With a name like this, how could I not?  I wasn’t really feeling another Oly race two weeks after nationals, but yeah.  Wasn’t going to pass on Rocketman.  Plus one of my co-workers was also doing it and we had been talking trash for two weeks.  I HAD to go.  May or may not be the first and last August race I do in Alabama 🙂 The race used to be held on Redstone Arsenal, which is where the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is, so there were actual rockets on the course (if you’re ever in Huntsville the Space and Rocket Center is a must-visit!).  This year the race was held a bit south of town by the river.

The swim was in the Tennessee river (seeing a pattern with these AL races?) and there was kind of a stiff current that we could see just looking at the water.  The course was set up where we swam upstream for a couple hundred meters, out towards the middle for a hundred or so, then all the rest was with the current to the docks.  The goal for today was just to see if I could beat my coworker  🙂

Holy cow I have never been so beat up in a swim – I don’t mind being near other people at all; I am more comfortable in open water than I have been but I like to know I’m with other people.  But this group was way too close!  I fought my way through the first 400m or so, and finally found someone to draft off of  (I hope I didn’t drive her nuts – I don’t have many opportunities to practice drafting so kept hitting her feet when I got too close).  Anyway the swim was good after I got out of the general melee, and then I had to figure out how to get out at the end.  Should have checked out the exit – it was like a ladder sort of thing and I had a lot of trouble finding the step.  Good thing there were volunteers to help drag us out!

The bike was very nice – rolling hills and pretty quiet roads.  Not closed to traffic but Sunday mornings in AL are pretty quiet.  I rode like I had been all summer – controlled but keeping as strong an effort as I felt I could hold for the whole time.  Even though I was feeling pretty bushed from having raced two weeks before, I somehow managed to shave another two minutes off my best time for a very nice 1:26 bike split.  I was starting to get the hang of this whole swim-bike thing!

Then there was the run…by this time it had to have been 90F out, and after the first mile there was very little shade.  The course was extremely flat, but it was just too hot for me.  The farthest out aid station seemed to have run out of ice so their water wasn’t cold which didn’t help.  I ended up walking more than running that 10K, and made it back in about 1:14.  I was not happy with that time but knew I wasn’t feeling my best going into the race.

Needless to say I was quite happy to reach the finish, and they even had chocolate milk!  My time was good enough for 3rd military female, and I did end up besting my coworker by a full 7 seconds, so it was a successful day I think.  I’m still debating whether I’ll do another race in August in AL…