of the wave. When the gun went off I moved forward with the crowd thinking I was well-positioned to find a chill pace and stick with it.

But right away everyone around me was gunning it over the starting sensors and into a fast first mile. Not thinking things through and feeling self-conscious about the aggressive runners around me I held pace with them. And Josh’s instructions about maintaining a low heartrate at least for the first 5k went right out the window. By the first turn less than a mile in I was already rocking 170bpm – over threshold and well-over the 150s I was supposed to shoot for. Given the thermostat I’d been prepared to ditch those 150s quickly but I’d expected to live in the below-threshold 160s range. Now here I was maxing out with almost all the miles still to go.

As we hit mile 1 I was at 8:07 minutes per mile. Meh. But fine ok I’ll hit my stride I thought. So I kept plugging away and my heartrate stayed put and mile two clocked by at 8:07 as well. I thought about Boston and how sure I’d been that I would negative split, that at some point my fitness would kick in and get the better of the unpleasant heat, and how that never happened. I didn’t give up hope yet but I started thinking, ‘maybe these low-8s are all I’ve got today and if so, that’s not that terrible.’ So I stayed put, didn’t ask for any further speed out of my legs or heart. I just focused on maintaining a steady pace, no more and no less.

But my heart did not get the steady-as-she-goes memo and crept a little higher, and made 8:07 that much more uncomfortable, and so I slowed a touch to appease my galloping ticker. When we passed the marker for mile three my Garmin buzzed a frustrating 8:26 and the cycle continued. I tried to take it easy – even to slow – and my heart just kept beating faster. And the centigrade kept creeping up and my BPM followed right behind and so I slowed and by the halfway point I knew those two 8:07s had been the high point of my morning.

Miles six and seven included a switchback heading east up and then back west down Independence Ave. I tried to ignore my own discomfort by scanning the crowd running in the opposite direction for familiar faces – particularly Scott’s, first hoping he was out in front of me having a better morning, and then once I’d turned around at mile six, just hoping to see him at all and make a connection that might give me a little mental boost to finish this miserable thing. My hopes went unfulfilled and as we turned toward that bastard 14th street bridge and passed mile seven, I clocked my slowest lap yet at 8:42. I’d lost my grip on the mid-8s and was inching distressingly toward 9-minute miles.

I was also getting distressingly close to 180bpm. I hadn’t dropped below 175 in miles and I felt awful. It was so muggy – not really hot – the air just felt heavy and wet. And now I somehow had to cross my nemesis-bridge.

I wasn’t alone in my discomfort. Looking around everyone was struggling. People were dropping to a walk, and I was still surrounded by mostly fellow-yellow-bib-first-corralers so clearly this was not the day any of us had planned when we’d signed up. I took some solace that this soggy heat was sapping all of our abilities.

Partway through the bridge-from-hell my flashbacks switched from Boston to Chattanooga when I started hearing sirens and seeing runners collapsed on the sides of the course. I saw at least two, but I think three, people being tended to by EMTs and volunteers and emergency vehicles whizzed by a few times. This was definitely not your typical Army Ten Miler. I checked back in with my body not wanting to join anyone on a Sunday trip to the ER. My heartrate had crossed that 180 threshold which gave me pause, but besides general misery I didn’t feel any real dydration/exaustion symptoms.

Crossing into mile nine I was already so many minutes slower than any sort of  not-embarassing showing that I let myself slow even further to be safe. My heart hung in the low 180s as I drew closer to 9 minutes a mile. I stayed steady and continued to hit every aid station. On a better day I may have skipped the last one or two in favor of a faster time, but not that day. I stopped and walked through each and took my time.  And so I felt like hell but I didn’t feel dangerous.

Then crossing into mile ten something unexpected and totally irritating happened: I started to feel better. My body had waited till I had half a mile left, then decided to show up. With just a few minutes to go I picked it up and dropped into the 7s for the first time that morning. I was grateful for the momentary reprieve from misery, but I was also pretty irked at my legs and lungs for taking so long.

I crossed the finish line at 1:25:23 with an average pace of 8:33 minutes per mile. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway,) I was not pleased – even if it was just a training day. I left my Garmin on as I collected water and snacks so that I could monitor that precipitous heartrate. It was slow in coming back to earth which was further insult to the injurious morning.

