Musselman Race Report

The week before the race presented a couple of road bumps. First, I got acute capsulitis of my left 2nd MTP joint--a nagging pain in the ball of my foot that felt like a fold in my sock that developed into a sharp pain upon any weight bearing. I took 3 days completely off, went to my podiatrist for the diagnosis, and was pain free on 4 days after the initial insult. I asked my podiatrist if I could run on it (answer: yes, if I'm not in pain) and if I was running on it during Mussel and it started to hurt, could I continue to run on it without causing some permanent foot deformity (answer: yes, again).
Second, I found a painful lump in my breast. I had a feeling it was a cyst and was going to deal with it after the race, but the damned thing hurt so bad I had my friend (and gynecologist) to stick a needle in it and drain it. She tried 3 times with no result. Ugh! Having this painful mass bouncing around in my sports bra for 13 miles was unacceptable. So I had another friend (and radiologist) drain it under ultrasound. There was one cyst (successfully drained!) and one adjacent funny mass that I had to proceed with right to mammogram for my pin cushion boob to be squished. I'd had enough of my own medical drama! I just hoped for no pain from either the breast or the foot during the race.
Thank goodness the Fosters, Marian & Rolando showed up at our house that night! I was really looking forward to their stay with us. Kevin, Mike, and I were racing. We all agreed that we were undertrained and hoped for the best.

"The sea was angry that day, my friend..."
While I'm not a great swimmer, I have been swimming open water/triathlons for 8 years. I have swum in murky, cold, rough waters of the Pacific NW so the chop in Seneca Lake didn't worry me at all. I started right up front hoping for pair of feet on which to draft. Within 300 yards, I felt like the collar of my wetsuit was choking me and unzipped my wetsuit half way down. At the first buoy there was a wad of seaweed the size of a couch that I swam right into it. When I later told Marian about it, she said I should've flipped on my back like an otter and started breaking clams with rocks on my belly. I wished I would've thought of that during the swim because it would've really helped me from not spiraling into lethal pissed-offed-ness. After the first turn, I swam to the wrong buoy. A guy on a jet ski pointed me to the right buoy that was about 10 miles away. I swam hard to catch up to my wave only to go off course AGAIN. WFT? Now, I'm swimming even harder to catch up. At one point I stood up (and cut my toe on a zebra mussel) and asked a volunteer on a kayak,"Where the hell am I supposed to go?" She pointed in nearly the opposite direction I had been swimming. I'd never been so pissed off in the water. By the time I got out of the water (20 min faster than my IMLP swim split!), I knew my extremely hopeful goal of breaking 5:40 was gone. If I really hammered for the bike and run, I might achieve my easy goal of breaking 6 hours.

The glaucoma test...
For the first part of the bike, I stuck to my plan of being on the lower end of my wattage range. There seemed to be a headwind, but I wasn't going to dwell upon it as I knew it wouldn't improve my already foul mood from the swim. The one good thing about being one of the last people to come out of the water is that no one passed me on the bike. Absolutely no one. I had a sour stomach for the first hour that didn't go away until mile 7 of the run. As a result, I didn't take in my planned amount of nutrition. By mile 40, the inconsistency of my training since April became very apparent. I was hurting quite a bit trying to put out the necessary watts. The thunderstorm had started; and the rainfall went from steady to quite heavy. A few stray raindrops hit my eyeballs and it felt like that air puff test for glaucoma that you get at an eye exam. I dropped my chain and about 8 people I had passed went zooming by me. I quickly passed them again, but by mile 50 I hoped that the run would be cancelled due to thunder and lightning. That easy goal of breaking 6 hours was gone and I shifted to the super easy goal of breaking my Mussel time in 2006. My Ergomo screen said "low battery" (and I charged that stupid thing!) so I had no idea how many watts I was putting out. I thought about the Tour de France riders in a breakway going under the 10K banner with the peloton bearing down upon them and rode with everything I had left.

Making lemonade...
As I entered T2, I asked Mary, "Are we really running in this lightning?" She answered through the bullhorn,"Yes, Boon you are running in this lightning unless you have metal in your shoes." I knew I wasn't even going to make my super easy goal and resigned myself to the run. At that point, my bad mood lifted. I figured that there wasn't any point in hurting myself on this run and that I may as well make some race friends. I gave salt tablets to a fellow runner who stopped from a leg cramp. A mile later he flew by me cramp free and looked to be running at least 7 min/miles. I drank coke and water at every aid station and thanked every volunteer I saw. At mile 7, the rain was torrential. I laughed with my fellow triathletes as we agreed that we wouldn't need to shower or wash our race clothes at this point. I ran the last 6 miles with a guy named Chris and a young girl (22 years old) who would utterly fly down hills then slow to a walk on the way up (which is were I'd catch up with her). We mugged for the photographers taking our race photos. Alot of race friends found me on the other side of the finish line and we exchanged many congratulatory hugs.

What I learned today...
1. That I don't need as many calories as I thought I did on the bike. 200 Cal/hour is enough. 330 Cal/hour is too much.
2. That while I may not have made tremendous advancements in my running pace, I did make an enormous improvement in my attitude about running >13 miles. It's just not the dreadful, daunting specter it used to be.
3. When time expectations and race goals are in the toilet, you can still have a wonderful time making race friends.