Courtenay Brown

So yesterday I raced the Oceanside 70.3 half-ironman triathlon. It was pretty sweet. For the uninitiated (or the slightly forgetful)(not to point any specific fingers)(Ma), that entails 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles of cycling, and then 13.1 miles of running. It can sound like a lot but it always seems to be over before I know it, I think it’s that whole “time flies when you’re having fun” thing !

The race marked some firsts for me… first time doing an Ironman Corporation event, first time meeting my coach in person, and oh yeah first time racing in the Pro field. Actually that last one was the biggest deal, and I haven’t talked too much about it on here. But yes, I’m racing pro now! And I feel happy about my first pro race, it was a good starting point.

Here is a quick-ish recap of what happened. The swim went pretty much the way I expected it to: I came out of the water in last place out of the pro women. I’d hoped that my time would be faster, but it wasn’t. I swam a 38:30. The lead women were in the 24 minute range, and most of our field swam under 30 minutes. Uggghhhh. After that, I definitely enjoyed the bike leg. I “decided” to race without power or heart rate for the first time ever. I’ll let you “decide” how much input I really had in that “decision” that my bicycle and I made together the day before the race. But it was a good experience for me, apparently even without the instruments to keep me honest I’m still capable of pedaling hard! My time of 2:37:35 was only four minutes slower than the top three finishers, and 6 minutes slower than the top female split. I’m really happy with that. Then I ran a 1:31:39 for the half marathon. And just FYI that is a five minute personal record for me at this distance. Five minutes! I finished in 4:53:00, 20th out of our field of 28. And, I passed 21st place in the finishing chute, which was pretty cool. Even though I knew I was nowhere near the front of my race, I never once wished I was racing amateur. I know I have a *lot* of work to do, but racing against the best women in the world is inspiring, validating, and humbling all at the same time. I love it!

So. About all that work I have to do… I’m really looking forward to my next race, for many reasons (e.g. liking the sport, wearing a swimsuit all day, etc.), but a big reason is I want to implement some lessons I learned yesterday.

1. Next time, I will have a race plan. This time my plan was intentionally pretty loose, I really just wanted to have fun and see how I’d fare with no specific pressure. I did have fun, and next time I know I can set expectations for myself and stay focused.

2. Next time, the first words out of Ben’s mouth will not be “nice job but I really really need to know what you were doing in T1 for three and a half minutes?!?!” (Ma: T1 is the transition between swimming and biking). Yea, so I had a slightly extensive wardrobe debate with myself during transition, the consequence of this debate was that I spent 60 seconds longer in T1 than the other pro women. Is it cold? I can’t tell. I should wear my arm warmers. But the sun is out. But I’m standing still, so maybe it’s only warm here? Ack! The fact that my bike was the absolute last bike left in the pro racks should have screamed URGENCY!! to me. Instead it just sort of nonchalantly said eh, what’s another minute?. In some cases, another minute is 3 or 4 places. I need to take transitions seriously now!

3. Next time, I will do a little more due diligence on the swim course. We had a pro meeting the day before the race and one of the officials went into great detail about the course, but I was so distracted by his accent that I was listening only to his intonations and melodies and definitely not his words. I wound up swimming directly next to every single buoy, good job me because last year I was never able to do that, however swimming buoy-to-buoy turned out not to be the most direct line. The official had supposedly told us this, but I had no recollection, and had I looked at the course map I could have figured it out.

4. Speaking of swimming. I could speak about my swimming for forever. Honestly that was my only real disappointment in myself yesterday – #s 1-3 above are things I have known I should work on but I’ve been putting them off. Not so with swimming. I spent all last season being slow, then spent all winter ostensibly working on my technique and laying the foundation for faster times. For the past month or so I’ve come to the sinking realization that even if my stroke has improved, which I am not entirely convinced it has but Ben says it has so maybe it has, but even if the technique has improved, the speed really hasn’t. I swam a 38:30 at the same distance last year. What happened to my winter of hard work? I’m not exactly used to not being good at things, but this is an instance where I have to be patient, diligent, positive, determined, relentless, patient, and freaking faster already!

5. Then I have a few smaller things… Next time, I’ll have my SRM properly installed on my bike – come to find out, I’d put the sensor on wrong. My pace felt inconsistent in the race – I’d be going hard for a while, and then feel like maybe I’d eased off and should be going harder, or I’d be over-obsessively following the pro drafting rules (OMG stress), etc. I know that racing with power will help me stay more consistent. Maybe my average power yesterday was the same as what I would have targeted, or maybe it was higher, or lower, I have no idea – I just didn’t like the inconsistent feeling. I’ll also drink more on the bike. Which, it would be REALLY HELPFUL if people could start making small bikes that fit two bottle cages on the frame itself. I promise it’s possible. The seat-mounted cages are less aerodynamic and less user-friendly and are not a substitute for frame cages, IMHO. And, next time I’ll remember to carry salt tablets for the race at some point earlier than 5:45 a.m. on race morning. Thank god for Marit’s extras, but I should have had more and I should have been taking them during the bike as well as the run. Nutrition should not be taken lightly. When one does take it lightly, one is prone to unpleasant race experiences, which can be very unpleasant .

I have more to say but I’m well past a thousand words! So I’ll end on this note: when I first switched to triathlons, I really missed the social aspect of bike racing and I worried that I’d never find the same camaraderie in an individual-based sport. After this weekend, I’ve realized that I have nothing to worry about. I’m so grateful for the friendships I’m making through the sport – thank you!