I knew Scott must be behind me so I collected my finisher’s coin and got out of the chute to rehydrate and wait. Wandering around the finish festival there were lots of volunteer military personnel and police – we were right next to the Pentagon after all. One police officer had a German Shorthaired Pointer police dog and I quickly forgot all about my grumpy crappy morning. I approached the officer and pup – careful not to touch because UGH I know you’re not supposed to – and told him I’d never seen a GSP police dog before. As I did, the beautiful spotted K9-cop jumped up on me and gave me all sorts of face kisses, and so, I got to play with the police dog because the dog started it!

(Suggestion to race-organizers: therapy dogs! Especially if you all know it’s gonna be a rough weather day and people aren’t going to have strong races. Just distract us with pup-pups at the finish line and all will be forgiven!)

After that much-needed pickmeup I found a spot just past the finishline to wait for Scott. He came in drenched and defeated not too long after that. We commiserated about the disagreeable morning. Once we both had our finisher food we headed back toward gear check so we could get home. The course’s unpleasantness seemed to be infecting the finish line festivities and we didn’t want to hang around. Plus we’d learned in years past to take advantage of the empty trains before too many athletes swarmed them.

Gear check was a fifteen minute slog back by toward the metro, which was fine because it was hot out. But on a normal October morning, this would have been painful and potentially dangerous. You can’t have calorie-depleted athletes walking most of a mile to collect their warm, dry clothes as their body temperatures drop. This setup also makes no sense for groups of disperately paced runners as it impedes being able to quickly grab your checked gear and pop back to the finish line to wait for your friends and family. I don’t think I checked anything the last time I raced Army Ten so I’m not sure if this is how it’s always done or a change to the logistics, but mark me down in the not-a-fan column.

We got home quickly on the train and went straight to brunch – beating the boozy party-brunch crowd by like an hour. (Hey party brunchers! If you wake up a little earlier there’s no wait for a table!) Once the wretched running part of the day was behind us I welcomed the summer’s resurgence. And as I am sitting here writing this during a late March snowstorm, it’s hard to really recall how harsh the humid run-conditions had been. Hindsight is a duplicitous bitch and all that.

Despite my less-than-raving review of 2017’s Army Ten Miler, it’s still a great race that I recommend to any and all. Just, don’t cab/uber/lyft there and check the gear check layout before you plan your race day layers andf logistics. Hopefully the conditions this year were just a fluke and not the new trend. Some time after Scott and I were both done, organizers actually shortened the course for safety. Like I said, not a normal Army Ten. (Also, this really wasn’t that short a post, huh? Foresight is also a duplicitous bitch.)

 

Loving 2017 so hard I had to throw one more swimbikerun onto the tail end of the season. And lucky me, Queen Sherpette, Sara, was down to October-race together!

Somehow in all my years of triathlon, I’d never raced in Rock Hall, MD, despite the town’s prominence on the VTS/MTS line-up. It’s not as convenient as Lake Anna, AND you have to traverse the terrifying Bay Bridge to get there, but with Scott willing to drive that was no problem! Plus, probably minding all the DC and DC-adjacent athletes populating their roster, MTS kindly starts the race at 9am, which allowed us to sleep at home and drive out early race morning. Double-bonus! (I’m sure Scott sees the whole equation as like, negative half-bonus at most.)

With Scott at the wheel, we loaded up the hounds around 5:30am for the 90some minute drive to the Chesapeake Bay. It was Oct. 1st – just 53 weeks previous I’d been Ironman-ing in triple digits, and yet this year the early fall that had made for a chilly Nation’s Tri in early September continued for a downright frigid Waterman’s. Temps as we arrived at transition were in the 40s with a windy day predicted on top of the low mercury.

My teeth chattered while I set up my gear and I was dreading having to strip off the layers of sleeves and fleece to zip into my wetsuit. Water temps in the 60s meant numb toes were in my bike-run future and I was afraid another cold-water asthma attack might be too. Adding to the anxiety I overheard a couple women talking about the glut of jellyfish that had tormented the oly swimmers the day before. I am petrified of jellies and I had a legit moment of, “well, I’ve had a good season, I could just spectate this race.”

I found Sara and whined about the cold and the water-scorpions and she used her new-mommy skills to kindly but sternly tell me to chill out. (I require a pretty firm hand.) I accepted the fact that I’d be splashing around with these sea-hornets and prepared to shiver-shimmy into my long-sleeve Huub. Then I overheard those same women say that body glide protects against stings, so I proceeded to roll my entire body in the stuff-face, fingers, and bottoms of feet and in-between toes. (In case you’re wondering whether body glide does in fact insulate you from venom, the answer is for sure no. Not that snopes has looked into it, I’m just advising you not to put too much faith in glorified antiperspirant.)

