Behold, my 2012 race season (aka, the last year I get to race in the glorious 25-29 age group before being thrown to the fast and strong 30+ assholes):

November 26th: Seattle Half Marathon

This will be my first half marathon since the Eugene half in spring 2010, where I PR’d on a relatively flat and fast course. I’ve never done the Seattle half or full marathon despite having lived here for over 10 years. There’s something about the course being difficult and the fact that it’s during a typically shitty time of the year weather-wise that hasn’t struck me as being terribly appealing. However, a ton of teammates are racing the half and a lean and fast Jas is hoping to run a 3:30 or better in the full, so I decided to woman up and race it too. It’s hard to say what I’ll bust out on Sunday–I’ve been running well lately, which is a refreshing change from how slow and painful my runs were for the first half of 2011. I’d like to do 1:45 or better, which would be a PR for me (on a tough course, no less), but as long as I have a solid, strong race, I’ll be pretty happy.

March 18, 2012: Rev 3 Costa Rica

It’s happening, folks! Jason and I are going to kick off the tri season waaaaaaay too early for my tastes by doing our first half Ironman of the year in freaking March. I bet my first outdoor ride and open water swim will be the week we get there, right before the race. The trip will actually end up being relatively inexpensive since I used miles to book our plane tickets and we’ll be sharing a house rental with two other couples. The pricey part will be hauling our crap and the race registration. One thing I’m not thrilled about is that people complained the swim was way long last year (the top swim time was 10 minutes slower than typical, which means my slow-ass swim time will end up being like a half hour worse than usual if they don’t correct the course for this year’s race) and some swimmers got stung by fucking jellyfish during the race. WHAT. I wasn’t aware of this before booking my trip. Oh God. If I get stung by a jellyfish (and you know I will because I’m the Mediocre Athlete with the worst luck ever), that’s pretty much a race ruiner right there. Oh well, at least I’ll get to hang out in Costa Rica with my friends and boyfriend.

May 2012: Mt. Rainier Duathlon

Teresa will probably make me do this again. The only conundrum is whether I should try and defend my title one last time in the short course before I have to age up next year or if I should graduate myself to the long course since it’ll be better training for Canada. On one hand, the long course will be a better workout. On the other hand, GHETTO TROPHYYYYYYYYYY. Decisions, decisions.

June 2, 2012: Honu 70.3

My second tropical destination race of the year. I fully expect the winds to be atrocious and the heat/humidity to be brutal. A lot of teammates will be racing so it should be a fun destination race. We’re rooming with Mark and Teresa again–by the end of the season we will have stayed with them for four different races. (At this point I’m wondering if we should just buy a house together and pull a “Big Love” minus the whole polygamy thing.) I haven’t been to Hawaii since I was five years old and Jason hasn’t been since he was in high school and went with his family. Fun fact: we were both sick during our only vacation to Hawaii–I had strep throat and Jason had mono. Here’s hoping this coming trip will be better for both of us.

July 8, 2012: Rev 3 in Portland

I wasn’t thrilled with the course and it looks like the race will be in the same spot as last year, but they’ve changed the bike course so it’s now one challenging loop instead of two crotch-busting but flat loops. The swim and run will probably be the same. I’m not super excited about this race, but seeing as how my other option in July was Lake Stevens, I’d rather go back to Portland. I know of at least one teammate who is racing it and Jason will be there for support (but not to race since he’ll be fresh off Ironman Coeur d’Alene), plus we have friends in Portland we can hang out with that weekend, so it should still be a fun time.

July 22, 2012: Seafair

I haven’t decided on this one yet, but I kind of want to do the sprint triathlon one last time before I age up to 30-34 next year. Since I’ll be training so much this season, it’ll be fun to see how well I’ll place in my age group. Maybe next year I’ll give the olympic distance a try, but I wouldn’t mind doing the sprint distance one more time before hitting the big 3-0.

August 26, 2012: Ironman Canada

My big ‘ol “A” race. I’d like to break 12 hours this time around and plan to put in some serious training time in order to try and hit that goal. I think I can improve across the board, but I can make especially big gains in the swim portion if I get off my ass and commit to my workouts. We’ll see how the season goes–I’m pretty excited and looking forward to seeing how fit and strong I can get for this race.

