KellyDunleavy.com

Oh, yeah, in case you hadn’t figured it out, I’m not doing Austin 70.3 next weekend. As much fun as it was going to be fly all the way there, completely exhausted, after no training for three weeks, all stressed and tired from Steve having a broken leg and stuff, and have a terrible race, the weekend before the wedding — I decided it wouldn’t be as much fun as not going.

Kinda sad, since both Kristen and Kristin are doing it and it would have been fun.

I decided this around mile 4 of the San Jose Half-Marathon, which was not a great time to decide I just wanted to be done. (And, really early in a half-marathon to start having the “I want to quit”/”No, don’t quit yet” debate.) After I stopped about 10 feet before the 10K mat, I sat down on the sidewalk for a little while. When I got up, I was covered in sweat and tears and snot (ok, that’s a lie, I didn’t cry until I got back to the car), and started walking the 1.75 miles back along the race course to my car.

I passed thousands of people on my way back to the car, all still running. Usually, when you clearly have dropped out of a race, everyone who sees you asks are you ok/what’s wrong/do you need help. But, whatever look I was giving off, not one of the thousands of spectators said a word to me while I walked back to the car.

And, then I was done.

People always ask me ‘ohhh, how’s the Patch going?’ and I really ought to have a super awesome answer that also makes them feel appropriately annoying, because I just don’t know how many times I can say 1. there is no “the” and 2. busy.

So, yes, I finally put together an ok half-Ironman-distance race last weekend, but I haven’t really had much to say about it, because, oddly enough, life didn’t stop after that. Shock.

Big Kahuna was on Sept. 11 — side note: as we were all standing on the beach before the start, people are like pumping themselves up and jumping up and down and yelling “Go Lauren” and “Team in Training, yay!” and this girl next to me (in the exact same super peppy, cheering voice) goes: “Yeah, Sept. 11. Never forget! WOOOO!” I couldn’t (inappropriately) stop laughing.

It was a fine race. How is work? Fine. How was the race? Fine. How is wedding planning? Fine.

Turns out, I know how to swim. Who knew. Swam my ass off – just crazy hard the whole time. After the 50m of hard swimming, head down at the beginning, I realized I was pulling away from the people around me and looked up. 50m in, there was a girl already 20 feet ahead — that was the closest I was to her all day.

I swam hard, just really hard, thought my arms were burning off the whole time. Why? Because, for some reason, I had this giant fear that the girls behind me would catch me. No idea why this was such a huge fear, probably some emotional issues , but I was just terrified they would catch me. This is probably the same fear that terrifies me when I’m even close to an interval on the track – I prefer to be significantly under the interval, so I don’t have to be scared I won’t make it.

Came out of the water second. Ran up the sand, crossed the timing mat, ran up the ramp and looked at my watch. 29:15! Sweet, I must have been like 28:40-something. Nope, I officially crossed the mat in 29:00. Sigh. But, second fastest swim of the day and I felt good about it.

I got on the bike second. I came off the bike second. Not a lot happened in between. (I actually had no idea I was second. Somehow, all the spectators missed the girl in first. I missed the girl in first. So, I was convinced I was winning, no worries, until I started the run. Oops.)

I hit the turnaround on the bike in 1:13. I finished the bike in 2:36. If you can do math, you would think I blew up — and, I mean, I probably did a little — but, really, you turned around and almost got knocked backwards by the wind. The super smart and not at all annoying guys who were riding by me (ok, just one guy, who stayed behind me and then sprinted from wheel to wheel and then drifted backwards and then sprinted onto the next wheel that passed, was really annoying) kept standing up and pushing into the wind. Hmmm…

I started the run strong. I ran strong for awhile. Then, I stopped running strong. I was running along ticking off 7:15 miles – which was fine – and I was on pace to go like 4:47 and I was ecstatic. I even promised myself if I went under 4:50 I would just be done for the year. Then, in between a 7:00 mile and a 7:40 was an 11:30 mile. That didn’t seem quite right. I want my damn 3.5 minutes back!

Even if the mile 8 marker was off (it was), I stopped running anything resembling 7:15 miles shortly after that. I didn’t even really know it. The last coherent thought I remember is “And, then my legs gave out.” (Yes, most of my thoughts during races are of the narrative variety directed at an unnamed third party). Then, it’s just sort of a blur. I kept “running” and I kept “pushing” and hoping somehow another mile marker would be off in the negative direction and I’d still come in under 4:50 — it never happened, the stupid run is like 13.5 miles and slow, not that it’s any different than it’s always been every year — and eventually I made it to the beach and then eventually I made it through the sand to the finish.

Evidently, I slowed down a lot. I was like 5-6 minutes behind the girl in first at the turnaround; I ended up 13 minutes behind her. But, I had NO idea I was slowing down that much. I couldn’t really see my watch or read it. I couldn’t add. I was fine, didn’t end up in the med tent or anything, but man, I hate the last four miles of these things.

