Kinetic Weekend

I’m still here. Training and doing my thing.

Last weekend was the Kinetic weekend. Kinetic is the name of the race – I don’t know where it came from. It was at Lake Anna, which is about 2 hours away. Being the week before Columbia, I considered not participating. But it sounded like fun to be part of a team race where everyone goes down, camps or stays in group houses, and has big cookouts for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I decided that I would take it easy and participate in a relay. So I chose the bike leg of the sprint distance (there was also a half Ironman distance).

What a fun weekend! For some reason I volunteered to help with meal prep all day on Saturday since I wasn’t racing the half. Somehow I missed the part about needing to be at the race site at 5 am for that. It was pitch black as three of us bumbled around with flashlights making breakfast for the team.

The highlight of the day was cheering on the racers on the bike course. About 7 of us headed out to the course with our folding chairs, cowbells, and horns. We were all dressed in team colors (various shades of green). There we sat for almost 3 hours, hooting and hollering at all of the cyclists. My teammates were hilarious and made the experience a lot of fun.

Sunday rolled around and it was my day. I felt good and ready to go. I met my teammates with whom I’d be relaying and we picked up our race numbers. The volunteer apologized as she handed us numbers 666. Yup, that’s right. 666. Fortunately, I am not superstitious. My teammates seemed okay with it, too. You would think they could have taken that number out of circulation. We got bodymarked (666 on both arms, both legs, and ages on our calves – oy!). The reactions we got from folks walking around with 666 tattooed on us was pretty amusing.

Pre-race pics:

The race went well. I definitely liked not having to swim. I just waited in the transition area and when our swimmer arrived I removed the chip from her ankle (it was on a Velcro band) and put in on myself. I ran the bike out, mounted and started on my way.

As I left the transition area and headed up the hill I saw a bunch of Team Zers cheering. A couple of them recognized me and started cheering for me by name. That was so great!

Another teammate called out “mashing.” That is what you’re *not* supposed to do. It means putting pressure on the pedal in the downstroke instead of using your energy to pull the pedals up and forward. That was helpful and was a good reminder for the entire ride.

As I was leaving the park a 45-year old woman dressed in all black passed me. And then I passed her. And she passed me. I decided to try to get ahead of her. It was a fun game of chase on the hills of Lake Anna. I would fall back and lose sight of her, and then catch up. Finally, as we were getting close to the end, I was about to catch her and potentially pass her and…. kaplunk. I heard something hit the ground.

There was no one around me. I looked and I still had my water bottle. I looked back and saw I had lost my seat bag, which I had removed and replaced [apparently not well] when I attached my race number to my bike. Dagamit!

I carefully slowed down, came to a stop, laid my bike on the side of the road, and jogged in my stupid, freakin’ bike shoes back to my bag. When I say jog, I mean I awkwardly hobbled along making a racket. Bike shoes have big metal cleats on the bottom that make the front part higher than the back. Miss Dressed-in-Black rode off, never to be seen again. Oh well.

I had a good race. I wanted to be faster than I was, but I just wasn’t. I had to remind myself a few times of how far I’ve come. I remember just 14 months ago taking 55 minutes to ride from Clarendon to the Washington Monument. That’s about a 6 mile trip. Now I can do it in about 32 minutes with rush hour traffic.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I focused on keeping my cadence between 90-110 rpm, and most of the time I was over 100. Excellent! I tried to pedal in a circle and not mash. I kept my heart rate steadily in Zone 4. I felt pretty good out there and had fun.

My final time was 1:09, around 15 mph average. I was hoping for closer to an hour. [I guess I would have been closer if I hadn’t had to stop to retrieve my bag.] It was great coming back into the park to the cheers of the team. I made my way back into transition and the runner removed my chip and took off for the 5k. Our team placed 11 out of 22 relay teams. Not too shabby.

The rematch, Cat versus Columbia, is in just 5 short days. I am ready! My hands are still numb, but improving a little each day. I have seen Dr. Keith, and talked to my friend the ER doctor. I just need to wait this out. Grrrr. It appears I really did a number on my median nerves.

I am ready to conquer Columbia. By conquer I mean improve my time from last year, and not feel like an elephant is standing on my chest after crossing the finish line. Shouldn’t be too hard. Stay tuned for that race report next week.