My goals for the half are to try and keep them under 6 hours if possible, which could be a bit challenging because I’m doing two races in humid tropical environments, but hopefully I can stay strong for the 70.3s and get some confidence going into Ironman Canada.

I wanted to do a marathon in January or February so that I can finally break 4 hours (a goal I should have hit the last time I did a standalone marathon but the race went horribly awry), but Teresa wants me to focus on Ironman training and said that I can plan for my sub-4 goal for Canada, at which point I laughed heartily and assumed she was joking. Sub-4 off the bike would be pretty insane for me, but hey, if she can coach me to it then I owe her a huge gift basket full of Lululemon crap and chocolates.

Welp, that about does it so far for my 2012 race season. I’ll have some organized rides and whatnot sprinkled in there (I think Teresa wants me to try and sign up for RAMROD if I can get in), plus I’m not sure what I’ll do after Canada (maybe I can convince T to let me do a marathon, although the last time that happened after an Ironman, I got tendinitis so I’m not sure how gung-ho she’ll be), but it’s going to be a pretty packed season through the end of August. If I survive, I’ll hopefully emerge with some PRs, some finisher medals, some good stories, and minimal sun damage and taint chafing.

Traveling to the Race
As per usual, Jas and I loaded an obscene amount of gear and fuel into the Subaru and trekked across I-90 at a glacial pace thanks to various construction areas and generally crappy traffic. We stopped in Yakima (the self-proclaimed “Palm Springs of Eastern Washington,” which means that either Palm Springs is a total dump or the entire town of Yakima is severely delusional) for lunch, and when I checked my email I noticed a message from someone who reads the Mediocre Athlete blog and had signed up to race Boise this year. Hooray, another fan! Pretty soon I’ll be autographing people’s gu packets and reading celebrity gossip about myself (“Rebecca Kelley Caught Skipping Workouts, Pigs Out Instead”).

We continued on for a while before stopping to get gas. When I got out of the car, I was nearly blown over by strong gusts of wind. It was at this point where I thought, “Hey, this sucks…I hope this wind dies down before the race.” [Insert ominous foreshadowing here]

Pre-Race Preparations
We rolled into town and checked into our hotel. The next day we stopped at a bike shop so Jason could get his front brake wire replaced (he noticed it was out of commission during our drive over and had a momentary freakout until we got it fixed), then headed over to the Expo Hall to pick up our packets. We got ushered from section to section until I got corralled over to a volunteer to confirm medical details. When I looked at the printout of my information, I started laughing. A couple months ago, when I had signed up for the race through Active.com, I quickly grew irritated by the incessant onslaught of required questions I had to answer before submitting my race entry. As a result, I filled out some silly and stupid answers that I had forgotten about until I was asked to review my race information:

I like how my jokey answer is juxtaposed with the serious response to the “medical allergies” question. The best part is that the volunteer who reviewed my sign up sheet didn’t even notice.

Finally I got ushered over to pick up my race packet and was given my participant’s t-shirt. The upside was that this year we got an actual performance shirt, whereas last year we were simply given a cotton tee. Unfortunately, the race organizers must have ordered this year’s shirts in child sizes. My size small shirt would have comfortably fit a ten-year old but looked decidedly less flattering on someone with my adult stature.

A bit tight for my taste (notice the full-on cling in the jelly roll midsection area)

My "fat guy in a little coat" impression

After we picked up our stuff, we headed to T1 to drop off our bikes and to meet our teammates for a swim. Race officials wouldn’t let us swim in the reservoir, so we resorted to practicing in the park area below the race start. It was cold, but I rocked the thermal cap and was able to get in a decent pre-race swim.

Yes, I'm the only one with my eyes closed. Go figure.

After meeting with the group, we headed back to the hotel, grabbed dinner, and prepped for the big race by organizing everything we were going to need.

Sugary goodness for the race

Race Day
I got a good night’s sleep and felt pretty confident about the race. We grabbed breakfast and I was able to eat more than I did last year. I had some stomach issues but didn’t hoark up any foamy vomit, so that’s an improvement over last year. We headed over to T2 and set up our run gear, then hopped on a bus to get shuttled over to T1, having learned from last year that it’s better to take the shuttle bus (even though they shamelessly charge athletes $8 to ride it) instead of relying on Jason’s dad to try and navigate through multiple closed streets and drop us off at the race start seven minutes before transition closes, as we had done last year.

