Wine, wine and more wine! So we just got home from Vineman, and it was a splendid trip! Update: I've slowly been writing this on from the comfort of the couch, on my lunch breaks and in the normatecs so I apologize for any spelling errors.
We flew out of Boston on Virgin America, and had a direct flight, DIRECT FLIGHT to San Fransisco. We left Boston and it was 80 degrees and 90% humidity, gross. First, let me tell you, Virgin America is fantastic, the guy charged us for our bikes $25.00 each! The website says $50.00 for sporting goods though, so that was a nice surprise. The flight was nice, TV's for each seat, Steve fell asleep and I was busy watching an SVU marathon on USA and flipping to CNN to watch coverage on the Travon Martin case. I became fascinated with it, kind of lame, I know.
When we got into San Fransisco, it was a cool and cloudy 60ish degrees. We were actually cold! We waited a little while for our awesome 2013 Chrysler Town and Country minivan. We packed everything in, and off we went to Windsor, CA where we would be staying for the majority of our trip. When we got to Windsor, it was no longer cloudy and it was nice and warm, but a DRY heat. Ahhh, no humidity! We unpacked the bikes and clothes (well, Steve unpacked his clothes, I prefer to just pick out of the suitcase). We then went off to dinner, but first, we made a pit stop in the hotel lobby for a free wine tasting. We typically never drink the weeks leading into a race, let alone 3 days prior, but, when in Rome... The wine was fantastic and we went to dinner at Johnny Garlic's the food is ok, probably a bit better than say a 99, but the bartender was fantastic, they were super busy and he kept on top of things. Before you even ask, yes, we each had a glass or maybe two of wine! We are in wine country, there were vineyards everywhere, we couldn't NOT try some good wine. Right?!
The next morning we woke up and had a nice easy swim and bike on the schedule. It was cloudy from the fog that rolls in, so we decided to hang out and watch more of the George Zimmerman case. Around noon time we headed over to Guerneville, CA where the swim start was and did a nice easy 20ish minute swim. I opted for no wetsuit since I dislike my wetsuit a great deal. The river is extremely shallow so the water was pretty warm. After the swim I had the directions on my phone for the bike course and we decided to drive the course to get an idea of what it was like. We were so glad we did. What a gorgeous bike course, flat/rolling with some nice technical spots in the beginning. By nice I mean awful since my bike handling skills are that of a 5 year old. Within the first 3 miles we pass by the Korbel Vineyard! I'm not a huge fan of champagn, but the vineyards are incredibly gorgeous! Vineyards were on both sides for about 45 of the 56 miles.
Once we arrived to the end of the bike and T2 at Windsor high school and strategically located 1 mile from our hotel (strategic about 9 months prior to the race when I booked the hotel. We had to wait about 40 minutes post race to get a shuttle back to the car at the swim start!) We got a glimpse of what T2 would look like and tried to figure out the bike in, run out and finish.
We then went back to the hotel and headed out for an easy 60ish minute ride. We ended up riding the last 6 miles of the bike course in reverse and then back in the right direction since we did a simple out and back. After the ride we showered up and headed to dinner. Of course we made a pit stop in the hotel lobby for another free wine tasting!
On Saturday we had the typical day before a race agenda. Pancakes! This race was a point to point race so every athlete had to attend a mandatory meeting. Now, they always say it's mandatory but for AGers it's really not. However this race would stamp your hand after the meeting and no stamp = no race packet with all your bibs and stickers. So we attended the first meeting at 9:30 am. Got our packets and set up T2. Sneakers, socks, cliff blocks and hat. No sunscreen though.
After we set up T2 we headed out for a 25 min ZR run. Where my Garmin decided to freeze and there we were in the middle of a neighborhood with me freaking out and Steve calmly fixing it. Phew! After the run we headed to grab lunch then go back to the hotel to relax. We decided to hang poolside since there was no one else hanging out by it. It was sunny, warm and quiet. I took about a 40 minute nap, woke up and was really hot so we went back to the comforts f our air conditioned room and turned on jury deliberations coverage of the Zimmerman case (notice the trend). Went to dinner at some point, came back and was happy to see we did not miss the verdict. About 20 minutes later we saw it. I'm certainly not going to get into that whole mess here though.
