Prairie Punished ...

I thought Saturday's 'Prairie Punisher' short course du would be a good hard workout and a nice brick opportunity. It's a 5K Run, 27.5K bike (17 miles), 5K Run, in the exurb of Gardner. After finally locating Gardner Friday, who knew there were two exits for Highway 56 and the Old one is still Olathe, I picked up my packet.

Set the alarm for 5 am. Had cheerios and milk and a banana. I had my snacks ready to go: a jelly sandwich, animal crackers and a Hammer gel. I also had a bottle of HEED mixed up. I figured there was alot of time between breakfast plus the the race length is in the zone where you might need nutrition, though I have never messed with it for a half-mary, which takes me about as long. As it turned out, I could not stomach the thought of the gel in that heat, though I did have a bite of sandwich in T1.

Anyway, I actually make it plenty of time, lots of room still in the transition zone. We got body-marked and given an ankle chip. Love the body marking. So fun to see how old everyone is. The velcro strap on the chip was very irritating during the second run.

Before the race, I figured an optimistic time prediction was 1:55 - 8 min pace on the first 5K, complete bike in slightly over an hour, 9 min pace on second 5K. It rained overnight a bit, just enough to really make it steamy. There was some cloud cover, however, as we started.

I missed the first mile marker but I guessed I was roughly on 8 minute pace, which felt a little quick given the humidity and the rest of the race, but depending on where exactly 5K was, I think I was a little better than 8. The course was basically flat, just a couple little rises in the road.

T1 went fine. I got my shoes off and on pretty quickly given that I don't have those quickie lace thingies and my bike shoes have laces (and velchro). It felt great to be on the bike to stir up the air a bit. It was just so heavy in the humidity, not quite hot yet, but so thick. I loved the bike course. It was more or less flat but a few rolling hills. I am so glad I have trained at SMP, which is a real biotch compared to this course. I probably could have pushed the pace a little, but I held back some. Plus I had a tiny little cramp in my left calf about mile 10. I actually unclipped to move it around (probably not a great idea but it seemed to help). It went away after a couple miles but it made me a little cautious. The only time I got passed by multiple people was during the cramping. I was passed a few times otherwise but no more than I passed people.

My bike average was 18.2, a new high for me. I was pretty happy with that, especially since I have not had many rides over 15 miles. T2 was OK. The first steps off the bike weren't bad. I was more worried about how hot it was to be on the run since the clouds had burned off. I really didn't want to drink much but I did have a couple swallows - I had been drinking water on the bike as well, nearly emptied the big water bottle.

Second run was like running in slow motion. I didn't really feel bad but I just could not move any faster. I caught two women in my age group on the run, one of whom I remembered from the bike where we swapped places a couple times, but I don't know how the other girl got that far ahead of me. I hung with a couple guys who were pushing the pace. The second half back in was tough but I think I ended up around 9 minute pace. Hard to tell until they post the complete results.

So I cross the finish line, a volunteer hands me a bottle of water. This race had great support, well-marked, volunteers at every turn, plenty of water and gatorade, very nicely done. I was pretty happy. By the time I got my watch off, it was 1:53:52 but my chip time was 1:53:18.

So I'm happy, I see that I'm in fourth place overall and first in age group. Based on last year's results, I thought I might be able to pull off an age group place, but not overall. Last year seemed to have quite a few women running in the 7's on the first leg. This year, they added a long course which was also a qualifier for the national long course duathlon championship, so that might have pulled some of the faster ones.

Ordinarily I don't hang around at a race but of course I wanted to collect my hardware. It took forever as the long course was still going on for quite awhile.

When they go to announce winners, I heard 'in second place from KC Missouri' .. and I knew something weird happened as the girl behind me was from Olathe. I got dinged two minutes for drafting!

Now I knew drafting was not allowed, but silly me, I never looked up the actual rules because I figured it meant like inches or a couple feet, like they do in the Tour, and there's no way I'm riding someone's wheel like that, even if it were legal. Apparently, the 'drafting zone' for USAT events is 22 meters long, which ends up being about three bike lengths behind you. It's also 2 meters wide. You can be in the draft zone if you are passing someone and you overtake them in 15 seconds or less. So the two minute penalty dropped me to second place.

I think it's a little amusing. I would never draft intentionally, and now that I now what the rule is, I will have to pay attention. That could be difficult in a more crowded field I think. I thought there was no way that you could benefit being that far behind but apparently you do. At least I only got dinged once, I saw some people got it 3 or 4 times and two minutes each time.

Bummer.

However, I am still happy about my time, even if it's asterisked.