Rev3 Dells

I had the privilege of running a relay at Rev3 Dells this past weekend with fellow triathletes and friends.  I made a quick (too hurried!) weekend of it and drove up to the Wisconsin Dells Saturday morning, approximately 4 hours from my home in Central IL, and returned home on Sunday after participating in the race that morning.  I made a pit stop for brunch in Rockford with some good friends and their sweet one-year-old daughter on my way, adding some more fun to the weekend.

I had planned to complete the 13.1 run-leg with friends Melissa and Martha who planned to complete the swim and bike, respectively, of the Half Rev event (70.3 miles).  This was my second Rev3 relay this season (and second relay ever, actually).  In May I swam in a relay with Steve and Laura at Rev3 Knoxville.  All I need now is to complete the bike portion of a Rev3 70.3 event and I will have completed an entire Half Rev event!

After checking in at the expo (which didn't take long as this was a smaller event!  I was actually pretty surprised by the relatively small size of the event), I hopped on my bike to ride the bike course of the next day's race.  It was intense!  LOTS of climbing...and many scary (to me, Queen Wimp) descents.  Actually, at one point after a long climb when the course turned to the right to continue ascending (when in my head I thought it would've made MUCH more sense to level out or descend)...I actually whimpered out loud to the grass and trees around me about the unfairness of the situation.  Yeah, I'm not a fan of tough biking :).  I've been told, though, that the total ascent of the 56-mile Rev3 Dells bike course is MORE than the total ascent of the 112-mile Ironman Wisconsin course.  So, it was some good practice for my legs for what is to come in now LESS than a month.

I made a really stupid mistake of assuming there would be gas stations/places to purchase water along the bike course.  I brought with me two bottles of water, but really should've taken more than that.  I was out on the course for about 4 hours.  I tried my best to "ration" the water I had, but was fresh out well before I finished the course.  The worst part was...at mile 22 I passed a farm that had a table with a cooler on it placed at the end of the driveway.  There was a sign on the cooler that said "WATER $0.75" and had a jar for money.  I thought about stopping and buying a few bottles...but decided not to because come on, there HAD to be a gas station later right?!  IDIOT!  Lessons learned:  1.  bring MORE than enough water on self-supported rides and 2. if you SEE water for sale in someone's yard...BUY THE FREAKING WATER!  I was VERY thirsty at the end of the ride.  I ended up immediately going through a Starbuck's drive-thru for a passion fruit iced tea after the ride!  It tasted like heaven....I had decided around mile 50 when my mouth was sticky from slight dehydration that I NEEDED a Starbuck's passion fruit iced tea.  Thoughts of it got me through the final miles of torture.

After enduring and surviving the bike course, I met up with some friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Dells.  I had actually never before experienced Wisconsin Dells and was amused by the odd shops and various establishments along the uber-touristy Broadway Street as I drove to dinner.  It took what felt like FOREVER to drive the short distance because the traffic was crazy busy and pedestrians were crowding the streets.  I was hungry and thirsty and cranky from the bike ride...but was VERY happy upon my arrival at the restaurant.  I was late due to taking forever on the bike and my friends David and Kelly ordered dinner for me...and it had been placed at my spot just prior to my arrival.  Instant food!  MMMM!

I stayed with David and Kelly that night and we went to bed relatively early.  David was participating in the event as his FIRST-EVER 70.3 and Kelly was there to support David and be super-spectator-woman (seriously...Kelly is the best spectator, ever I think!;)).  Our alarms went off simultaneously at 4:30 am...disgusting!  We got ready...and hit the road.  The start wasn't far from our hotel, which was great.  It was a chilly, drizzly, yucky morning.  We got our relay team situated in the transition area (easy for me!  Running requires very little accessorizing!) and got David ready to go.

Kelly and I cheered on David and Melissa in the swim....waited in the transition area in the pouring rain (woe is us!! ;)) and once David and Martha (the biker in my relay team!) were on the bikes...left to go to Denny's for some delicious breakfast :).


David "walking the plank" prior to his swim!  Lookin' GOOD David!!! :)

 

Martha pre-bike, waiting on Melissa to return from the swim!

 

Side-view of Martha's AWESOME Wonder Woman helmet!



Melissa and Martha swapping the timing chip as Melissa came in from the run and Martha
got ready to set out on the bike!

 

After a delicious warm, egg-y breakfast we headed back to the transition area to watch the bikers come in and athletes get started on the run.  We got to watch many of the pro athletes completing the Olympic-distance event wrap up the bike and get going on the run.  It was pretty awesome, even if it was rainy and soggy.

Check out the puddles/"creek" at the beginning of the run course!  Fun times!

After Martha returned from that hilly beast of a bike course, I set out on the run.  The run course was pretty decently hilly.  Definitely hillier than I "like"! It was a fun course, in spite of the ugly day.  It was easy to see that this area of Wisconsin is quite pretty.  Although the hills were painful to my legs that were still sore from yesterday's intense ride (I know...I shouldn't complain...most of the other athletes completed the courses back-to-back-to-back on the same DAY! :)), they also kept things interesting.  It definitely wasn't a boring course...and the time seemed to move quickly.

I saw David when he was at mile ~8ish and I was at mile ~4ish.  I shouted some likely non-sensical words of "encouragement" at him and we carried on our merry ways.  I was impressed by how great he looked!