Once I was thoroughly greased in what was 110% just a jelly fear placebo, Sara, Scott, the pups and I headed to the water. It was a little bit of a hike to the swim start; I was grateful Scott was there so that I could wear flip flops on the gravelly journey and hand them off to him. Sara’s parents were in town and walked down with us as well, we had a good little crew and I was grateful to be ending the season with this tri-family.

Swim

Despite being in different age groups (for now) Sara and I were in the same swim wave as women 30-39 were going off together. I watched the waves before us, eyes peeled for tentacles and screams of terror but everything seemed to be in order and no one appeared to be getting water-poison-murdered . A few minutes before we thirty-something ladies were set to depart I joined my 30-something contemporaries in jumping off the dock into the frigid, brackish Bay for an in-water start.

Notwithstanding a few episodes of violence during in-water starts this season they are still my preference – especially on a cold day when the swim can be such  shock to the system. Rather than a dock start like Nation’s – where the second you’re wet you’re racing – in-water means you get a few minutes to acclimate and breathe through the initial discomfort before getting to work. This meant I was able to avoid the same scary chest-seizing moment (and no men tried to drown me – another plus!) so that when the gun went off for F30-39 I was ready to go. (To the extent I’m ever ready to swim. Or that you could ever call my sea-flailing ,”going.”)

The swim was a 750m loop around the Rock Hall Marina  which was a new experience for me. There were boats moored at docks on all sides and the distinct taste of motor oil in the salty-ish water. Josh had warned me about that, suggesting I use it as a reminder to keep my mouth closed. The boats were comforting as was a sea-wall type barrier protecting the marina from the Bay at large, but they also made sighting more challenging. Probably part and parcel to my passive approach to swimming, I like to pause at every turn buoy and find the next buoy or shore or something to anchor my direction before I continue “going.” My history with adding extra distance by aimlessly zigzagging all over the course has led to an abundance of directional caution these days. (Better than races past, where my splashy meandering has actually led course officials and volunteers to worry for my safety.) Several times in the Rock Hall Marina I made a turn, but struggled to make out the next buoy or line thanks to the vessels anchored in my way. More than once I thought I was swimming towards the next turn only to realize I was swimming towards a someone’s skiff. Eventually I made my way around all the actual buoys, dinghies be damned, and back onto shore. (Do we agree that the plural of dinghy takes an ies form??)

Coming out of the water I hit my Garmin immediately and was decently happy to see 14:49 – right around 2:00/100m is big for me in the open water. The VTS/MTS timing mats were located somewhere after the swim and they clocked me at 15:48 for the swim which is less impressive, and either way I was second from the bottom in my Age Group (AG). I didn’t know it right then, but I had a lot of ground to make up.

Bike

I ran up a short incline into a much less vast transition area than the thousands-strong one at Nation’s. My bike was not so easily-located however, buried on a rack where it seemed not all of my neighbors were great counters. I was #121 but many of the competitors in the 1-teens and 1-twenties had just thrown their whips wherever they wished on the bar – and apparently they didn’t all wish to be in chronological order. I found Koopa after some bumbling and after a 2:17 T1 I was out and pedaling hard to track down the F30-34 in front of me. (Again, didn’t know it at the time, but that was all but one of them.)

The course had rolling hills and comfortable, smooth pavement, but it was windy as hell. I knew it would be going in. It had been a frigid blowy morning, and Josh’s race plan had warned that most of the 15 miles would be into an unforgiving headwind – the kinds I love so much where even though you turn it stays in your face! It’s magic! (It’s bullsh*t.) After experiencing that kinda of magic BS for forty-plus miles in Williamsburg I wasn’t too bothered by the prospect of 15 miles and I was in good spirits – yeah, my feet were numb but otherwise happy and feeling strong – as I got going.

It took me a little while to find the right gearage and effort working into the wind, and the first five miles were my slowest. Right when I started to get my groove a gentleman in his forties (not Taye Diggs) rode past me and then parked himself directly in front of me only to slow down and eat a snack. I was feeling good and I don’t really care when someone several AGs removed and with forty Kgs on me passes me, and he’d yelled some sort of encouraging pleasantry into the wind as he passed, so while I find the male habit of passing and immediately slowing to eat infuriating I wasn’t too bothered. I waited over a couple rollers and then passed him as he chowed.