This is me at the start of the run. I don’t even remember going over this bridge. At first, I thought this must have been near the end because I have no recollection of it, but I’m still wearing my glasses, so. And, also, what the fuck is up with my run:

Apparently, along with running faster, I also need to work on not running like a gimp.

This is the only good picture of me from the race. It’s my ‘I can see the finish and I will not fall down before the finish line’ look:

I went 4:52 and came in second. Which is fine, solid, satisfying to put together an ok half after a year of trying to come to grips with a significantly longer race. (Though in all fairness to myself, I probably would have put together an ok half at Steelhead, there just wasn’t a swim.)

And, it was nice to remember that oh, right, I’m not completely, totally awful. I’m just used to racing with girls who are good enough to make me feel like I’m completely, totally awful.

But, it would have been nicer to have run 4 minutes faster.

I would like to make a statement for the public record: if the three or whatever age group girls who beat me took their elite licenses, which I know they’ve all qualified for multiple times, it would have been a deeper and more interesting women’s pro field. Just for the record.

SF Tri at Alcatraz is a totally, completely, not at all the same race as Escape from Alcatraz back in June. Except that they’re basically more or less the same course with a few changes. Oh, and this one was less crowded, I’m pretty sure cheaper, and they had waffles and Ghiradelli was a sponsor — so, why it didn’t sell out is beyond me.

The race started with us diving off the boat after the longest hesitation ever. (Uh, did that loud cannon mean go? Why are they yelling go? No one else is going, should I go? Etc.) And it became clear pretty quickly that the swim was going to be rough.

I swam ok and with the other girls for a little bit. Then I got water instead of air a few too many times in a row and smacked in the face with some waves and the girls were gone. It was pretty choppy, so once someone was gone there was no seeing them. In fact, there was no real seeing anything. Instead of having the current with us like you usually do on this swim, we had no current or were actually fighting the current at some points. And then the wind moving against that on the surface was creating a lot of waves.

For some people, I think, it was just a hard, slow swim — probably those that have more experience, technique and, I dunno, substance, or that don’t know any better. But, for some of us, it was like 47 minutes of getting punched in the face. I was getting tossed around, swallowing water, going nowhere, and really thought I was just never going to make to shore. There was a boat to the right of me with a light flashing (I guess because it was so shitty out they wanted to make sure you could see it) and more or less the only thing that stopped me from waving the boat down was that I didn’t want to be the only pro that got pulled from the swim.

For reference, I swam 13 minutes faster last year and 18 minutes faster back in June.

And the people I expected to come out of the water with all finished 2-3 minutes ahead of me. So, I spent the rest of the race figuring I’d never catch back up.

I had, supposedly, the fastest T1 (go me!) but that seems sort of unlikely. The results also say I had the slowest T2 — but I’m pretty sure I was sort of dazed and slow at both, so.

Then, I got on my bike and just stayed 2-3 minutes behind the girls I expected to come out of the water with. I wasn’t biking awful, but I wasn’t biking great either. I averaged the exact same wattage for this race that I did for Steelhead last week, where the bike was almost twice as long, so oops. I was very up and down, which means mostly down. I just don’t know my Olympic distance pace anymore — I kept slipping back into Half pace. I made it almost out of Golden Gate Park before Courtenay caught me, which was farther than I think I made it last year – improvement or something!

I really thought I was biking alright and just couldn’t make up the deficit from the swim, but the results suggest I was actually biking pretty meh. Good thing I didn’t know that.

Because, somehow, I managed to stay sort of positive — like not really positive, but positive for me. I started running still completely convinced I was just never going to make up the deficit from the swim, but I was running faster and faster. I just wanted to actually fight for it, I wanted not to look stupid, I dunno. I just didn’t think about it and then I realized I was gaining on a bunch of girls ahead of me. I passed a girl and realized I was actually in the money! Usually, at this race, I just want to shoot myself on the long uphill up to the bridge and I slow down and I get passed and whatever, but I passed this girl and another age group girl at the top of that hill and I just kept thinking ‘make it stick,’ so instead of collapsing into a crying ball I pushed it so hard up the rest of the hill and caught a few more age group girls.

Then, I ran scared. Pushed it the whole way, convinced I could hear someone coming up behind me.

So, it wasn’t my best race ever (my best race ever hasn’t been in a few years), but it was a pretty big improvement internally. For how shit the race started and how bad it got at some points, I didn’t just give up and mentally walk it in. And, I finally ran fast at a race. AND, sure I was still close to the last, but my splits (you know, minus the swim) were almost in the mix. So, I felt like things are starting to come together.

And, I love TriCal. I used to think they were “the man” when I was at Cal and we did random collegiate races put on in pools. But, now I realize WTC is “The Man” and TriCal is awesome. They put on good races, they take care of the athletes. No 16-year-old Asian high school kid made me a waffle at Steelhead — I’m just saying. And this is never a problem.