New Hampshire definitely is not New Jersey & there aren't diners & eateries as far as the eye can see. We decided that if we headed up towards Ellacoya State Park (the location of the triathlon) we'd find something. We did come across Donna Jeans's Diner. It was a quaint place that served champagne & peach schnapps for breakfast. Interesting. It was packed & we had to wait for clean knives, they were all in the dishwasher. Again, not at all like home. Someone would have definitely gotten smacked in a NJ diner if silverware was not readily available. But, I had to remind myself that we were no longer in Kansas & if I clicked my heals together, oh wait.....that wasn't going to help this time. I should have know by the sign in the parking lot, that it was a sign that things would be amiss.
After our breakfast with the locals, we ventured over to pick up my race packet, then back to the hotel to get my bike & then back yet again to drop off my bike at the transition area. In larger races, it is customary to rack your bike the night before so as to make getting to the race easier then next morning. Makes sense. Here's my lonely bike, yes we were like the 1st people to arrive.
After finding a good place to eat (thankfully) & stuffing myself with some Prime Rib (not the dinner of champions, but hey it's my fave!) we got to bed early.
Early Sunday morning I woke up & we were off. Mike was a smarty & found a place that was charging $20 to park, avoiding the 25 minute ride to the drop off area. Go Mike! I went in & started to get ready. Luckily at dinner the night before I met Mark from Monmouth Beach (love Jersey locals!) & he persuaded me to definitely wear my wetsuit. OK, wet seal outfit on & I am ready. & yes, here is the one & only time you will see me (unless you are up at 7 am on a race day) in this awful outfit. Oh the above pic is of me applying wetsuit glide, yeah I didn't put enough on. Ouch, rash!
As I waited, I started to get nervous. Not with the swim, but with what was to come after that. Then I realized that my wave was the last wave. That was troubling to me, as I had always experienced starting in the middle of the pack. I knew the cutoff times & I knew that if I had started in the middle, it would give me about an extra hour. In the race packet, I read over & over that 8 1/2 hours was the cutoff. I knew that I could make it, but I wanted that extra cushion.
I think this is a pic of me coming out of the water & then taking off on the bike. OK, to get down to the nitty gritty & enough about the interesting people, places & foods of NH, I started out ok. Got in the water & did my thing. It was weird though, you could see the bottom! You could see people swimming around you, you could see, oh my god! A fish! Eek. Swimming in the Navesink, or in the ocean is completely different than swimming in some nice clean lake. Seriously people, murky is better. No one wants to see fish or the bottom, it's very unnerving. The water was warm & the swim went ok, but my stupid Garmin watch, which I still haven't figured out, said 5.68 miles when I got out of the water. Wait, what? 5 miles? Not possible. So for the entire race I had to keep subtracting 5.68 miles from my overall mileage, ugh annoying. I get out of the water, happy to see that I was ahead of many people, including 2 or 3 stragglers from previous swim waves. I get my bike & off I go.
Another major difference between NJ & NH......not at sea level. Lake Winnipesaukee is in the mountains & there aren't many mountains to train on here in the Garden State. As soon as I get out of Ellacoya State Park I notice my bike computer is gone. Shit! It was on my bike, but must not have been clipped in. Now I won't know how fast I am going or have an accurate mileage count. Too late to turn back, I don't think I could have even if I wanted to. As I leave the park I see tons of things littering the road, gatorade bottles, gels, a bike bag, that I almost picked up because I felt bad for the person that lost it, but I look up & see hills. Time to move.
The bike part was the hardest, which I should kick myself for always saying oh the bike does all the work. Yeah, on the flat roads of NJ it does, but on the hills, you & your fat ass have to do all the work. At about mile 5 I started to have doubts, the hills were getting worse & then it started to rain. Can we all say a collective F.U. at this point? Thank you.
I pressed on & started to feel better at the first aid station. Ah green gatorade! Now I personally hate green gatorade, but it was like drinking Dom Perignon, delicious. I started to feel better around mile 12-15, but then the rain & wind was starting to take its toll. I was freezing & my skin was icy. Not good. I kept trying to touch my shoulders to see if they were cold, nope. So my core was ok, only my arms were cold. My legs were burning at this point, so I knew they weren't cold & I pressed on. I don't even know where I was at this point. I did pass NH Motor Speedway, which I think is in Loudon, but I could have been in Ohio at this point. At least going out I could get a view of what the way back would look like. There were a lot of points where I saw other bikers whizzing past me at what seemed like 100 mph. Even if I could get up that speed, there was no way I'd be able to go that fast, I was too nervous to maintain that speed. At the turn around point I was really happy to had made it, but I started to worry, as my knee really began to burn.
On the way back I saw only 2 other bikers & another two broken down on the road. Holy crap, could I really be one of the last bikers? I think I was, but I continued on. At one point the pace car was behind me to give me my cutoff time. I knew it was 5 1/2 hours. I was going to make it. When I pulled into the transition area, I actually found my bike computer, smashed to pieces, but I picked it up because it was mine & I wanted it back.
At this point I was on the fence about the run. My knee was screaming, but at this point, I wasn't quitting. I was kinda walking/jogging out of the transition area & off on the run. It wasn't easy. It wasn't that I was tired, it's just that my knees were not feeling well & I really had to go to the bathroom. But of course, I have a thing about going in a port-o-potty, so I kept running. I was slow, but I had made it to the turn around point at about an hour & 15 minutes & was on my way back. At mile 5, I was stopped. I seriously couldn't believe it. The race official said the time was cutoff at 3 hours & 20 minutes. Um...I had only been running for about an hour & a half. The race rules said that the cutoff time was 8 1/2 hours from the last swim wave......which puzzled me, as my wave was the last wave & my time was 7 hours & 9 minutes. So 7 miles short of the finish, I had to get in the race car & go end my run.
I have never been so disappointed. If I was thinking correctly, I would have refused to get into the car & told them I'd continue at my own risk, but I didn't know if I could...so I didn't. It wasn't the day I wanted, nor was it the finish that I was looking for & lets just say I wasn't very gracious about the whole thing. But for everyone that knows me, I'm not a quitter & I don't like accepting less than finishing what I started.
I can't say that I ever want to go back to New Hampshire. It wasn't the best race for me & I don't want to go back until I'm ready. I think I need to regroup & seriously think of a good race schedule for 2011 & reconsider what went wrong, even though I really feel I wasn't the reason this time.
Maybe I am being too harsh on myself. I did hear a few other gripes & complaints about the management of the race, but I can only think that 63 miles is only 10% short of my goal. 90% is still something to be proud of. 2 years ago I could even run a 1/4 of a mile in Spring Lake. I guess I have come a long way.
You.are.amazing. I can imagine how frustrating the whole "end" to the event was, but holy crap... what you DID accomplish is nothing short of incredible.
ReplyDeleteLOVED the photos, too.
(And I'm laughing about how much you didn't like NH... you're such a Jersey girl.)