And thus began 10 miles of an entirely unwelcome game of leapfrog. I was working hard, staying low, and making the most of my kilograms  the whole way. Mister oblivious repeatedly revved past me, only to slow down once he was in front. It was like New Jersey all over again, complete with his need to shout unneeded happy overtures every time he overcame me and my little legs. I tried to stay positive, daydreaming about the clinics I would one day tour the country giving to tri-guys about how not to be a pain in the ass in a race.

At some point in the last five miles I passed him with enough wattage and the wind finally at my back, and I thought I was done with the whole thing. Then with maybe two miles to go he flew by me and screamed, ‘C’MON WE GOTTA FINISH THIS TOGETHER!’

I was torn between being genuinely touched by his encouragement, and flabbergasted that he really thought the two of us shared some sort of race-bond. I also, being smidget female vs. fully-grown man, could not keep up with him as he floored it back to transition. I worked hard maintaining around 22mph over those last couple miles but still trailed him into the dismount.

No matter; he wasn’t my competition and I was content with the 45:20 I’d put down for my bike time. Keeping my average over 19mph with ten miles into the wind felt good and I also felt like I’d conserved enough to put in a strong run. Unlike New Jersey I had not laid it all on the line in the saddle, and after a quick 1:16 T2 I was out and ready put away a fast 5k run.

Run

In the three weeks between Waterman’s Sprint and Nation’s I had started to ease back into running with a handful of 30 minute mostly low-key workouts. I’d learned my injury wasn’t a stress fracture but achilles tendinitis which was such a relief. I’d started physical therapy with the incredible inspiration Kona-qualifying badass, Holli Finneren, which was already helping me lace up pain-free. Knowing I was safe and not in any danger of completing a fracture, I was excited to tackle this last triathlon leg of the season. And it was still chilly out so I had no excuse to not finish strong.

Running out of transition I saw the happy leapfrogger ahead of me. He may have had me beat on the bike but I doubted he had me on the run and I was ready to put that whole episode behind me for good. After feeling myself and my achilles out for the first couple hundred meters I decided now or never and started to open the pace up. Heading up a short incline I passed by my unwelcome bike companion who of course shouted something encouraging as I ran by. I waved, berrated my misanthropic biking tendencies, and didn’t look back.

As I dropped first into the 7:40s and then 7:30s I could feel the summer’s lack of run-training and got a little nervous that I wasn’t going to be able to cash this check. Still, I pushed into the 7:20s and held on. Within a couple minutes the pace started to feel more manageable. As my watch buzzed a 7:26 first mile I was feeling strong and knew I both could and had to pick up the pace.

Actually I didn’t know that I had to – I had no idea where I was in relation to the rest of the 30-34 women. I hadn’t paid much attention to the people I passed on the bike – except for one… – and I was still blissfully unaware how uncompetitive my swim had been. So really I was picking up the run speed to see what I could do with these last two multisport miles of 2017. That’s the best mindset to have I think – I was absolutely only running against myself, and I wanted to walk away from this race knowing I’d thrown it all out there.

So I picked up my cadence and settled into the 7:teens for mile number two. In the middle of this mile there was an out and back stretch and I saw Sarah – always a pick-me-up to see teammates! I also got a better look at the competition which was a kick in the chamois. I clocked 7:14 for that second mile and, after seeing some women from the front who were ahead of me and potentially my age, I mentally committed to an agonizing final 1.1 miles.

Sprint tris are all about being able to live at 90% exertion, and to push to 100% at the end. You have to learn to exist in the so called “pain cave” and it is as mental as it is physical. I was already uncomfortable in the 7:teens – exhilarated but uncomfortable – but I wasn’t maxed out, so with a mile to go, once more I kicked it up a notch to right around 7:00/mile.

I ran down a number of people and for the final stretch found myself in a group of athletes who were clearly hammering it as hard as they could – but true to triathlete fashion – they found the strength to will each other on. A really young woman blew past me at one point – about a decade my junior so I got to enjoy her impressive running unfettered by ‘oh-sh*t-she’s-beating-me’ thoughts. Instead I was just happy to see female badassery and I used her performance as inspiration to stay in the pain and not let up.

