Race Result

Racer:	Melissa Hancock
Race:	Iron Girl Columbia
Date:	Sunday, August 23, 2009
Location:	Ellicott City, MD
Race Type:	Triathlon - Sprint
Age Group:	Female 40 - 44
Time:	2:10:19
Overall Place:	409 / 1671
Age Group Place:	2 / 29
Comment:	7 Minute Improvement

Race Report:

Irongirl 2009 Sunday Aug 23
1K Swim 22:42
T1 3:23
17.5 Mi Bike 1:05:03
T2 2:15
3.4 Mi Run 35:59
Final Time 2:10:19
Final Overall 409/1671
Final 40+ Athena 2/29
I am really sentimental about this race because it was my first triathlon ever in 2006. I also did it in 2007, and this would be my third time. Irongirl is an all-women’s sprint triathlon in Columbia, MD. Much of the bike course is the same as the Columbia Triathlon, which is very hilly. This year, over 1600 women competed!
My friend Lori lives near the race start, and invited me to stay the night before the race at her house. This helped a lot, since you’re required to rack your bike the night before and the race starts early. It was pouring down rain Saturday night and I arrived at the expo at the Columbia Sheraton around 4pm, checked in, and purchased a whole lot of pink workout paraphernalia. Then I drove over to Centennial Park to meet up with Lori, get my bike inspected, and rack my bike. It was still raining, so I brought my husband’s motorcycle cover to keep my bike relatively dry overnight. Then I went to Lori’s to hang out, have some Chinese food, and get to bed at a leisurely pace (as opposed to giving kids baths, mediating fights over Barbies, and reading another story, which I would have been doing if I had been at my house).
In the morning, I was up at 5 and out of the house by 5:30. There was already quite a backup to get into the park, so I was glad we got an early start, even though my swim wave was not scheduled to go off until 7:45.
I set up my transition area with a wide variety of equipment, since it was currently dark and cool, but would at some point in the day be sunny and hot. Transition would close at 7am and I had no idea what condition it would be at 8:05am, when I would be hopping on the bike.
Since the age groups were so big, I decided to race in the Athena division (150+ lbs). Even the Athena division was huge, so they broke that down between under 40yo Athenas, and over 40yo Athenas. So, I was in the over 40 yo Athenas (aka, Old Athenas, haha.)
I went down to the swim area and chit chatted with Lori and her friends, and ran into some of my friends from my triathlon club. Evidently, the traffic backup worsened after 5:30, and the race organizers were kind to those stuck in it, and delayed the start of the race about 20 minutes. That was fine with me because it gave me a little longer to try and digest my breakfast and I was already suffering from pre-race nausea.
When it was finally time for me to start the lake swim, I positioned myself all the way to the left near the first bouy, since we would be making all left turns. There were three girls in front of me and I asked if any of them had planned to start out by breast stroking, and all of them promised that they weren’t (nothing worse than getting a breast stroke kick in the face right away), so that seemed like a good spot. The swim went really well except the sun decided to ascend right in our line of vision around the time we were supposed to make our first left turn, and most of us kept going straight for awhile before some kindly kayakers pointed us in the right direction. In the last half, I started passing swimmers in the couple of waves before me. I wish I could have cheered on the nervous swimmers, but that’s hard to do while swimming, so I thought good thoughts for them!
After the swim I jogged up the hill to the transition area to find my bike (this was my first race on the new FUJI). I went down the wrong row and wasted a minute or so trying to find it. Then put on my socks, shoes, helmet, glasses, and gloves, grabbed the bike, and jogged up the hill and towards the bike start area. The bike portion was so much fun! I forgot to put on my heart rate monitor, so I payed close attention to my cadence. The girls out on the course were so hilarious. Since I knew I would be slow going uphill, I had to take advantage of every inch of downhill. I got up to 42mph once (which did not please my mother when I told her later), and was a record for me. There was one really steep hill that always gives me problems and this one young, fit looking girl hopped off her bike and said “Damn, I can WALK up this faster!” I had some good-natured trash-talk going with a girl on a Cervelo the last few miles and we really pushed each other, and took turns telling the girls who were blocking to get out of the way.
At this point, I had a few sips of liquid, but had eaten nothing since before the swim. I knew I was going to bonk eventually if I ate nothing, so I tried to eat half a Luna bar. I kept it down, but just barely.
After the end of the bike segment, I jogged back down to the transition area, racked the bike, took off helmet and gloves, put on hat, race belt and running shoes, and was off again! Although girls were flying past me, I tried to just settle into a rhythm that would work for me. I was panting like a dog though, and starting to lose it. After about a mile, a tall girl passed by me and said, “Way to go, Athena, keep it up.” And when she was ahead of me I saw the A on her leg that she was in the Athena division with me. I had no idea if or how many others were ahead or behind me, but I tried my darndest to keep up with her. There were only 2 significant uphills on the course, and she jogged up the first one while I power walked. She stayed about 200 meters ahead of me the next mile and I thought I was going to lose her. Then she power walked the second hill and I did the same. That gave me a second wind, and by the last ½ mile, she was only 50 meters ahead. Then the last 100 meters before the finish line, I caught up to her and told her “I caught you! I never thought I would! Come on, let’s sprint to the end!” I was dead and was just trash-talking and thought she would kill me in a sprint, but she said “I’ve got nothing left. You sprint!” I had nothing either, but after all that talk I had to put up or shut up, so I took off. I thought I was going to die or have a Julie Moss moment and crawl the last few meters, but I somehow sprinted all the way to the end. When the other girl crossed the finish a few seconds after me, we just hugged each other even though we never met before. I don’t think she had any idea that she pulled me through that whole course, but I was so grateful and could have never done as well without her. Haha, it turns out she was not even in my division! She was in the young Athenas and I was in the old Athenas!!! Thank you, whoever you were!
I couldn’t eat or drink for about an hour after the finish, so I just drenched myself with water, and then cleaned my transition area up, put my stuff in the car, and went back to the finish area to see if they posted the results yet. And darn if I wasn’t listed in second place in my division!!! Lori and I were so excited. Lori did a tremendous job too, and finished around 50 out of 350 in her age group.
The awards ceremony was great. Viggo, the race director, is quite the showman, and obviously loves his job. I was awarded a very nice crystal trophy…my first trophy EVER! In my LIFE! (Unless you count the beer mug I got last year for 2nd place at the Culpepper Triathlon.) It was pretty awesome.