The time from when I started my last post to now measures over a month, so I'm desperately trying to write in the most sane and chronological order as possible... But for the most part, the last month has been a blur, characterized by one shitty workout after another... It's been less than a week since HoD, so hopefully I'll be able to recount enough to make this post humorous, which is always my goal...
Heart O' Dixie 2011 Race Report
For some reason (and maybe it's because of the aforementioned shitty workouts), I just "wasn't feeling it" for HoD this year... I was excited because I knew the bike course would help me post up a season high bike split, just like last year... But I knew that the run would humble me since my training runs have been nothing more than demonstrations in suck....
I begrudgingly register for HoD after seeing that Kendrick, Sara, Chad, Alex, J, and Hallie are all racing (J and Alex raced as a team with a guy named Brian)... I knew that I'd hate to miss out on these reindeer games, so I clicked "register" and just hoped for the best...
Head to Starkville on Friday morning... My sister had come to visit the week of the race (which ultimately wasn't the best decision as to when to have company, because I was up until 11 or 12 every night she was here) so I had only a day or two to mentally prepare for HoD... "No big deal," I thought... "I've done this race before, I know what to expect-- decent swim, fast bike, hilly run"... yeah, I thought I knew what to expect!
Starkville on Friday-- Packet pickup where I see Will and Hallie... Back to Starkville where I'm staying at Alli and Jason's again... which now, their house is known as "Trevor's domain", since their newborn calls the shots... It was good to see them, and Trevor, since they still live in Starkville and nothing really ever brings me back to town except for a race here and there... Dinner at Old Venice with Jason and my buddy Nick... The Three Amigos, just like old times...
Terrible sleep on Friday night... It was that kind of sleep where your juuuuuust about to fall asleep, but you still feel like you're aware of what's going on, like you can hear stuff and can be awakened at any moment... typical for me before a race... and having not "banked" any sleep during that week, I was completely wrecked when the alarm went off at 3:45 am...
Forced down a bagel w/ peanut butter-- my usual pre race meal... Mix up my fluids for the race (I've started using an electrolyte drink called "Electro Endurance" that contains all sorts of minerals and vitamins and is light years better than Gatorade... if only it didn't taste like the bottom of a bowl of melted Orange sherbert ice cream, we'd be in business), load up the car, and I'm on the road to Louisville by 5:00 am...
Same complaints as last year with transition... It was crowded with non-racers and really, an hour isn't really enough (for me at least) to get my shit together, get warmed up, hit the bathroom one last time, pick up chip and get marked, before starting the race... Maybe I just need to get there earlier... Whatev...
Spin on the bike for about 2 minutes, no run warmup (since it's a point to point race, I had to put my T2 bag in the trailer) and no swim warmup... WTF was I thinking? I'm an idiot...
Here we go, #341 gets into the water...
Swim felt good, although the buoys seems to be dancing across the water in no particular fashion... You'd be swimming, sight, and see the buoy straight ahead, then all of a sudden, take two breaths, sight, and the buoy seems to have moved to the right... frustrating... Since I hadn't done any sort of swim warmup, I started feeling tight pretty soon after getting in the water... I felt like I was swimming fairly strong, but the arms were starting to bother me a bit... "Shit, just swim faster and get outta the water..."... So that's what I did... Got out of the water almost 30 secs faster than last year @ 13:38... Pretty please with that, considering I swallowed some lake water and nearly choked to death... It's always something...
Hit T1 and had a pretty quick time... 0:39 seconds... But I just wasn't feelin it... Not sure why...
Hop on the bike and told myself to just relax on the first 5-8 miles... let the legs warm up and then crush those rolling hills... Post up a killer bike split so you can have some sort of self confidence going into your next race...
Well that's not exactly what happened...
HoD is a 27.5 mi, point to point race... And for every single one of those 27.5 miles, we had a headwind... :(
The bike was miserable... I never felt like I really got warmed up, the headwind was awful, and I had forgotten how bad the roads were on the course... Since I didn't register til late, I was put at the back of the race, which totally sucked because there was a line of cars going to the finish line while I was on the bike course, which made passing anyone safely nearly impossible...
And that's not all...
My Garmin... Oh my little precious... That little orange and grey gizmo that I've become oh-so-reliant on... it let me down... big time... During the bike, my Garmin was going beserk- auto pausing and resuming on its own... Not giving me accurate speed (said I was going like, 14 mph, which I knew I wasn't)... Then at minute 42, it decided to pause itself and not restart... WTF? I was livid... I could have stopped and tried to fiddle with it, but I figured that'd just waste time, so I just kept riding as hard as I could... The legs were getting lazy and I knew the run was going to be a beast... At this point though, I really didn't care how the rest of the race went-- that tiny orange and grey contraption had already gotten so far into my head that my race was done...
Got off the bike and I see J in T2... He's cheering for me and I've just about had it! I told him that I was sorta done, and that the run was just "in my way" to finishing and this disaster being over... I exit T2 and walk a little bit to fiddle with my race belt, gels, and whatnot, but moreso to bring my heart rate down as much as I could before embarking on the nearly 7 mile run to the finish line...
The run was about what I expected... I walked through aid stations and up 2 hills, mainly cause I just didn't give a fuck how my race was going... When I did run though, I felt pretty decent... I've been running in Saucony Kinvaras lately and they're a great shoe-- until they get wet... Then it's "slosh slosh slosh" all over the place... It drove me nuts...
The gang, as usual, met me on the run course right at about the entrance to the Neshoba County Fairgrounds... (Thankfully I was running at this point haha)... Once I took the left turn into the fairgrounds, I decided to just gas it... I picked up the pace a little-- just enough to feel like shit, and leaving just enough to get around the track, which is deceptively long... I'd be running and I'd hear my peeps encouraging me "Good job Dave, looking good, looking strong, almost there" It was nice to have my cheerleaders there...
Cross the finish line in 2:43:04... about 4 minutes slower than last year... but given the issues on the bike and the sub optimal effort on the bike, I was ok with it.. in fact, I didn't really even care... Will crushed me by like 8 mins... But like I said, I didn't care... Sure, I was frustrated, but at this point and especially this season, I just don't care anymore... I'm so fed up with having shitty races that at this point, I'm having to ask myself if signing up for any more races is really what I need to be doing with my time and money...
But then I remember, I'm doing things that I never thought I'd do, and that most people will never do.... So I keep goin...
Looking forward to Mountain Lakes in August.. It's a sprint, so it's over before the pain really sets in... After that, I'm looking at the 70.3 in Augusta (a guarenteed failure), then maybe a collegiate race in October to finish the season...
Still got a long way to go...
Thanks for reading
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