No wind, no tar, PR!!

Ok-so I bitched enough about Elephant Man that I guess the tri-gods heard me, the stars aligned and I am training hard.Whatever-i had my PR! Oh and the night before I ate a brownie! We got to Elephant butte on Sat afternoon. We were going to ride, run and swim a bit. But guess what? The wind was blowing really hard-imagine! We did manage a run and a very short ride just to check out our legs and bikes. the pre-race meeting told us everything we needed to know about the race, then off to the pre-race dinner at the hotel. Pasta, bread, salad and BROWNIE-it was all very good. The hotel was nice, our room a little dark but lots of room!

Sun AM-we got up at 6:00 and took our bikes over to the transition area and racked them, then came back to the hotel to eat. Now that was a great way to do it in my opinion. Of course it helped that the transition was about a mile from the hotel. i had my usual 1 and 1/2 bagel w/cream cheese, banana, gator-ade and water..then off to the race site. The getting in was smooth, everything very organized, the pre-race meeting started on time at 7:30. H& I decided to leave our flip-flops at the beach so we could "run" up the sand hill and into rocky transition in them. This turned out to be a great idea actually. Saw lots of Outlaw friends, including the ones that were doing the water stop at mile 3 on the run. I told one of the guys, fellow Outlaw mike that if he had flat coke for me at the turn-around i would kiss him..

Swim: It was a beautiful morning-60s-no wind, clearly marked buoys on the right for once (I am a right breather), going clockwise. I felt great on the swim, passed alot of people as I warmed up, just all in all good feeling. At the end I wished I could stay in the water instead of off to the challenging bike course!
Swim time including the 75 yard run up the hill-32:17.
T-1-uneventful except I forgot my helmet briefly again-that's it-I am leaving it on my aerobars from now on..time 1:09

Bike: Well, I knew what to expect, that is for sure. I was pleasantly surprised that the fresh tar was gone, but the bump, bump,bump was still there. That was OK. The first 14 miles of hills are challenging and one of the downsides of being a better swimmer than some is i get passed alot in the bike by alot of good people. I had no idea where the other 3 women in my AG were though (there were 4). So I took it fairly easy on that first part. I had planned on walking up the mini "heartbreak hill" but hey I felt OK so rode up it. Now that is not to say I probably could have walked as fast but my pride was still in it and I did it! The next couple of miles sucked-what can I say? i knew they would. After the turnaround though-holy crap! What a difference from last week! I booked it back and passed a few even..I spent alot of time on my aerobars on the way back. It felt great!
Bike time: 1:41

T-2. I must have been taking a nap but somehow got my gear for the run on. I didn't want to do the get off the bike without shoes trick because I knew it was rocky and I had to run the length of transition but this slowed me down.
Time: 1:19

Run: What can I say? I felt great from the get-go. Now this is not my normal feeling off the bike but I just kept plodding along. The first .75 mile of the run was slogging in the sand, then you go up a very steep hill in deep sand then you are on the road. I walked up that hill and several other parts of hills on the run. It was pretty hilly and challenging, even on the road part. I had an annoying side stitch the whole half of the run then at the turn-around, guess what? There was all the very enthusiastic and colorful NM Outlaws and Mike with my coca-cola! He handed it to me and said-it's not flat but hey-he got a big kiss! That coke tasted soooooo good and helped a little with the stomach thing. I felt all in all really good though. The scenery was beautiful over the dams (2 of them). I gave away both my Advil to people walking with cramps so I hoped that was good karma. I saw Hartley after the turn-around. I saw lots of folks, ALOT faster than me going the other way but I also saw ALOT of people going the other way coming back. Little did I know my competition was slowly gaining on me on the run.
Run time: 1:04
I finished the race in 3:20. My best Oly time ever-this including a mile swim, 26.5 bike (longer than usual) and 6 mile run. The gal that was gaining on my on the run finished 1.5 min. behind me-whew!
I got 2nd in my AG out of 4. The woman who got first in my AG got a 2:46. Whatever! (BTW-she is a RUNNING coach!)..
I was 29th out of 52 women.
The race was perfectly run, very organized which pleases this Virgo. The water stops were a-plenty, volunteers amazing for such a small town-and really nice. The only thing that was sorta weird were the awards. Beer mugs? Well, for this non-drinker that was kinda funny. But Hartley and I both got 2nd in our AGs so who am I to complain? An award is an award...Damn-too bad I don't get any SW points for it..

I am pretty happy with those results! It was a hard course. Bring it on Soma!! Gotta keep up those speed workouts..