Fiesta Island Club Race

Built For Speed

This morning I did what most 30 year olds do, I had breakfast with a bunch of friends. Normal right.....sure just after I finished the Fiesta Island club race. It was cold, the water was murky...,, but it the race was free. Believe me if you bought a ride like the one above you'd want to ride it in any race you could. I bought a used wheel disk this fall from a nice couple in Encinitas. That's a story in itself. You see we went to buy the disk for Tim, he was hemming and hawing and I was like"Tim it's perfect, it's a great deal and you'll buy one later when you decide you can't live without it" Turned out it wasn't Tim's size. It was mine. Then the shoe was on the other foot. Uhh, mm, uhhh.....er well...."It's great but I don't have a fast enough run to roll a disk, sorry. No. Not for me." We headed out the door. As we were pulling out of the drive , the man ran out he looked at me and said"Do you know Terry Martin at UCSD ? She helped me out a lot." For a few minutes I was thinking "What does that have to do with anything?" Then I got it..... there is hope for my run. If you are a guy and you arer mediocre. You can roll a disk and it's no big deal. If you are a girl and you roll a disk people notice. In my head I could hear the whispers "Who does she think she is." Honestly, it would be the equivalent of wearing Juicy jeans...... with a muffin top. Ugh.

We drove home and I thought things over. If I buy the disk I will have to commit to my run. Something I've never done justice too. Potential I've never really fulfilled. Hmmm......should I? I look in my mirror and the No sign over the words unfulfilled potential I'd written on my mirror was written all over my face. I wrote that. If you are what you eat, you better be what you write. I bought the disk mostly to help my running.

A disk isn't something you just roll on the coast on. It special for race day. Although, I do remeber Pete on his shiny Schwin rolling that cloth wheel disk around the neighborhood with a flip up roadie cap and bike gloves that were used as "THE CLAW", but that's a different story as well. Anyway, Tim told me when I roll my disk it would feel magical. I heard they can be sketchy in the wind. Tim thinks I need to use it at Ironman. I'm not sure about that, at least not without some practice. The frame of my bike is light and with all this training so is the frame of my body. I don't want to blow off my bike at Ironman. So on this Saturday I would roll my disk for the very first time. Tim was working the night before the race and until after the race in the morning. This left me solo to deal with the technical difficulties of the disk.

Earlier than I should have been up on a Saturday morning I struggled with the crack pipe (valve extender) trying to inflate my disk. Grrr.... I am determined to do this on my own, that's part of being an athlete. You have to do things on your own. You've got to be accountable for yourself. It just keeps leaking. I'm trying to stay calm because it's only a club race but minutes are ticking away. I even waste a CO2 cartridge thinking I can use both hands to keep it from leaking. No go. I give myself mental props for being creative. Now, I've managed to let all the air out of the tire. I throw my bike in the car and head to Fiesta Island. Worse case scenario I'll switch out my wheels when I get there. This would require me to change brake pads too. To think I thought tuning skis was difficult. I get there and some nice guy holds the valve on while I inflate the tire. I recognize him from the tri club meeting the other day. He says the crack pipes never work well and I am relieved it's not just me. Yippee. I get to roll my disk. I'm ready to go.

I'm later arriving than I wanted to be and it's colder than I wanted it to be. That's why I'm racing today. To expose myself to variables I can't control. (and free breakfast) I run my warm up while Dave Huff gives directions. (i.e. I don't listen to the race director) After the swim (where I am very slow) I strip my wetsuit off while my bike sits all by itself in the transition rack. I think I heard it swear at me. It said "damn you hurry up" I don't bother with the jacket or gloves I have and I race away. As soon as I am rolling my hands sting with cold. My bike mentions to me that maybe if I swam faster she'd let me put my jacket and gloves on before starting the bike segment. I don't know how fast I go because I usually use my Garmin and didn't bother with it. In a short race it's never worth fidgeting. Probably should mount it to the bike, but I don't want to deal with anything electronic today. My bike "Sweet Thunder" gallops very fast and I have a fun ride. The wheel disk is light but not squirrly. It is not windy, honestly I don't feel it. I just feels easy and I keep passing people. Matt Sparks keeps me humble by passing me and I know I have been lapped. I drop a lot of boys and start to smile. I imagine having a bell on my bike to ring. I pass Heather Catchpole on the bike, I say good job. She has an intensely serious look in her eyes and I know she will try to run me down. I pass another girl I do not know and enter transition.

Crap. I don't know which way to go. In bigger races you can just follow somebody, but here it is too small and nobody is around. I have done club races but not the Fiesta Island one and I feel a bit foolish because I find I am running the wrong way. That's what I get for warming up when Dave was explaining the course. I turn around also noting it would have been wiser to park my bike at the other end of transition. Oh well. I see Heather out of the corner of my eye in an ideal spot. I know she is a faster runner, she's also smarter than to run the wrong direction. I try to pick up the pace but my feet are like cinder blocks. She runs by me and puts a little distance on me. I stay the same distance back. I try to close the gap. My legs want to move but my feet have no balance. I hear the pitter patter of a barefooted runner getting closer. He passes me, tells me to catch Heather. I try but can't seem to pick it up. I realize mentally I ride to go fast and I run to survive. I need to run more aggressively. I'm trying to do so, my feet loosen up a little and I am at the finish line. It ends too quickly for me, but it was fun.

I am happy with my physical performance today. I should have taken the transitions more seriously and treated it like a true race, but I really wasn't that concerned about loosing time in transition. Mostly I wanted to see how my body would respond at speed. I also want to do as many club races as I can because they are free vs. the large amount of money I have spent on organized races and gear. Also the tri club has great breakfasts after. I hurry into about 10 layers of clothing and grab some oatmeal. Tim arrives still in scrubs and joins me for some breakfast. I tell him all the details wishing he could have been there.