Friday, August 29, 2008

I WON, I WON, I WON!!!!!!!!

I was feeling pretty exhausted from a tough summer of clinical rotations and racing so I tried to bail out of the Lorain International Distance race last weekend. I told Paulo that I didn't feel up to it. His reply? Just get it done.

So I was off to return to the scene of the crime!. Yes, this was where I did my first US triathlon.

A backstory...

My training since Steelhead sucked. Emergency Medicine was a tougher rotation than anticipated because of the swing shifts and studying, so my workouts were few and far between. Then before the race I decided to do a completely ass-kicking swim workout on Friday, a bunch of running at the end of the week, and another swim workout on Saturday. Bad idea!

I remember back to when I did my first race here. I signed up months ahead of time, went the day before to pick up packets and scope out the race site, and had everything laid out the night before. I was terrified! This time was like a whole different ballgame! I was exhausted when I got home from work the night before and passed straight out. I woke up with barely enough time to shove all my crap in the car, take a quick look at the map and get out the door. I remember thinking- Right on Colorado, Right on Kansas. That is easy enough! They are both state names!

As I turned off the expressway into Lorain I had a bad realization. I looked at the street names.... Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Indiana, Ohio. Oh crap. I'm in trouble. So after 2 frantic calls to Lanny and a plea for help from a local, I finally made it to the race site at a bit after 7am (race start 8am). I registered, peed, racked my bike and made my way down to the race start.

The race had a sprint and Oly division. As people were lined up I started to think that my cap was the wrong color. There were hardly any people with blue caps! The 1st-4th waves of sprinters went off and there was a pretty pathetic sized wave left. All of the Oly racers. 29 strong with 8 women. Hmmmmm....

Swim:

I overheard someone talking before the race saying that the coast guard had their GPS stolen the night before and they had to guess on the distance of the swim. Interesting. And looking out I could barely see the buoys. Partly because they were so teeny, tiny, and partly because there weren't a whole lot of them. As we started swimming it started to become very apparent that they made the swim a teeny, tiny bit long. To make matters worse the very last buoy they had was the farthest from shore! It was like they were saying- just go back in! Don't worry about swimming straight, you'll get there eventually. And of course, the genius in charge of assigning swim wave colors chose the Oly racers to give the navy blue caps. So we couldn't even spot off each other. Needless to say the swim was a mess. When I got out of the water and saw my time was far north of 30 minutes I knew one of two things: The swim was WAY long, or I had completely trashed my arms with my swim training that week. Likely a combination of both...

Bike:

On to the bike, there was again a monster headwind on the way out. I half wanted to get off my bike to make sure my brake wasn't rubbing. It felt so slow! But of course we were rewarded on the turnaround. The Sprint was 2 loops of the Oly so we got to go against that lovely wind twice. Saw a bunch of newbies on the course which was nice. But there was also some really bad rule infringements (blocking, drafting, ipods...). I didn't see many women out on the course so I didnt know if they were ahead of me or behind me. I paced the race a little bit harder than my half ironman bike pace. I shot for a bike HR of 170-175, which is 5 bpm higher than my half pace. It felt ok, but I was pretty tired. The month had taken its toll for sure.

Off the bike onto the...

Run:

The run felt like total crap. In the first 1/2 mile I actually remember wondering if I was going to even be able to run the whole thing. It was so painful and my legs didn't want to cooperate. Mile 1 took approximately 30 minutes to come (or so it seemed). As I started to near the turnaround a woman buzzed by me on her way back. Crap! She's way too far ahead. No way in hell can I catch up with how I feel.

But seeing her managed to light a bit of a fire. I started feeling a bit better and tried to pick it up. When I got to the turnaround Steve, a CTC friend told me I was 1 minute behind. I hit the turnaround, grabbed a gatorade and headed back out for lap 2. I could see her now. I ran faster.

As I got to the lap 2 turnaround at mile 4.5 I had bridged the gap. As I went by the lead woman she cheered for me (how cool is that?). After I took the lead I basically ran as fast as I could all the way home. I was breathing like a rabid bull and most likely foaming at the mouth as well. I ran by some people walking to their cars after the sprint and heard a lady say: She's a fast one! I would have laughed if I wasn't in so much freaking pain!

As I came up to the finish I heard a very large cheering section start up. How awesome! I am beeing cheered in! I finished the race, nearly passed out and downed 40 ounces of water in quick time (it was REALLY hot out). I had a great time with new and old friends and stayed to pick up my FIRST OVERALL WOMAN TROPHY!!!!!