Race morning came quickly as always, yet I seemed like I had a pretty decent nights sleep. After all it was 6:30 AM back home! Apple sauce, protein, banana and perform were consumed, we packed up the bikes and were off! Since this was a point to point race, everyone had to check the bikes the morning of, so it was pretty hectic in transition, which was massive from the nearly 2800 athletes! Although I just read they limit it to 2300 athletes, I swear it had more than that.
Thankfully Steve and I had decent swim wave times, we were both off by 7:30. (The last swim wave was around 8:40, ouch!). I had about a 16 minute head start on Steve and my goal was to get to mile 10 of the bike before I saw him (which I did!).
Swim: this is how it went and what was going through my mind as it was happening. Air horn goes off: ok here we go, go out hard Til you can't breathe, 2 seconds in, on man, this stuff hurts. This water is so gritty I'm going to be peeing dirt later on. I hope I don't see any catfish like the ones on river monsters. Faster, harder, turn over those arms, go go go go! Sight, ok I'm relatively straight. Swim some more, harder go, moooove Melissa what is wrong with you. Got to the first of two bridges. Oh man this swim is awful. Worse than Miami and the jelly fish sting. Go, you're almost at the turnaround... I think. It can't be that much further. Sight. Oh man I'm pretty much on the shore, there I go again not swimming straight. Can I see the turn around buoy yet? Where is this thing. Breathe. Why is that guy walking? Oh that's right my fingers are dragging on the bottom. Doesn't he know walking in water is so much slower than swimming?! Oh look the turnaround! The buoy is the same freaking color as the rest! What the heck! Oh look more people are walking. Ouch! Just grabbed some dirt. Got up and did a semi dolphin dive/belly flop. Ok can swim without grabbing dirt again. Good. Sight. Agh the bridge is so far away. Ouch. Just got knocked on the head and wrist. That feels odd. Is my watch on. Oh crap, look really quick, it was half on! Stroke, stroke, quick click it back in, phew! Swim swim, man this swim really sucks. Keep it together, push hard. You're only feeling it because you haven't swam more than 1000 meters in six weeks. Damn you base phase! Oh look the swim exit! Oh man there's some tall grass and Lilly pad looking things. That can only mean one thing, snakes! Ewwww! Move! Finally! Stand up and take off the wet suit. Whoa whoa just tripped over my own feet. There we go. Whooaaaa! Just did a legit belly flop dive! Awesome. Everyone is laughing! Onto the bike!
Bike: pretty uneventful. I pushed and stayed at the top of Z2 and still managed to do the typical 3:20 ride time. Doh. I had less than 3 bottles on the ride but peed about 6 times (not lying). I usually do 1.5 bottles an hour in normal conditions. For some reason I thought overcast and low 60's was less than normal so I didn't drink enough. I would feel the affects of this on the run.
Run: after a very long transition run I finally made it to the bike rack, made decent time and off I went! But I stopped at got a quick sunscreen application to my shoulders! I felt really awesome the first half, I saw Steve as he was around mile 9-10 and I was at about mile 6. Got to La Crema Winery and did about a one mile loop around the vines on a dirt road, there was some shade and I was feeling ok. First half of the run I was averaging 8:22. Second half came and I was feeling awful! My legs would not move! Annnnd here's the affects of not enough fuel! (I would discover the lack of fuel post race). My second half dropped to over 10 min/mile. Dear lord Melissa what is wrong with you! Managed a small PR and if I could have fueled properly my run probably would have been what my training was reflecting. There's always the next one though!
Steve had his second fastest 70.3 ever and came off of only three weeks of base training. He hurt his back badly the weekend after Quassy and could not do any training. I was so pumped for his results! He works so hard and is one of the toughest people I know!
This race is spectacular and we both highly recommend everyone get out there to do it I you can!
Onto the fun stuff. Vacation! I'm just going to describe the vacation portion in some of the over 200 photos I took!
Standing INSIDE a redwood!
We've been home for a few weeks and have been spot on with nutrition and getting leaner and meaner. We have Rev 3 OOB in two weeks, whoa, wait, two weeks?!?! We are both feeling really strong and ready to get after it! AZ will be here before we know it! Happy training everyone!