We arrived at the race start with plenty of time to spare, so we set up our transition area and hung around in what little shade we could find. It was a warm, sunny day with a slight wind (notice how I say “slight” at this point since it’s only 11 am and the race doesn’t start until 2).

Seeking refuge in the shade of a giant truck. (Don't ask me why one of my pant legs is rolled up -- I'm guessing it's a pathetic gang sign or I was just being dumb)

My bike at T1. I managed to score a sweet end spot on the rack.

This year we had to put up with a “clean” transition, meaning we weren’t allowed to have anything laid out of our assigned transition bags. This was a considerable change from last year, where we were allowed to lay out our shoes and other items and just had to make sure that we didn’t leave anything out before taking off from T1. The modification meant that athletes were going to have to dig in their bags for their shoes, helmet, and glasses, and would then have to shove all of their swim gear inside before leaving. It was going to slow people down a little bit for sure.

Another big change was a new USAT rule stating that you couldn’t have your bike shoes already clipped into your cleats at transition — now you have to run out of transition already wearing your cycling shoes. One of the athletes racked near me complained to several volunteers and anyone else with ears standing near her about this rule change. I later checked her finish time and saw that she took first in our age group, so clearly it didn’t slow her down that much.

It’s Go Time
As with last year, I was in one of the later waves. The race started at 2:00 but I wasn’t scheduled to go until 2:30ish, and Jason was once again in the last wave at 2:45. I stood around baking in my wetsuit, my feet burning on the hot pavement, watching wave after wave take off and start the race. As I waited, the wind started to get stronger and stronger. Much like last year, I had the distinct pleasure of watching helplessly as the weather slowly but surely turned to shit, only this year it wasn’t a rain and hailstorm and frigid temperatures that we athletes would have to endure, but goddamn wind gusts. Joy!

Swim Summary
By the time my wave got into the water, I was so hot from waiting around in a neoprene sausage casing that the cold water felt pretty good. We started swimming and I felt pretty strong swimming to the first turn buoy. My group was pretty rough, but I followed the advice of my teammate Connie and fought back whenever I got bumped or kicked (some douchette who was kicking like an epileptic frog nailed me in the ribs at one point, but I shook it off and swam over her).

When I got to the first turn, the water got considerably choppy and it became harder to navigate in a straight line. I was blown off course from the wind and the chop and didn’t take the straightest route to the final turn. I eventually rounded the bend and swam to shore at a decent pace before emerging to finally peek at my watch and see how I fared.

Goal time: Anything that started with a “4″
Actual time: 47 minutes. I was pretty stoked by my time. Loyal readers (all four of you!) know that I’m a craptacular swimmer. In three years of triathlons I hadn’t broken 50 minutes in a half Ironman swim until now — my previous best was 52 minutes for 1.18 miles at Victoria, and last year’s Boise swim was 57 minutes thanks to the stupid storm. I think I could have swam a 43 or a 44, but since the wind churned the water a bit and threw me off course, I was a bit slower than I think I could have gone. Regardless, it felt damn good to finally escape the 50’s. I’m still a painfully slow swimmer, but I’m happy to have graduated from “tragic” to truly “mediocre.” Huzzah!

T1
I tried out the wetsuit strippers for the first time in a race, figuring I’d give them a test run before Ironman Canada. It felt weird to run up to someone and lay down at his feet expecting to be disrobed, but the process was relatively quick and painless. T1 felt slow due to the “closed” transition rule. Last year I blew through T1 in 2:34, but this year I had to rummage through my bag and dig out all of the random crap I’d need for the ride, so that slowed me down a bit.

Goal time: Mid-2’s
Actual time: 3:07. Oh well.

Bike Summary
I’ve been putting in more bike time this year to prep for Canada, so I was prepared to bust out a much-improved time over last year. Unfortunately, the wind blew a major wrench into my plans. As soon as I started riding, I could feel the gusts man-handling me all over the road. The worst thing is that the bulk of the ride was spent battling a side wind — I could have probably dealt with a head wind since it would have been frustrating but safer. The side wind, on the other hand, was absolutely brutal.

