Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon Spring 2016

Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon

April 24, 2016

Raleigh, NC

 

 

                Lifetime Fitness hosts an indoor triathlon twice a year. I enjoy participating in them. I signed up for the spring triathlon which was being held at the Raleigh location, which is my home club. Super excited. It takes me all of a few minutes to get there. SCORE!! I wasn’t sure if any of the TRI tribe was participating. Racing is always so much more fun when you do it with friends. I found out that one of my TRI sisters Barbara Farrell was in my same wave. Lo and behold I didn’t even know her lovely daughter Heather was in our same wave. We are the 3 amigos for this race.

                It is a lot easier packing for an indoor triathlon versus than an outdoor triathlon. There is no bike and no bucket. Since I know the gym towels are a little smedium, I brought my own. My TRI bag is packed to the brim with all of my race day essentials. I make a pit stop at Panera for some pre-race fuel. I was all set to get my customary cinnamon crunch bagel with hazelnut cream cheese. When I pulled up to the drive-thru menu and saw the pictures for the egg soufflé I quickly changed my mind. They are life-changing delicious. I order the spinach and bacon egg soufflé and head on over to Lifetime.

                As I pull into the parking lot, I spy with my little eye one of my TRI sisters Barbara, who for the record is a ROCKSTAR athlete and triathlete, walking towards the entrance. She asks me if I’m ready. I’m like oh yeah. After I check into the gym, I head over to the check-in table for the indoor tri. I receive my race bib and swim cap and race shirt. I opt for the red race shirt completing forgetting until after the race that I already own the red triathlete shirt. I later email the race coordinator about switching my shirt for the grey. I am still waiting on a reply to that request. It is a requirement to wear their swim cap which I think is going to be very interesting to see if ALL my hair will fit under it. Barb asks where the locker rooms are and I tell her they are around back similar to the Cary location. There is one set of stairs upstairs which is right by the women’s locker room.

                I head over to the locker room. When I go to the gym to swim I opt for a locker closer to the pool area. I head over to the 2^nd to last row of lockers. I start getting my stuff out. I have seriously packet a lot of stuff. I must have thought I was going on an overnight trip. All of a sudden my stomach is doing it’s normal pre-race dance. I make a beeline to the restroom. I opt to go to the one by the pool to see the folks who are already on the swim portion. I see a TIFL athlete waiting for her wave to start. I can’t tell you her name to save my life. I know she is one of our advanced swimmers. That’s all I got lol. 

                I get ready for the swim. I stuff my hair into the tight swim cap. I head out to the pool area and wait for my wave to start. I talk to a few folks who are in the 9:40 wave. One lady I met told me this is her first triathlon. We talk about the swim portion. I think the swim is the easy part of a race. She thinks it’s the hardest part. This is her first race so I can totally understand her thinking that. I ask if she plans on doing any more. She is thinking about doing one at the end of June in Philadelphia. Kudos to her. 