I felt super guilty running past quite a few other athletes on the run course.  One man actually said to me, "WOW!  You're the freshest runner I've seen out here yet!"  I quickly told him I was doing the relay and he replied, "OH!  Well you SHOULD look fresh then!"  I seriously felt like a big cheater while everyone else was suffering profusely.

Shortly after the turn around, a man ran up next to me along my right side.  We ended up chatting and stuck together for the rest of the race.  He told me that he had run the Ironman 70.3 in Racine a few weeks ago...just like me!  However, he ended up bonking at mile 8 of the run and had to quit.  He told me it was his first 70.3 and he had no idea what he was doing nutrition-wise and hadn't eaten anything!  He learned his lesson and wanted to give it another try.  He told me it was embarrassing that he had told so many people that he was going to do a half-Iron distance race and was unable to complete it!  So, he signed up for Rev3 Dells just a few weeks after Racine.  I told him there was no way he'd quit that day...and we ended up running the rest of the race together.  It's fun meeting new "friends", even if they are just "temporary friends" on race days!  It was pretty great to see him cross that finish line...and made me a little choked up to see his three daughters meet him on the course at mile 13.  They ran the final .1 mile with him and he crossed the finish line with his daughters and wife.  Pretty neat that Rev3 allows people to do that!  Martha and Melissa met me and ran with me as well...fun times!

I ended up finishing the run in 1:54.77.  That's a pretty average 13.1 time for me.  I was actually kind of disappointed in myself...I had wanted to be a bit faster.  I did hit my goal of staying mostly in my zone 3 heart rate (set by my coach).  However, my pace should've been closer to 8:00 minutes/miles and it averaged 8:41 minutes/mile.  I should probably allow myself a bit of grace...my legs were spent from the day before and the course was hilly :).  I completed it...ran under 2 hours...and had fun!

PLUS...our relay team ended up placing first for female relay teams and we got a ton of sweet loot!  Some blue seventy goggles, Powerbar goodies, a Rev3 pint glass, a gift certificate for the expo store...and an awesome medal in addition to the regular finisher's medal!

Left:  1st place relay medal, Right: Finishers' medal

The medals are made to connect!

 

Melissa (Swim), Martha (Bike), Me (Run)
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All in all...it was a fun weekend, full of good training and great friends!  Counting today...26 training days remaining until Ironman Wisconsin!  Cue the acrobatic butterflies!!



A Weekend of Firsts

The past few years, and the past year in particular, I've experienced a number of racing-and-training-related "firsts".  For fun, here are a few...

First half marathon (April 2009)
First full marathon (October 2009)
First time seeing a PT and orthopedic physician for Achilles tendinitis, resulting in 2 months of NO RUNNING aside from "pool jogging" (October 2009)
First time getting top female in an event (a SMALL 5k in April 2011)
First stress fracture (April 2011)
First time swimming in open water AND in a wetsuit (May 2011)
First triathlon (May 2011)
First time using clips on my bike (August 2011)
First yoga class (September 2011)
First century ride (October 2011)
First time actually getting fitted for running shoes by someone who knew what they were talking about (March 2012)
First time purchasing and riding a shiny new Trek carbon road bike (May 2012)
First time witnessing someone (my father) falling off of a bike, necessitating an ER visit, resulting in recurring mental anguish (May 2012)
First Olympic tri (June 2012)
First half Ironman (September 2012)
First experience with chafing so severe I had to resort to Desitin (September 2012)
First experience working with a tri coach (November 2012)
First time using aero bars (March 2013)
First time getting stuck in my pedals and falling off of my bike...twice for good measure (April 2013)


The weekend of May 3-5, I added some more "firsts" to my growing list:

First time participating in a Rev3 event (AWESOME!)
First time visiting Knoxville, Tennessee
First time participating in a relay triathlon (or any sort of relay race, for that matter!)
First time swimming in the Tennessee River
First time swimming in open water during the 2013 season
First time placing in a 70.3 relay!

My awesome coach, Laura, extended an invitation to complete a 70.3 relay with her at Rev3 Knoxville to myself and Steve, another athlete she coaches.  I was hesitant (the two of them, Laura in particular, are MUCH more adept triathletes than I am!)...but am glad I agreed to go.  It was a BLAST...and a fabulous learning and training opportunity.

Aaaaand...we got third in the relay category of the race!  I completed the swim portion, Laura did the bike and Steve ran.  It was a NASTY weekend, weather-wise.  I don't think it stopped raining the ENTIRE time we were in Knoxville!  Clearly it didn't affect me in the swim (c'mon...water is water), but the bike and run portions of the race had to be just miserable (Laura and Steve are champions!!).  I will say, though, the swim was a challenge in its own right...the water was about 58 degrees!  It was so stinking cold!!  I was grateful for my wetsuit....and for the thermal swim cap Laura lent me!

This race definitely got me pumped up for triathlon season...AND it made me eager to try out more Rev3 events!




Team Epic Endurance...with our SWEET Rev3 Knoxville finishers' medals AND third place medals!



NOT very excited about the cold  water...this was taken the day before the event; we were allowed to practice on the course.



Pretending to be stoked



Thinking about going in...



I look pretty happy...I was probably simply delirious from the cold



Pretending to know what I'm doing