Race report: Vineman Monte Rio

Posted by Rachel

I'm excited to write my first race report here! I haven't raced since we started this blog. I think I almost did a 10k once, but then got a cold and decided against it. Anyway, this is about Monte Rio, so here goes.

Monte Rio is a tiny (seriously... it's small) town about 10 miles east of the coast in Sonoma. It's also right on the Russian River. The location is awesome, even if the coast was a little foggy. We stayed at an inn in town, and other than the race part we had a pretty chill, relaxing weekend. Here are some snapshots:

 Well, it is called vineman

 Relaxing at our inn on the Russian River

 Russian River + Pacific Ocean + fog

 It is surely a "vacation wonderland"

If you know me, you know I LOVE the Sonoma Coast

Sadly after all this eating, drinking, and messing around, it was time to get down to business. I'll divide the triathlon into the three sports and give a short summary of each.

Swim/walk:

I call this the "swim/walk" because the Russian River was shallow. I know the drought has much more serious repercussions than this, but the swim was pretty miserable. The day before the race, we saw some kids playing outside of where the start line was supposed to be and they were ankle deep in water. Not a good sign. So they moved the start line about 150 m upstream, but due to a lack of deep enough water to swim in the race felt very congested the whole time. Out of 24 min of swimming, I walked/trudged through the water for over 2:30 of it. There was a spot we had to walk through at the turnaround (~ 0:30), but the worst was at the end. When I stopped swimming I looked down at my watch and thought "oh, a 22:00 min swim, that's solid". Then it took me TWO MORE MINUTES to walk over timing mat at the water exit. I didn't like it, but at least it was over and I could move onto a sport I like even less. The transition was 1/4 mile up a rocky hill, but luckily we had put sandals down near the water exit. After a 5 min transition (yeah...I need to work on transitions. It didn't help that my black sock blended into my black shoe and I couldn't find it!), we were off!

Bike:

The bike course was really fast. We went out to the coast and back with a ~6 mile detour (a north to south loop) toward the beginning. The day before I got very anxious about the bike ride because I learned there was a 0.8 mile long "no passing zone" about a mile into the ride. Generally, as a relatively strong swimmer and a relatively awful biker, I'm getting passed constantly at that point. I wanted to just write an apology on the back of my shirt for everyone whose race I ruined by being in front of them in this zone. Well, it turns out that there actually weren't many people around me at that point and two people ended up passing me anyway- some random girl, and TRAVERS! I got really nervous that he was going to get DQ'ed, but nobody cared. Why have a no passing zone if nobody cares? I almost ruined a shirt for that!

Anyway, the bike course was nearly perfect except that the pavement in the "detour part" was pretty rough. There was ~650 ft of elevation gain over 24.9 miles. I beat my Olympic distance bike time from last year by 10 min, rolling in @ 17.6 mph. This is great for me but I still have a long way to go. Luckily, I have a husband/training buddy who did the course in an awesome 19.5+mph speed and I can chase him all summer on the bike! Hopefully this will help me get faster.

Run:

This was my favorite sport of the day, taking the top spot from my usual favorite, the swim. My legs felt awesome off the bike, but unlike the last (and only) 3 triathlons I did where the end of the run became a sufferfest, I knew better this time and held back. The run was very flat and mostly shaded. The shade was key- for the small portion of the run near the turnaround that was exposed to the sun, you could really feel it. All the athletes I was around on the run course were really supportive of each other and the volunteers were great. Here's what the run looked like:

Splits & elevation. Yes, my watch is generous, but even Sandi's measured 6.3 on the course and hers is the most conservative watch that I train with!

Overall it was an almost 10 min PR from last year: even on the swim, 10 min faster on the bike, 1.5 min faster on the run, and probably 2ish minutes slower in the transition. The race was really well organized and I would probably do it again- definitely if a group of friends were going. Also, the Garmin 910XT was awesome for multisport! All in all, I'm looking forward to my next tri, and also to the impending IM signup...