Sodus Point Triathlon Race Report

I love to ride my bike. I love to ride my bike fast. I love to ride my bike in the sun. The only thing I like better is leading the bike in a field of 200 athletes, following a police car in 92 degree heat. When you tell me to find my happy place..... that's my happy place.

The Sodus Point Triathlon is a great little race up in Sodus Point, right on Lake Ontario. While the field was small it was certainly full of talent and as per my last post I had laid out the challenge to Johnston.... excuse me... Carl Johnston..... oops..... Doctor Carl Johnston.... where do I put that pHd? Or is it PhD..... I forget how these things go? I should be kinder to Johnston, his 2 daughters just spent the last 92 days cycling across the country and have been sending him taunting text messages of dipping bike wheels in the Pacific and preparing their own Buffalo. While I am pissed that I was somehow not invited on that trip.... I reminded him at least they didn't send him the pictures of keg stands and wet t shirt contests.

I am always here to help.

I have not raced a sprint in over a year, I haven't raced even a local sprint in over a year and our area is abundant with these. Reminder to self: beg The Wizard to schedule more of these.

Lake Ontario was somehow flat this morning which absolutely bummed me out. Lake Ontario is notorious for "turning over", lots of cold water and waves, not this morning. But it would make for a nice swim. I wore the Blue Seventy Full Sleeve suit and every stroke I took I wished I had worn the Blue Seventy Point Zero3 that I have. It would have been perfect for this race!

The swim was fine, I felt good, I laughed to myself that this little race would be my first speed session since the first week in July .... so get your bootie moving Mary! I was able to exit the water second woman and was first out on the bike course.

The men began 5 minutes behind us and this allowed Doctor Carl Johnston PhD to chase me down and also allowed me to completely haul ass. I knew full well that this would be the only opportunity I had to ride like I wanted to. I know what I would hear is "nice bike split". This would be a nice bike split kind of day. There is no pacing in a sprint, no holding back, and my next 2 races are 1/2 Ironman races which will be full of control and wattage. So I was allowed to have at it.

The bike course was awesome. Rolling hills, good roads, great sunshine...... and a cop car to follow. Towards the end during the last mile I noticed a girl in pink with a pink bike make a right hand turn on to the bike course. As I got closer I realized she was wearing a timing chip. Pulling up to her I commented that I thought she had made a wrong turn, because I had been following the cop car the whole way.

She told me how she was directed to turn at one intersection.... ugh. I thought. Ugh. While it is the responsibility of the athlete to know the course, it's hard when you are told what to do...... I told her to just keep going. If it were me I would have made a training day of it. Later on I realized she had in fact dropped out and I kicked myself. While I didn't want to not say anything..... I don't know..... I wished she would have made a training day of it!

Onto the run I wasn't sure my legs were coming with me. The run is a 2 looper through a little beach town and I got the lead bike by Boots. The first male didn't catch me until about the first 1/2 mile and Doctor Carl Johnston PhD didn't catch me until just a bit later. The guys all looked great and I was expecting myself to be caught any second, my friend Kathleen is great at running me down and I saw her come in on the bike.

At the half way point my legs came around and for the first time in my life during a run I began to pick up the pace. During a run! I picked up the pace! Kathleen still caught me with 1/4 mile to go but I was so elated that I was running faster at the end..... that I couldn't help but be the most smiling girl out there!

That run is coming. I don't' know what the split it yet, it isn't stellar but had I timed loop one and loop two there was a definite improvement. I am running better, the faster part is coming. And I can feel it.

Finishing the race with a nice little hometown crowd and cheer was fantastic, I congratted Kathleen and Doctor Carl Johnston PhD and began my cool down run.

The worst part of a cool down run is that people keep cheering for you. I smiled, said thank you and turned off the course, got chased down by a kind volunteer and thanked them again, while I let them know I was just cooling down! I felt so bad!

As I was running my 30 minutes I smiled. I felt too good. Here. The Wizard shall give me a talking to about that. It's coming and it's coming in stages. I have to get over this.... oh my goodness I feel so good while I am running..... feeling and move into hurting on the run and handling that like I can on the bike.

Sure enough, that's exactly what he said.

Through the past year I have been through a lot, and coming to a hometown sprint race was just what I needed. It's like a fresh start, a few years ago I finished this race 3 minutes faster and 7 minutes in front of Kathleen.... a lot has happened between then and now. I have learned to let go of those bench marks like I have let go of the super swimmer I was in college when I swam 10,000+ yards every day.

Afterwards I hung out with Kathleen and her husband and was so tempted to accept the beer they offered me (with my luck I would get a DWI on the way home). We missed our names at the awards ceremony but we caught up, we haven't caught up in over a year.

There's just something about the hometown race. The people are changing, the old schoolers like Doctor Carl Johnston PhD, Mike Baxter, Dennis Moriarty, Lyn Fuller, Kathleen.... they are all still around. Doctor Carl Johnston PhD reminded me of the early days when I was just a pup and we went to the World Championships in Disney World ...... I remember that he was the only one of his little posse group who didn't get naked at my wedding as the guys changed from bike to wedding clothes in the parking lot (I have video)..... and I remember a lot of laughing.

Today gets to be one of those kinds of memories, tucked away so that when I visit Doctor Carl Johnston PhD in the triathlon nursing home.... I will mock out his titanium walker..... offer him a non alcoholic beer.... ask him how his bowels are doing..... and we can revisit the old days.

The days when I could keep a 5 minute start lead until the run. And the day that's coming...... when I can finally out run his old butt.

Good times.

I need to send out a giant shout to my coach and my team: I am very very very very lucky that Coach Jesse Korplenicki and the QT2 Team have been working with me since May of this year. Under Coach Jesse (The Wizard) I have been on the road to a comeback and performances I have only dreamt of. Thank you Jesse and QT2!