During the drive from Denver to Boulder, I spent some time thinking about my goals for this race and what I wanted to accomplish. This isn't my "A race" and I've raced this course twice before. This was also my first time this year putting all three sports together (the Summer Open Tri I did in May turned into Du because of high E-coli in the water). I decided that I just wanted to make it up the (crazy hard 15% grade) hill on the bike and see what I could do on the run.
Swim
I made somewhat of a rookie mistake at the swim start (though, ironically, if I were an actual rookie, I probably wouldn't have made it because I would have been paying closer attention to the rules.) I hopped in the water a few minutes before my wave started to warm up. When I finished, my fellow W30-34ers were already lined up in the start corral, so I swam under the rope to join them rather than swim back to the beach and walk over. At one minute before the start, I recalled that I had heard at the pre-race meeting the day before that there was a timing mat you had to cross before entering the swim (for safety reasons, so they know everyone made it out of the water.) This is a rule change since Ironman took over this race. At about 30 seconds before the start I looked back and noticed a "Swim Start" banner with a timing mat underneath. I asked a fellow athlete if I needed to cross the mat before starting. She was like, uh, yeah. So, I ran back to the beach, quickly explained to a volunteer what the heck I was doing, and then ran back into the water Baywatch-style, chasing after my competitors who had already started swimming.
 | |||
| approximation of how I looked at the swim start |
Bike
Yes the Boulder Peak has a swim. Yes there is a run that is usually hot as f*&k. But really, the Boulder Peak starts and finishes with the bike up Olde Stage Road. After 6 miles of false flats and steady climbing, the bike leg culminates in a 600 foot vertical climb in just 2/3 of a mile. The final 20 miles are downhill with a few rollers, easy peasy in comparison. I usually make a point to practice the hill before race day, but wasn't able to this year due to construction. I didn't really doubt my ability to make it up, but I was a little nervous.
The main difference in my approach this year was that I gave myself permission to stay in a lower gear and focus on spinning my legs. I used to stay in my big ring as long as possible, but I've been convinced that it's better to save energy using a lower gear than to muscle through the false flats, especially when such a hard hill is ahead. In prior years, I put off switching into my granny gear as long as possible...this year I wasn't afraid to granny it up as soon as it felt right. I made it up the hill and never felt tempted to stop and walk. It sucked, but at the same time it was great because there is such great crowd support and reaching the top feels like such an accomplishment. I tried to make up as much speed as I could on the rest of the course and headed back to the Rez for the run. Even though I didn't have a time goal for the bike (and I kind of worried that I wasn't really pushing myself), I finished almost 3 minutes faster than my previous best effort.
Run
I emailed my coach a few months ago with my goals for the season. After listing my "real" goals, I said that one day I would like to be able to run a sub-10 minute mile on an Olympic distance tri, but I didn't think it would happen this year. Well, sports fans, at the 2011 Boulder Peak I managed a pace of 9:44!
At this years' BolderBoulder 10k, my watch was out of batteries, so I couldn't use it to pace myself. I was pretty freaked out by this because I really wanted to finish in under an hour. Well, I ended up smashing that goal by a good minute and a half, and finished in 58:29 without the help of my fancy pants Garmin. I also enjoyed not staring at my watch the entire time. I felt more engaged and more tuned in to my internal pacing and perceived rate of exertion. The one thing I missed, however, was not being able to time my 9-minute/1-minute walk/run intervals. For this race, I thought about ditching my watch completely, but settled on using only its interval feature, and not allowing myself to switch to the other screen and check my pace.
About halfway through mile 1, a guy ran up next to me and we chatted briefly. When it came time to start my first walk break, I said, "This is part of my strategy, I'm going to walk for a minute" and he ran on ahead. Once I started running again, I caught up to him and passed him in Mile 2, and at some point later he passed me again. I made this the game--catching him or passing him after each walk break. I was able to do it every mile, and I knew I was making good time based on where I was in my 9/1 interval when I hit each mile marker. I saw him again in Mile 6 and we chatted, then he took off. Then I passed him again. This happened a few more times, until I passed him definitively and crossed the finish line first. You got CHICKED, sucka! And I accomplished a pie-in-the-sky goal and beat my previous best run time on this race by almost a minute per mile!
Overall Results: 3:18:29 overall time / Swim 31:49 / Bike 1:37:43 (16mph) / Run 1:00:26 (9:44/mi)
Next up, the Courage Classic, then Lake Stevens 70.3!