Rounding the penultimate corner my Garmin buzzed indicating a 7:05 finale mile. I had .1 to go and while I was already deep in the pain cave I knew I could kick it one more notch up because it was literally just 30 seconds of hell. I also saw Sara not too far ahead and used her Speed Sherpa trikit as my sighting goal as I dug deep one last time.

I caught up to Sara as we rounded the last turn and sprinted down the chute. She saw me pull alongside her and we cheered each other as we ran across the sensors together. It was (literally) a picture-perfect way to close out the last triathlon of the year. I hit stop on my watch and saw I’d put up a 22:12 or 7:09/mile average 5k. With the weeks off my feet and then the slow ramp back up I was pretty ecstatic with that time. I felt the way I wanted to: absolutely wrung out with nothing left in the tank. Whatever kind of shape I was in I knew I’d given everything I had on this last race so I felt proud and peaceful as I wcollected my medal with my teammate – still beaming from our photo finish.

Post-Race and Results

Sara and I collected our bling and some water and sweaty-hugged. We both felt like we had raced well so we hustled straight over to the results tent to see how we’d done. (I’d finished racing myself – time to see how racing against all those other humans had gone!) Men’s and then women’s age group finishers lists slowly scrolled by looking pretty lean – a good sign that not many people had crossed the mats yet.

Men’s overall and then age group results were first, followed by women’s overall. Sara and I were elated to find our names rounding out the top ten female overall athletes. It felt like a poetic end to the season: running the chute side-by-side, hitting the final sensors with the exact same time; Wrapping our season together on an unseasonably cold morning that had started with fears of jellyfish stings and would end with results we could be really proud of.

When Women 30-34 appeared on the screen, my name was the first and only one there: I’d won my age group! And no one else in it had even finished yet! My last race in 30-34 and my first time winning the division – I was ecstatic.

Next on the list were women 35-39 and there was Sara in the second place position. So not only did we get to finish together in the top ten, but we both got to take our places on the blocks. (Sara’s performance was all the more impressive as 2017 was her first year training-while-momming – she was closing out the year on the podium and then going back to her itty bitty baby boy at home. Anyone else impressed and inspired as hell? ‘Cause I am!)

We were definitely  riding that multisport high as we tracked down Sara’s parents and Scott next to the finisher’s chute to give them our good news. After cheering racers down the chute for a bit the cold started to seep back in and I headed to transition to re-bundle up and to get my phone so I could announce to anyone who would listen that I had won. Sara went back to the results tent to confirm once more our rankings and learned that while we’d been celebrating, the results had been adjusted…

She came and found me and broke some unwelcome (to me anyway) news: We were still top ten, but now for some reason I was listed as second place in women 30-34 and she was listed as winning 35-39. I paused my gleeful, boastful texting and went to check out these amended results for myself. Sure enough she and I had somehow switched top blocks in our respective age groups. It was hard to read much detail into the stats as they quickly scrolled by on the official race computer so I found them online.

The only thing I could think was that one of the top three finishers had incurred a time penalty and been dropped from the overall podium back into her (my) age group. And sure enough, a ringer in the 30-34 division had been bumped from the the top blocks into age group after a penalty of some sort had tacked two extra minutes onto her time.

I was so disappointed. It felt silly, on any other day a second place age group finish would be cause for pure celebration. But they’d dangled that first place in front of me and I wanted it! I wanted the top block! I’d never been on the top block! If they’d just given me second place from the get-go I would have been really happy with it, but my expectations (and ego!) had been teased.

I grumpily texted Coach Josh about the mix-up. He was still proud of me and helped me level-set. I came to terms with the second highest block (knowing whoever was in third place would be taller than me in the pictures no matter what) and tried to psych myself back up for the awards ceremony. I’d started the season with a second place age group and I would end it that way. Good book ends to a really fun and productive year of tris. And it’s not like I’d incurred the penalty. I’d put up a good fight and had especially turned in a great run after struggling with an injury and a generally slow run-summer.

When time came and my name was called, I happily climbed that middle block. Maybe just shy of victory is a better way to end the year, because it definitely left me hungry for more. I grew a lot this year. (I mean figuratively. I’m still child-sized on a 45cm tt frame. @tiny_triathlete #folyfe.) I feel like for years I was just dabbling, getting by, pretending at this sport, and now I’m really finding myself in it. Next year I join the most competitive age group, so it will feel that much better if (WHEN) I finally get myself on that top block.