                Each wave has 10 participants. Our wave has 5 so we all get our own swim lane, SCORE. As soon as we get in the swim lane, we literally have about 15 seconds before the swim starts. Swim lead volunteer yells GO and I take off. Apparently I went out way too fast because I for the life of me can’t breathe when I go under the water. I’m really flaying in the pool like someone who does not know how to swim. Trust me I know how to swim but you couldn’t tell today. I manage to squeak out 14x25 meters by the grace of God. Angela came up to me after I got out the pool and asked me what was wrong. She could see I was swimming like I was shook. I don’t know what it is when I get to swim portion of a race but I get straight SHOOK. The exact same thing happened in Huntersville last fall. I got in the pool and couldn’t feel the bottom because it was 6 feet and that FUCKED my head up for the first lap. After I got to the end of the lane, I calmed myself down and remembered oh yeah I do know how to swim. I head to the locker room to change for bike. I’m dropping stuff left and right. Can you say frazzled? I’m changed into my cycling gear. Smart Johanna packed gel seat cover for that tiny spin bike saddle and brought my cycling shoes. I have mastered the art of clipping in on a spin bike. I have not done as well on my road bike AKA Blue thunder. That’s a work in progress. We head to the spin studio. Angela takes the elevator and I tell her I almost want to ride with you. Brittany, indoor tri coordinator, walks by me and tells me I’m so glad you didn’t get on the elevator. I tell her I was really tempted but that would be sad to be taking the elevator while doing a race lol. Seriously I was really considering it. I chug up the kabiliion stairs to the next level of the gym. Barbara and Heather tell me they are following me because they have no idea where they are going. We head into the cycle studio and the spin volunteers tell us to find our bike based on our race number and that we are 3 minutes behind, like I care I have lost 3 minutes on the spin “death trap” bike. I get my bike adjusted. I put on my gel cover. I get my water and sports beans out. Hydration and nutrition are very important. I hop on the bike and attempt to clip in. Right clip is in, let’s get the left clip in. Volunteer turns the computer on and off I go. It’s been a few months since spin class. I got to tell you it is nowhere as bad as it was about 15 months ago when I was on the spin bike for the very first time and I thought I was going to DIE. Apparently I didn’t because I’m still alive. I personally don’t think they have the air on here on purpose because I am sweating like a sinner in church (princess and the frog reference). I’m about 15 minutes in and I have knocked out 3 miles. I’m thinking to myself my goal is to finish with 6 miles. Just keep pedaling. Spin bike is not that bad today. Could be the extra padding I brought with me to ease the pain. I’m coming up on 6 miles. I hit 6-mile mark. We still have a few more minutes left. I’m thinking let’s go for 7 miles. I go for 7 miles. Spin instructor tells us we have a minute left. I’m really trying to make 7.5 miles since I was born in 1975. She calls for us to stop and I look down and I am at 7.4 miles. I’ll take it. We have 5 minutes to head over to the treadmills for the run. In the 2 years I have been doing triathlons I have never run during the run portion. What can I say my body is so happy to be off the bike we just get on the run course and just move one foot in front of the other but not as fast as most folks. I head to the treadmill. I get my phone and headphones out and get my playlist going. 20 minutes on the treadmill. My normal pace is between 21-22 minutes. I already know that it will be a Sunday morning miracle if I hit 1-mile mark today. I start the pace at 2.8 to warm up the legs. After a minute I move it up to about 3.0. Oh yeah we are definitely warmed up now. I get a little adventurous and move it up to 3.4. The drill sergeant AKA tall drink told me that 3.4 should be my goal on the treadmill to get to the pace that I want on race day. I hung out at 3.4 for a few minutes. Once my heart starting beating and the sweat was dripping into my eyes that was my sign to cool my pace down and I slowed it down to 2.8 for a few minutes. We were not on the treadmills in the gym that I am familiar with that tell you what your pace is so I had no idea what mine was at. I toggled back and forth between 3.0 and 3.4. I noticed my mileage was getting really close to a mile. I also noticed I was running short on time. The run volunteer was counting down the stop clock and when we were done, I saw my mileage was 0.95 miles. I was very close to a mile and that is amazing. I have completed my 2^nd triathlon for 2016. 

 

 

 

Rock N Roll Raleigh Inaugural 5K

I am a semi-fan of the Rock N Roll race series. It’s probably due to the fact that I participated in the inaugural race in 2014. The weather went between 3 seasons and the course was from HELL. Myself and my partner in crime Sharon Mincey lost the course. I had so many ISSUES with that race. I was 1 and done. Since I’ve done a RnR race I am on their newsletter subscription. I received an email a couple of months that they were adding a 5K to the marathon/half marathon weekend and it also gave a glimpse of the bling. Once I saw the bling I was hooked. I had a made a deal with myself that if I ever did another RnR race that I would do a 5K. I was dragging myself in doing the registration. Then there some flash sale happening and they have 5K registrations for $25. Of course I totally slipped and missed the $25. I did get in for $40 I was cool.

My mom has been hanging out with her 1^st born since Shamrock weekend. I mentioned the race while we were in Virginia Beach. My mom was on board. My plan was to surprise her with race entry as birthday gift. My partner in crime Gregory Clanton told my mom that I should go and sign my mom up for the race. Totally not how I was planning it. I signed mom up for the race for the low low cost of $65. Mom is signed up for the race. We are out of the country for about 2 weeks. After we get back, we have about 3 days before race day.

