'THE' Race Report: Lavaman 2010!

Okay, sit back, relax, maybe grab a drink and some popcorn because although I intend to keep the report to the point...it's Lavaman OD triathlon! And I know I could get wordy. So here we go...
Pre-Race:
I ate well both Friday and Saturday. No crazy vaca food or drink for me. But I couldn't sleep well at all Sat, so I may have been more anxious about the whole thing than I realized. We (Ironoman Dude & I) woke up at 5am, had our coffee, and had my hawaiian toast w/peanut butter. Out the door at 5:40 am. The race was ~5 min bike ride from our condo. Yeah, I know it was sweet. Actually it was better than sweet. It was perfect. 
We biked over, racked our bikes, and lined up to get body marked. It was REALLY windy at this point. Really windy. And the wind coupled with the darkness, and the loud generated lamp lights for T1 made for heightened anxiety on my end. 
After we body marked, I did a warm up bike spin for ~20 min and I'm so glad I did. It was really windy still, so it gave me the idea of how the bike would be if the wind didn't die down. It also gave me a mental break out of the race area to just be. I then did a quick ~10 min warm up run. Came back, suited up in my one piece swim suit I wore over my tri bike/top (to have less drag in the water) and cruised down with Maggs to the swim start. As we were walking down, I realized the wind was dying down too. Significantly. I silently thanked the sky for behaving and smiled at the idea of no wind for the race.Thank GAWD.
I warmed up ~10 min in the water, then the first wave (elites) went off at 7:30 am. I was in the fourth heat (I hate it that the ladies are in the last heats! It can be such a buzz kill! anyway, I digress). We were off at 7:40am. Here's a picture of my heat swim start. Can ya see where I'm at? I'm the one with the pink cap and black suit on:

Swim (~29min):
I went out in the front middle of the pack. I felt strong and just focused on breathing, breathing out and just going. For the first half of the swim, I felt fine feeling like I was in the wash cycle of my laundry. In the past, this feeling would have me stopping every 5 feet and reassess my position, etc. This time I just kept swimming. I was fine with the discombobulation. But it was at the last turn back where I did start to feel disorientated, and had to do a few longer sight checks to make sure I was going the right direction. I just kept sighting the palm trees (yeah, I know, kill me now) and came out of the water breathing hard but felt MUCH stronger and ready to race than a year ago. And my time was ~3 minutes faster than last year...which is a lot in swimmingland.
I ran up, high fived my kids (It's a goal of mine this year to give high fives and smiles to em' when I race) and zipped outta T1 in 1:47 min total:

Bike: 1:10:42 (21.1 mph ave)
The bike, well was pretty sweet. I had only the experience of last year to compare it with and as I've said before, I'm a different rider now. I'm different mainly because I've focused on my cadence, and power for the past ~6 months and I felt the difference. Plus, I am in better shape than a year ago, so was not as wiped from the swim. I kept my bike spinning high at ~90-105 cadence for most of the time. I also have a new fabulous Speedfill waterbottle that I MUST do a review for because it is the BEST. It allows me to not have to move my head, arms, body to drink. The bottle tube is right there by my face during the entire ride. That made a difference in my bike too. I don't have any pics of me on the bike, but here's a pic of my speedfill waterbottle:

So I was able to ride in my aero bars the entire ride, no problem (didn't know if I could/would or not). Also, I've never said 'On Your Left' more in a race. ever. And I'm not trying to be cocky. I actually couldn't believe it. That was a pretty cool feeling. 
I also practiced my T2 transition the day before and taking my feet out of my shoes to run barefoot into T2. Glad I did, because it worked. My first official- 'Run into T2 barefoot' experience! T2 time :47 seconds, and I'm off on the run.

Run: 47:11 (7:37 min/mile)
Ah, the dang run. This my friend, is where the mental mind F began. ugh. As soon as I started I thought 'heck! I've already exceeded my swim and bike expectations! Don't worry about the run. You can walk it, or slow down, or just forget about it. You did so well on the other parts, who cares about this.' Because I was not having any fun on it. I wasn't even 'not having fun' with it. I was just Nuckin' Fot having any of it. I attempted to keep up a quick cadence but I did Two BIG no no's for my race. I did NOT wear a heart rate monitor or my GARMIN the entire race. So I had no clue how I was actually doing physically. Plus, I didn't even allow myself to look at my own Timex watch...because I didn't want it to mess with me more. This right here was all some major mental rookie moves. And now I can look back and say, 'Okay, suck it up Anne Marie ya gotta rely on a watch, monitor, something to tell you how you're doing'. 
So miles 1-4.5 just basically sucked...but I still shuffled along and was okay. It was the last 1.8 miles where I REALLY was just over the whole thing. I was thinking 'what the F am I doin' out here? And I wanna do Vineman? Are you F'n kidding me? That's bullSH$^'. ugh. Then to top it off, I had a gal in front of me who I could tell was in my age group. I shuffled by her at the last aid station (she stopped and I didn't and I thought...oh, no...I just passed her). She shuffled behind me til the last ~.5 miles of the race where now it's beach sand, and I just.didn't.care.anymore. Mentally I gave up. I had given up when I had passed her, I immediately wanted her to pass me. In my head I begged her to pass me. And I got my wish. She was sweet enough to say 'c'mon, let's do this' to me a few times, but I just didn't care. She (along with another gal) passed me in the last .5 mile of the race. Salt to the wound baby.

Here's yours truly at the last ~5 ft of the race. I look pretty chipper eh? Great running form eh? Nice hunched shoulders...UGH. It was hard. But I did manage to high five my kids again (along with those 2 kids in purple shirts behind me). And Ironman Dude was there at the end with ice and water to throw on me for support. Thank you. Here's exactly what he looked like:

Actually, I'm sorta lyin'. This is him after the free massage, which I happily imbibed on as well (the top post pic is me afterwards. Hence, why I look so relaxed)  I just wanted to post the pic because I thought he looked like a tri hot guy.
I did end up having a good race. a 2:30:01 I'll take. And I couldn't have done it with out these peeps:

Nana watching the kidz, while mom and dad raced. And raced we did. And shortly after, we came back for their awesome BBQ/Beer post party:

So that's my race report in a nut coconut shell. I'm almost certain I wouldn't have written one if I didn't have this here blog/support and I'm so glad I did. So thank you for asking about the race, and being with me in your comments and support.
Now who's up for Lavaman 2011?;-)