Within ten minutes of the ride, my left hip flexor cramped up and I had to stand up to stretch it out. By mile 30 the top of my hamstrings and my butt were aching and screaming for mercy. My forearms were getting sore from the constant death-gripping of my handlebars whenever a gust blew me four feet to the left. The wind never relented — we got a tail wind for probably about five minutes of the race, but that was about it. Even the descents were pretty pathetic due to the gusts — when you’re only going 18 mph down a steady decline with a cadence of 73, you know something is seriously wrong.

This was the second year in a row where I felt like an idiot for getting race wheels. A couple pros with disc wheels actually got blown off their bikes because the wind was so strong, and one guy even got blown off a freakin’ bridge (it was a bridge that crossed over a pedestrian footpath so he only fell about 7-10 feet, but still…). I would later find out that Chris Lieto, arguably one of the best cyclists among the pro triathletes, stated that this was the toughest bike leg he’s ever raced, and that it was worse than any year he’s raced Kona (the World Championship bike course is known to be very windy). Of course, I didn’t know all this at the time; all I was thinking about was how horrible my race was going and getting more and more discouraged about Ironman Canada. If I felt this miserable riding 56 miles, how was I going to survive 112 and a marathon?

When I was nearing town (right around the spot where I almost creamed a squirrel last year), feeling shitty and wanting this stupid race to be over, I saw another racer pull up beside me. The guy looked at me and said, “You wouldn’t happen to be the bloody shoes girl, would you?” I laughed, surprised that he was able to recognize me, and said “That’s me!” Wouldn’t you know it, I ran into another reader of my blog. He told me he loved Mediocre Athlete and that I was part of the reason he was racing today. Then he paused and joked, “I hate you” (presumably because he felt as great about the wind as I did at this point), and we both laughed and pulled into town. He found me at precisely the right moment in the race — just when I didn’t think I could hate life any more, this guy came along and perked me up when I needed it the most.

Goal time: 3 hours or less
Actual time: 3:27. I was eight minutes slower than last year’s bike time, despite the fact that overall I’m a stronger cyclist this year. My teammates (along with most of the other athletes racing, I presume) also biked much slower than expected, with many people finishing a half hour slower than usual, so I guess 8 minutes isn’t too bad in comparison.

T2
T2 went pretty well — I was in and out in 2:01. This time, I made sure to pull on some socks so I wouldn’t have torn up feet this time around (although since it wasn’t pouring rain this year, it probably wouldn’t have been an issue but I didn’t want to take any chances).

Run Summary
Most of the time when I race, I don’t typically run into nutrition problems unless the weather is exceptionally abnormal (like in Cancun when I battled 98 degree temperatures, obscene humidity, and unrelenting sun). During the bike I battled both the wind and the heat, so as a result I don’t think I fueled properly while cycling. When I got to the run, I had the dreaded bloat belly. I was also uncomfortably hot — it was in the 80s and sunny, and I tend to run warm even when the weather’s mild, so the heat combined with my little Somalian stomach made for a less than ideal run.

I came up with a relatively good strategy to deal with the heat. At every aid station I’d grab a sponge and shove it in my top, then take a cup of ice and pour that down my shirt. The ice/sponge combo would last me a couple miles until I’d eventually replace them with a new sponge and some more ice. I’d also dump water on my head and guzzle Gatorade and water every so often (in hindsight, the guzzling probably didn’t help the belly bloat — I think I have to reassess my drinking habits for Canada).

At the end of loop one, I rummaged for my Endurolytes and looked up to see my non-racing teammates cheering and yelling at me, which made me grin like an idiot:

I'm such a dork

One of my teammmates/friends shouted out, “Show us yer boobs!”, which snapped me out of my race lull and made me laugh and go, “What?” I don’t think my sweaty, nasty chesticles were something anyone wanted to see at that point.

Speaking of nasty, I’ve never seen so much carnage on a run before. The ride really must have taken its toll on the athletes, because I saw people puking, hunched over, walking with dazed looks on their faces, you name it. I saw people on stretchers, people lying on the ground waiting for medical assistance, people shaking — it was a rough day. Craig Alexander, who won the race two years in a row, ran 11 minutes slower than last year. That big of a gap for a pro indicates how tough things were this year.

