Timberman 2009

The journey to Timberfest started on Friday. I was racing the sprint and JP was racing the 70.3. We loaded up the Mother-Mobile (my Nissan Pathfinder with an obscene amount of triathlon stickers on it) with all of our race gear. When we decided to take the Mother-Mobile instead of the 4Runner I expressed concern to JP because I thought that a bolt had fallen out of Thule bike rack and I did not know what size bolt to buy to replace it. I thought he should take care of it because that would be a manly kind of thing to do. JP (which clearly stands for Jumbo Pig after this episode) thought it would be extremely funny to have me go to the hardware store and ask them to "take a look at my rack" - to determine the bolt size. I however, did not find that funny or helpful so I loaded "Blue Magic", my awesome and beloved Blue T-14 in the back of the SUV - and let JPig rack his bike on the risky Thule rack. If someones multi-thousand dollar bike was going to splattered all over the highway - it sure as hell was not going to be mine :-) Turns out the rack only needed the one bolt so I wasted some precious energy being a selfish bitch.

We made it safely up to NH with JP only asking 7 or 8 times if his bike was still on the rack. We checked into the motel and it was a super dive ( our fault for waiting too long to make reservations) The door to the motel room had been painted shut so we practically had to break the door down to get in - the molding around the door came with the door as it opened and I was sure they were probably going to charge us for that. We unpacked our mountains of tri-stuff and headed over to packet pick-up. The sky had opened up and now it was pouring - not a good sign for the race the next day. After a quick check-in and packet retrieval we went in search of a decent place to eat. The Weirs beach area is not really one that is "triathlete friendly" - lots of fried foods, tattoos, body piercings and SMOKING - gross !!! White trash heaven We settled on an Italian/American place thinking that should be safe. JP pretty much summed up the dinner experience when he remarked that we should have gotten a clue when we were seated in plastic chairs, at a plastic table with our very own plastic ashtray. Now that is living !!! Dinner managed to stay down for the both of us so that was at least encouraging because we did have our doubts as we were eating.

Race morning came early - I sat in bed stuffing down applesauce and a banana while I watched JP make a mess all over the floor cutting open his box of earth-crunchy Aspen Cereal. The coffee that I has gotten the day before to have race morning had frozen in the mini-frig. Our luxury accommodations did not have a microwave so I was left to try to suck on it as it melted. Fortunately I brought plenty of Expresso GU - I would not be under-caffeinated for this glorious event !!! We loaded the car and were off - JP was going to do his pre-race bike and run while I was racing so we still had lots of stuff (as usual). We went about our own business when we got there. It makes him mental when I stop to talk to everyone ( my fav part) so its best that we go our separate ways. We are not the type of supportive people that wait at the finish line for each other. With any luck one of us will win an award so there is always the opportunity to locate each other at the award ceremony.

I got body marked and took my bike into the transition area. I found my rack and number and racked my bike. The women next to me ( Large Marge) told me that I had it going in the wrong direction. It was at that point and time that I noticed with HORROR her race set-up. She was the one who had racked incorrectly (BTW). She had a poncho spread out underneath her bike with a full buffet spread out on it - she had bananas, Gu's, a sandwich and a clif bar - on her bike she had 2 water bottles. Was she doing the freakin Ironman??? - NO, it was a SPRINT triathlon. Then the creme de la creme ( my personal pet-peeve) a Footbath. GOD I hate it when people have those things. She also had a HUGE duffle bag filled with more crap. I literally had no

room. When it comes to transition - I am an extreme minimalist - my aero helmet goes on my bars, my bike cleats are on my bike held in the right position with rubber bands and my Newtons and sun glasses go by my wheel. That is it folks....... and I did not even have room for that. I asked her to at least move the dufflebag and some of her stuff so I could have a little room. She pretty much ignored me so I did what I thought was best - I moved her extra crap after she left. I was fired up for a fast race with a top 10 finish and I was not going to let Large Marge impede my progress. I ate an Expresso Gu - my fav, chased it with some Gatorade and headed down to the race start. I was in the second to last wave - waiting around sucked and I must have peed in my wetsuit at least 4 times ( how ladylike). Finally it was time for my wave - I made my way right up to the front - Nobody puts Baby in the corner !!! I love the swim start, I study it and choose the best angle, then I step out about a foot forward from everyone else - I do this to let everyone know I mean business and if you get in my way - I will rip your body parts off as I go over you and it will not be pretty. I know this is shocking for those of you reading this because I am such a delicate flower ( NOT). As I am standing alone making my statement I hear someone say " Hey Nancy, we all know you are going to beat us out of the water but could you at least come back here and start with the rest of us" I turn around to see Kitty Tetrault - oh crap. Not only is she a national record holder in swimming, she is a Team Psycho chick and is really fast. My day just got a lot harder. I went back and joined Kitty, I knew we would be seeing a lot of each other today. The countdown started and Kitty and I took off side by side, 100 yds, 150 yds, 200 yds, 300 yards, etc - I resign myself to the fact that Kitty and I will battle this entire swim. We swim through 2 waves of caps, at the last buoy there is a HUGE bottleneck of newbie women - breastroking, floating on their backs, etc - they are like a solid wall - Kitty heads right in the middle of them, I decide to try to go around. Bad move - Kitty beat me out of the water. Had a good transition and got out on the bike quickly - because our wave was so far back there were all kinds of people out on the course. I was looking for Kitty and when I did not see her I figured I beat her out of transition. I rode hard but tried to keep a high cadence - those hills are pretty demanding and if you push too big of a gear you will pay for it later. I felt good and passed a ton of people ( always fun). As I was hammering one of the few flat parts of the course I passed Kitty - oh, that was a surprise - I thought she was behind me. As I was trying to figure out how she beat me out of transition - she re-passed me RRGGHH (I pride myself with thinking I have great transitions so this really bummed me out) oh that made me angry so I re-passed her again, we continued this suffer-fest for the entire ride and came in together to T2. Once again I was confident that I could beat her out of transition - this time I did but she was right behind me. I was running scared and trying to focus when I feel something weird with my shoe - I glance down and my shoe had come untied, NO, NO not now :-( I knew I had to come to a complete stop to tie it - I ran a bit further hoping it might be ok - no, it was not going to be ok. I stopped and knotted it as quickly as I could. I look up and....yup, there is Kitty. Crapity Crap Crap This now calls for desperate measures. I put my head down and focus on my cadence and breathing - I am slowly, very slowly pulling ahead of her. We get to the turn around and I see I have about 10 seconds on her. I realize with terror that if I am unable to hold my exact pace I will lose. Losing was not an option today, I did not come here to lose. I gave that last 1.5 miles everything I had - I did not look back until I got to the grass on the finishing shoot - I turned twice and she was not in a position to outsprint me at that point. I was going deep and trying not to hurl. Finally, there was the finish. Over the blue timing mat I go - YES, victory is so sweet when you work that hard. In comes Kitty - I managed to put about 15 seconds on her in the end. We give each other a big hug ( we are friendly, just super competitive) We both agree that was a lot of fun and hard work. Oxygen debt never felt so good. Then came my favorite part when I win something - the awards ceremony . I just love standing on the top spot on the podium . This was my 8th Maple Syrup bottle trophy and Timex watch. Between Mooseman and Timberman I have plenty of maple syrup and no shortage of watches either.

The next day was the Timberman 70.3 - all I had to do was my recovery workout and spectate. JP ended up having a good race despite the heat. He went a 4:48 and placed 4th in the men's 45-49. That was about the time be predicted so he was ok with the time. We survived another Timberman - until next year :-)