We hit the race expo and pick up our packets and visit some of the vendors. Race is on Saturday morning with an 8am start time. I have discovered after reading race information that there is no parking on Dix campus. They are offering shuttle service from downtown over to Dix. We opt to do the shuttle service. Shuttles are leaving from 6:15-7:15am. Mom and I leave the house about 6am. We park in the same parking lot that we parked for the expo. There is no parking attendant. SCORE, free parking. We sit in the car for a few minutes enjoying the heat from the car. My partner in crime, tall drink, arrives very shortly along with Donna and Shownell. We all head over to the shuttles. The race organizers are running a tight ship. We line up and they load us into the shuttles. We arrive over at Dix in about 5 minutes. As we wait to board the shuttle, I spy with my little eye 2 of my TIFL sisters Tiffany and Ayuna. I call Tiffany congratulating them on arriving early. She tells me that I got her up at the crack of dawn and they are in formation lol. We unload the shuttle over at Dix. As we start to head to the start line, I see a black Cadillac pull up and I’m thinking that car looks familiar. It’s 2 of more my TIFL sisters Sharon and Claudia. I’m like you know you can’t park here. She somehow has talked the volunteer into letting her park there.

It’s about 7am. We have about 1 hour before the race starts. We go and cop a squat on a bench. We meet the other folks sitting on the concrete benches. Everyone is feeling the cold but I am not. After doing shamrock in a northeaster I can pretty much handle whatever weather mother nature wants to throw at me. At about 7:40am, the announcer tells us to start lining up by corrals. I am in corral 10. Ayuna is worried about the 1 hour finish time and moves up to an earlier corral. I tell her not to worry about the finish time. We are on a closed course at Dix. The race begins at 8am, they move us by corral 1-2 minutes at a time. About 8:10am, our corral is at the start line. I notice we have a slight uphill start. I pace myself and move slowly up the hill. As I am walking someone comes up behind me and taps me on my shoulder, it’s my partner in crime tall drink AKA Gregory. He almost made me pee myself. That’s what happens when you have your music too loud during a race, can’t hear what’s going on around you. I can tell that I’ve moving faster than I’m used to so I try to slow it down. I’m pretty familiar with Dix campus as I have done a few races here. We make a left and head down and around and I can see the Raleigh skyline. I notice we don’t go up Tate. We turn to go onto the green way. I notice I have my personal escort, cop car and cyclist. They leave me as I get on the green way. I hear the volunteer radio in “last runner is on the green way” Once I get on the green way I pick up a little speed and pass the group of folks in front of me, I tell them good morning and keep it moving. I’m pretty surprised that I am passing people. It’s normally the other way around. I pass another group. Greenway has a slight incline and I notice we are parallel to Western Boulevard. Then we exit off the green way and turn left back onto the road. We pass the soccer field where the shuttles dropped us. Mom ask me if we will pass the parking deck where we parked and I’m like no that’s in downtown. I point out that we are passing by where the shuttles dropped off. I can see where the start line is. We turn right and we pass the water stop. Mom tells the volunteer she can’t drink any water as she is trying not to have to make a beeline for the restroom. We head up another hill. I notice that we are on the same course as the women’s distance festival from 2013. We turn right and I see a band playing and I pass mile marker 2. I see folks on the opposite side heading towards the finish. I see Ayuna. I hear Tiffany call my name. I high five Sharon. I’m thinking oh I got this because I have less than a mile to go. This part of Dix I have never been to before it goes through a little forest area. It curves around and heads back. I pass the band again. The course starts to go downhill and I can see in the distance black tents and I know I am getting close to the finish line. A lady tells me “you are almost there” I tell her I truly believe I can see the finish line in the distance. I notice folks are lined up on the right. Then I realize this is the shuttle line. This line looks Black Friday line up at Best Buy. Folks have finished the race and RET to up out of here. I head towards the finish line. Another race is done. I stop my garmin and check my finish time 1:08:19. Not bad, not bad at all. Especially for someone who just got off a plane from traveling from Kuwait 3 days ago. Whatever you do, never ever give up!!!