Jason caught up to me halfway through loop 2 and we ran together for about 4 miles before he took off in the last mile so he could unchivalrously (yes, that’s a made up word) cross the finish line before me (kidding — he was ahead of me in time, anyway, since he started about 14 minutes behind me).

Nearing the finish and getting high fives from my team

Goal time: 2 hours or under
Actual time: 2:08. My best half Ironman run to date, but I know I can do better. Damn that gut rot!

Goal race time: 6 hours or under
Actual race time: 6:29. Sigh. I really expected to PR by much, much more, but considering how difficult the race ended up being and how I was one of two people on my team who PR’d at all, I’m happy I at least managed to shave off 9 minutes from last year’s time despite the tough conditions. Still, it’s a hard pill to swallow when I think about how I won’t be able to do another half Ironman until next season. Oh well, I guess that means I have another year to train hard and finally achieve that sub-6.

After the Race
Jas and I headed back to the hotel to shower so we could meet our teammates for some late night pizza. I inspected my feet and saw that the only real damage done this year was a blood blister that ended up healing pretty quickly:

Gross, but still a marked improvement over last year's carnage

The worst souvenir I got from the race was a nasty chafe burn from my race belt. Here’s what it looked like when I finished:

And here’s what it looked like a couple days later:

The scab is gone now but I have a dark mark on my side that will probably end up leaving a scar. It looks like a doctor with questionable credentials removed my appendix. Blerg. Also, thanks to racing in the sun all day, my weird forearm tan I picked up in Penticton evened out a bit but, unfortunately, the watch tan continued to grow even stronger:

Final Thoughts
Okay, I gave Boise another try but honestly (and I mean it this time, damnit!), I’m not going to do the race again next year. Maybe one day I’ll do it again, but I really dislike the afternoon start time. It throws off your pre-race nutrition and, more importantly, it leaves too much time for the weather to turn. Both years, the weather was much better in the morning. If the race had started at 7 am (or even before 11 am), most athletes would have been off the bike by the time the wind got really bad. After talking to some locals, I found out that they often have strong wind gusts in Boise, and that the wind gets worst by mid-afternoon. Why the hell would race organizers plan a race to start at the worst part of the day? If they want it to be a challenge, why not just make the race in December so we athletes can battle snow and freezing temperatures?

I know that there’s really no such thing as a perfect race and that the weather is definitely something organizers can’t control. However, if you know that weather conditions tend to worsen as the day grows longer and you still opt to plan a race that starts at 2:00 pm, you’re often screwing athletes out of a decent race. Since I have no control over what time the race starts, my only option is to skip Boise next year and shoot for a different race instead. I’ll likely come back at some point just so I can try and end on a high note, Costanza style, but for now, Boise, I think we need to take a break.

First of all, Lake Stevens sucks. If Washington state had a hillbilly cousin, Lake Stevens would be that hillbilly cousin’s poo-crusted butthole. It’s such a crappy town that the only thing the official Ironman race catalogs can advertise about the area is that it has a Buzz Inn Steakhouse, which looks about as classy as the bar where Jodie Foster got raped in The Accused.

Her haircut is still considered trendy in Lake Stevens

The town literally consists of this skeezy restaurant, a Subway, a crappy foodmart, a burger shack, and, inexplicably, a town museum (maybe they wanted to commemorate the day they scored a Subway franchise). To answer your next question, no, there are no hotels in Lake Stevens, so if you’re thinking of flying in to do this race then lucky you, you get to stay in Everett or a neighboring city. (And no, Seattle is not “twenty minutes away,” as I heard one race official tell someone over the phone; it’s more like 50 minutes.)

Secondly, the “lake” part of Lake Stevens is filthy. It smells terrible and is full of garbage. When Jason swam in it the day before the race, he said the bottom of the lake was littered with beer cans and junk. Teresa said she spotted an old rusted chair while swimming. Jason and his dad once saw a half-submerged mattress in the lake after they finished a bike ride, and I had the pleasure of experiencing an obese kid with a rat tail throwing firecrackers into the lake as I was standing in it for a post-workout ice bath.