Here are the stats

Overall Place 6/29 (First woman)


Jodi Thomson

Swim (long)

33:18.70

T1

01:29.00

Bike

1:02:07.10


21.0 MPH

T2

00:44.20


Run


46:22.20


7:29/M

Total

2:24:01.20

Considering my last real Oly had a finish time of 2:58, I call this progress

:-)

Then I got miserably lost (again) on the way home and had to call Lanny to get bailed out. I don't know how I find my way around my apartment without a GPS....

20 comments:

John said...

I know it's been awhile since I said hello Jodi but could I borrow a few bucks since you won? :-)

jason said...

That's pretty friggin' sweet. I hope you don't think I'm trying to rain on your parade, but you brought up an interesting point with the size of your race. Do you think that Ohio races attract a pretty light crowd in general? I moved to Atlanta from Columbus in '99 and started doing tri's in '01, and even then it wasn't uncommon for sprints and Olys here to sell out quickly at around 500 people. I went back to Columbus in '07 to do the Oly at the "Columbus International Triathlon and Sports Festival" at Antrim Park (awesome, awesome race--I highly recommend it if you can fit it in), and the folks there were acting like it was a big deal to have roughly 200 people for the sprint and the Oly combined. I don't have much experience with other parts of the country, but it seemed like a huge shift from Atlanta (although we're certainly no Boulder).

Danny Montoya said...

Super Duper Cool!!!

Congrats on the OVERALL WIN!!!

Can't wait to see ya!!!

Unknown said...

Nice job ROCK STAR!!!! ;-)
Tracy

Jodi said...

Jason- I think that the reason we get light showings is because we have so many races. There are tris or dus every weekend and several running races every weekend. So you really get a dilution of athletes. Last Sunday the Lorain race shared a day with the heavily popular Bellefaire Biathlon. At least that was my assumption about the small races. But I am totally perplexed why the Oly race was so small compared the sprint for such a late season race....

Anonymous said...

WOW!! Go you - that's awesome! Overall win, celebration time! "Progress" now that's an understatement if I ever heard one, lol.
The swim sounds like a real killer - of all the legs to make long. I loved reading about your run though, how you used the other woman to just get that edge and cross the line as #1 :-)

Brian said...

You rocked even with your little training. That's funny that the coast guard had their gps stolen. you really need balls to go on their stuff and steal from them. Too bad the swim was long or your pr might have been better.

MarkyV said...

I told Paulo that I didn't feel up to it. His reply? Just get it done.

*******************************

Seriously... what did you expect he would say? ;)

triguyjt said...

1, Fantastic job...YOU ROCK!!!

2. you under-estimated the aerobic training effects of picking up poop;;;;thats why you kicked butt in the run to take first overal woman.

3. weird not as many signed up for the oly...however...I had portage lakes set earlier in the season as an oly...now I am changing it to a sprint... maybe others did the same....I don't know...

and did I say YOU ROCKED!!..yep...congrats jodi

E-Speed said...

2:24 is smoking fast girl. and with a long swim! You rocked it!

Maggs said...

Awesome job Jodi!

Charlie said...

Since the first time I met you and saw you race, always knew it would be just a matter of time.
Congrats! You are one of the toughest athletes I have evr known. Keep it up.

TJ said...

Congrats on an awesome race!

Eric said...

Not a bad result considering "you didn't feel up to it" :-) Congrats!!!

Judy said...

Yeah - good job and congrats! That is certainly progress for the year!!

Steve Stenzel said...

WOW!! You totally rocked it! Way to catch her on that run with that speedy run time!! You sure were running like a "rabid bull!!!"

CONGRATS on first place!!

John said...

Ahhhh you won a tri! :-) Congratulations Jodi!

Janet Edwards said...

You friggin rock!!! Congratulations that it huge!!!

Anonymous said...

Congrats Jodi!!! You are a super-fast and super-motivated girl. That's amazing to be going through med school and winning races at the same time.

I am another MD/PhD student (at Georgetown) with a wonderful/terrible triathlon addiction. I'm having fun but no where close to the front of the pack like you. My blog is http://daveruns.blogspot.com if you want to check it out.

Unknown said...

Hey Jodi
Just read about your win...that is so great! Your times are coming down each race...even when you are wiped. Keep up the great racing and keep having fun!
Jacqui