Awesome Race Weekend

Heads up - when volunteering for a race I can take a lot more pictures.  When racing by myself with no family cheering, I get NO pictures.  My epic weekend included volunteering all day at the Cedar Cross hosted by Team Virtus and then TriZou sprint triathlon in Columbia, MO the following day.

I chilled out Friday after a long week.  Two margaritas later, I was ready for bed at 9:30.  Good thing Superkate found someone else's house to go to.  But it was up and at'em early Saturday morning.  I got dressed (in a lot of layers - it was in the 30's!) and swang by Gerbes to grab several dozen donuts and several bags of fruit.  Got to Cedar Cross Race HQ about 7:30 and said hello to my various friends. 

Pretty soon, everyone lined up for the start and Bob gave some final words of wisdom.  There was an awesome kid playing electric guitar getting everyone hyped up, then he rocked the national anthem and jammed as the riders took off. 

Team Virtus represented! Robby and Luke before the start

Starting Line

Final Race Instructions

Everyone solemn for the National Anthem

Kick Ass guitar kid

Lead car leading racers out

Race Start

 

I waited around a bit to kill some time and to get more specific instructions on where I was going.  Drove to Ashland and stopped for a bite to eat and a soda plus to use the facilities.  Then headed to my spot and waited for a bit.  About 10:18 AM, the first two guys went flying by followed by a pretty good pack and another few guys.  No one stopped.  These guys were in it to win it.  The slightly slower folks that came in behind them were happy to have some water or a donut or banana.
For future reference, no one really wanted an apple or orange (which I failed to bring a knife to cut up).  I had a lot left over, but no biggie.  Was just happy to share the day with these awesome athletes.

View from my water/snack stop - fast guys coming through

Hung out until we were pretty sure the last folks had been through and then headed to bag drop.  Bob can't take a direct route anywhere so off through the gravel we went.  Got to the drop site and hung out with the cool guys from Team Fohty (and their AWESOME bus with a couple microbrew kegs on the back). 

Just short of half way here - there was some cussing of Bob Jenkins!

Team Fohty AWESOME bus!



Don't let Bob Jenkins do your race number



Robby "The Darkness" Brown took off following the cue sheet to the "T" and missing out on the team pic

Team Virtus - Luke, Adam, Travis, Kate and Bob



DNF Don was handy with the lube (on people's chains)



By the time the last of the people came through the bag drop, it was going on mid-afternoon and the likelihood was that the fast guys were going to be finishing soon.  So I snuck off to the Holts Summit McDonalds for a restroom break and a sandwich and then headed to the finish line.  I got there 5 min after the six guys who "won" did.  That has to be pretty anti-climactic to come into a finish line with almost no one there.  Freaking fast guys!  They came in together and donated their winnings ($500!) to charity.  What a cool way for that race to end!

Crazy fast and charitable dudes!

Crazy fast Emily Korsch with her official finisher's cup - first person without a penis to finish the full distance!

X-Rated Race Within a Race Trophy - it had two horses asses and a giant dildo - classy!

 I waited and waited and waited for other riders to come in. It was a while before anyone else came and then they trickled in. I cheered for everyone and enjoyed listening to stories of the day. There were some broken deraillers from the mud and some missed directional cues. And everyone cussed the muddy singletrack, but seemed to also agree that it added to the "epicness" of the day. Bob put a log on the fire because it was freaking cold and got colder as the sun went down and wind picked up. At nine, I gave it up and went home. My poor family had missed me and I had an early wakeup call. Kate hadn't come in yet and apparently wouldn't for another 20-30 min. Sorry to have missed her, but hope she had a great time.

Bob Jenkins and his big log

Robby looking pretty awesome with his "finisher's glass"

Got cleaned up and headed to bed after setting out a few things for this morning.  Up with my phone alarm at 5:15.  Dressed and headed out for Columbia.  Straight to the parking garage, then headed to packet pickup.  Got to transition with just 15 min to set everything up.  Ran into a girl I hadn't seen in 20 years.  Weird.  Stripped down and headed to the chip pickup line - not fun to stand outside in 40° weather in bare feet on concrete.  Note to self - 98 cent flip flops would have been worth tossing in the trash can.  Got inside and sat and waited for a long time to get in the pool.  I lined up with the folks who said they'd do the 1/4 mi swim in about 11 min.  I probably could have been a little further up, but I wasn't sure how I'd be slowed down with more people in the lanes and going under the ropes.  I visited with a lady that happens to be the niece of a guy that lives down the road from us and knows a bunch of people we know.  Weird.  Then I visited with a guy that had to take out his hearing aids before jumping in ahead of me.  Love this sport!  I had forgotten to take my glasses off so I left them on a bench by the swim exit and hoped they would still be there when I got back.

