Let's chalk up yesterday's tri as the worst in history. Considering I've now done three (ever, and this season), that's a pretty bold statement. However, it was indeed a shocker - not just for me either.
I had entered the Contact 393 at Takapuna and was doing it come hell or high water! My Mum's birthday is Feb 20 and this was the closest event I could get to the date. My first ever tri was on my Dad's birthday, so this fitted well.
The drama all started on Friday when I woke up in agony with back pain. I suffered through just over half the work day and then had to go do something about it. I couldn't get a physio appointment or an appointment with Kirsty my regular sports masseuse, so headed off to the Chinese medical clinic for some acupuncture and elbow "sport" massage. It certainly got my back moving, but it wasn't enough. I had a bloody hot shower, swathed myself in anti flamme and tiger balm, lay on a boiling wheat pack and chugged down a couple of codalgin.
Saturday morning was a bit better. My back was at least moving, and fortunately my swim coaching session was cut short due to there now being seven people (!) in the group and me being the only one who can actually swim. Jees! People self-evaluate to get a level for lessons and always seem to think they are better than they are, so the other six in my class who can barely float, let alone stick their face in the water are definitely not level 2 material. So, I went to the office and got myself into a level 3 class - at present I'll be by myself in the class but it could change. I hope it doesn't!
After a soak in the spa it was time to go home and pack my stuff for tri number 3. I went through my checklist...finally...and was awfully relaxed about everything. After a big dinner of grilled chicken pasta and a trashy chick flick, I set the alarm and hit the hay. I wasn't out for long before our neighbours from hell had yet another domestic, and my cat was driving me insane by trying to get comfy enough to sleep on a plastic supermarket bag. Joy, oh joy.
I woke at 6.05am on race day with a fright. The alarm, which I'd carefully set for 5am, hadn't gone off. The reason? I hadn't set it to "everyday", it was set on "weekdays only". Brilliant! I just had to laugh, even when I realised my back still hurt and I just wanted to go back to sleep. I was due in Takapuna (35 mins drive away) at 6.15am to meet a couple of mates also doing the tri, and I hadn't had breakfast as planned at 5am. I had to stop and get petrol, drink half a litre of fluids and get to transition by 6.30am.
I hauled butt big time and made it to Takapuna at 6.40am. I managed to rack up and wolf down a gel and a choccie milk. Thank heavens for gels - without them, my tank would have been well and truly empty. I had time to go and stand on the beach and have a splash around in the water before the race started. Before I knew it, the start horn had gone off and I had 300m to swim.
It was the longest and most painful 300m of my life. My time was so miserable I wiped it off my watch. I cursed my asthma for not allowing me to take anti-inflammatories, and knuckled down for a long sprint tri. Out of the water in last place, it was a pig of a hill up to transition. Transition went pretty smoothly and pretty quickly. I have at last mastered the gear layout so wouldn't have been more than about 4 minutes in T1.
However...going into transition to rack up, one of the officials accosted me with a roll of electrical tape. One of my bar end caps was missing and she decided to tape it closed with electrical tape. This was to be my undoing - in lap two of the bike it came flying off and got stuck in my front wheel, wrapping itself around a spoke. I had to unclip, pull over, extract it, take off and clip back in. Pain in the butt - and cost me a good three or four minutes. I was pleased that it wasn't something more serious but really, it cost me time. Mental note to self, drop by the bike shop this week and get another end cap. I scarfed another gel on the bike and chugged down my Mizone grape.
After that little mishap, T2 was relatively straight forward, apart from issues getting off the bike (lack of food, quads weren't happy, lots of people in the way, and then there's the cleats) and some other chick slamming her bike into my spot. An official moved her bike so I could get mine back in. My back was well and truly screaming by this point, but I changed my shoes, took off my helmet and set off on the "run". 300m or so into the run, I had to walk. My back was about to kill me, so I dropped back to a fast walk and stayed there until the downhill stretch on lap one where I hoofed it downhill. My time was even more disgusting by this point so I turned off the chronograph altogether. Screw it, I just had to complete, and with my back the way it was, that was all I could manage.
I ran the last 400m through to the finish line, collected my finisher's towel and went over to transition to get my gear. Job done, it was time to grab a latte and watch my mates in the men's race. After their race was over, I went down to Cheltenham for a swim, then it was home for Pizza and a nap before watching the elites on TV.
I'll analyse this event in more detail later, but for now I need some sleep and to chill my back out
Night all.
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