This is a form of child abuse, people!

This lake is the town’s urinal — they don’t give a crap about it and they certainly don’t take care of it, so excuse me for not wanting to pay a couple hundred dollars to do a race that involves swimming in it for 1.2 miles.

Thirdly, the bike course is horrible. It’s two loops and is a challenge for sure, with a few tough hills, a lot of false flats, and many twists and turns. However, what I hate most about the course is that the town’s inhabitants are so mean and inconsiderate to cyclists that it makes for a stressful, miserable ride. Every time I’ve ridden the course I’ve had some redneck in a Ford F-150 angrily honk at me as he passes me at 50 mph. And surprise surprise, Ironman didn’t close off the course during the actual race so my friends said they kept getting passed by jerks in cars who would angrily swerve and honk at all of the cyclists who were racing. Jesus Christ, this race is one day out of the year — you’d think that these a-holes could show some courtesy and put up with a few hours of inconvenience, but no, they’ve gotta get to Walmart or a monster truck rally or a Larry the Cable Guy viewing party or wherever the hell they’re rushing to.

And yes, this is the type of place that would likely have drivers who buy "truck balls" for their vehicles

The cherry on top of this turd sundae was the expo hall for the race. Race organizers had the expo hall in Everett, because, as I’ve already mentioned, there is nothing in Lake Stevens. Fun fact: Everett has an events center. Logically, you would think that the packet pickup, race briefing and expo hall would be at the events center or somewhere similarly sized…and you’d be wrong. Apparently the organizers decided that they wanted the expo hall to match the ghettoness of the actual race itself, so they held it in a Holiday Inn that was simultaneously hosting a Cash for Gold trade show. The lobby was a mess of athletes running into old, obese people who stank of ashtrays and were trying to turn in their gold brooches for fifty bucks.

Typical Cash for Gold customer at the hotel

Organizationally, the expo hall was a disaster. There were nearly 900 people signed up for the race, and the organizers were forcing each athlete to attend a mandatory meeting before they were allowed to pick up their race packet. There were four meeting times, one of which was reserved for the elite triathletes. The meeting room held about one hundred people. You do the math: clearly, not everyone is going to be able to squeeze into the room for the meeting. Did they think about this obvious logistical nightmare?

No, of course not; instead, they had some pissy volunteer with a beer gut and a 70′ porn ’stache angrily turning away athletes at the door when they tried to squeeze in and attend the meeting, sighing as if it was a huge personal burden. “Jesus Christ,” he’d whine, “There’s no more room. You have to come back in an hour” before shutting the door in their faces. Fuck that guy — the whole point of a volunteer is to make the athletes as comfortable and as prepared as possible. When you’ve got volunteers being rude to the racers, they’re creating a hostile and unwelcoming environment. Racing that distance is stressful enough as it is — you don’t need a poor man’s Burt Reynolds with a power trip barking at you and telling you what to do.

"Go away, we're full."

Speaking of the “mandatory meeting,” that is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. I’ve done three half Ironman races and I’ve never been forced to go to an athlete meeting before picking up my packet. There is nothing unique about the Lake Stevens race to where athletes have to be subjected to hearing someone drone on for forty minutes about the course and the token safety information. Oh really, the swim starts here and ends here, and the bike is a two-loop course, and the run is ALSO a two loop course? Wow, I haven’t heard that information since I read it on the goddamn website! Thanks so much for rehashing this for me! Seriously, offer the meeting to people who are nervous and haven’t done a race of this caliber before, but let the veterans and pros skip it — that’s what waivers are for, people.

I honestly have never seen a race this ghetto, unprofessional, cheap or poorly organized — not a half distance, an Olympic, a sprint, or any running races. There’s no way this race is worth a $225 sign up fee. My advice to anyone who’s not raced Lake Stevens before and is considering it — skip it. And to the Ironman race organizers, my advice to you is to either lower the registration fee by $100 or move the race altogether. Lake Stevens is a shithole that doesn’t respect athletes or take care of the course. Washington has better locations for a half Ironman. If the organizers want to maintain the prestige and value of the Ironman brand, I suggest they do something to improve the image of the Lake Stevens race.