 

Finally got in the pool about 1.5 hours after the age groupers started.  Open water big group waves do have an advantage here.  The water was colder than I expected it to be, but I got right to it.  Caught the old man pretty quickly and then passed a handful of others so I was too far back in the line.  Oh well.  I felt a little tired along the way on the swim, but just slowed a bit and finished fine.  Got out of the pool and headed for the door grabbing my glasses on the way and switching them out for my goggles.  It was a long run down a very cold sidewalk in our bare feet.  It had only made it up to 46° at this point and being wet didn't help.  My watch shot craps in the pool so I have no idea how long the swim actually took.  It appears the split time included the long run to T1 (which was 11:32).

 

I got to my rack and put on my helmet then decided to take it off and put my Buff on under it to keep my ears warm.  I dried off as best I could and put my jacket on which felt much warmer.  Socks, bike shoes, gloves and I was off down the track to Bike Out.  I cranked my way out onto the course.  They had shut down one lane of each of three major roads and had awesome police/volunteer support at all intersections.  I don't know whose ass they kissed for that, but I thanked each one that I could.  I cruised down Stadium, suffered up Old 63, cranked down Grindstone and around to Providence and then coasted down to Mick Deaver and slowly cranked my way to the top. 

 

I was thinking how fast this bike course had been when the volunteer told me to go straight if I had only done one lap.  Oh shit!  I hadn't looked at the map closely enough - the bike course was TWO loops.  I had to face those two killer hills again!  I was not very happy at this point because I had cranked up Providence thinking I was almost done with the bike.  But I cranked away and got it done.  I was pretty freaking happy when the bike was over though.  Results email said my bike split for 14 miles was 1:06:23 which probably included the run around half the track and T2 (maybe T1 too).  My legs were NUMB (cold).  My upper body felt good though.  Jumped off my bike and tried to jog through T2 to my rack.  Pulled off my helmet, Buff, and gloves then switched shoes and took off for the run out.  A lot of people were finished now and that is always a bit demoralizing.  

 

But I was feeling relatively ok and was ready to get this thing done.  I jogged what I could and walked more than I should've, but pretty soon we were through the ag school area and to the first water station.  I tried to reel in this lady ahead of me and finally caught her about mile 2.  Then I kept feeling better and ran more, but still stopped to walk occassionally.  I passed a guy with "81" on his calf and told him he was a rock star!  I love that he is still knocking it out at that age.  A funny black guy was cheering and directing people at a merge point on the run course and I high 5'd him both times I went past him.  The run was pretty flat with just a little bit of hills and the climbs up and over the pedestrian bridge over College Ave.

 

I yelled at some kid that was blocking the sidewalk talking to some friends to "move".  I'm sure he called me a bitch.  Then I ran past a lady that yelled "Go Jeff City!" - I think my friend's sister Sarah who did her first tri and kicked ass.  And then there was the finish line.  I was glad to be done, but missed having my family there to cheer (and take pics).  I got my finishers glass and careful not to shatter it, headed to get my stuff packed up.  Grabbed a couple slices of Shakespeares Pizza and got my results ticket and headed for the car.  I felt like I did about as good as I could and I knocked out the course in 1:51:10 with a run split of 33:17 for the 5K (not a bad pace for me).  I'll take it.  Especially with my lack of swim training and less than stellar amount of running.

 

Celebrated Cinco de Mayo with some friends at our local Mexican joint tonight.  A couple margaritas might make for a rough Monday morning.  But all in all, a pretty awesome weekend!

 

YTD:
Swimming = 10,000 yds = 5.7 mi
Biking = 572.0 miles
Running = 87.9 miles