Shauna, Amber and I went to Bend, Oregon for the Deschuttes Dash. Amber and I did the Oly race on Saturday and Shauna did the sprint on Sunday. The drive over there wasn't too bad. We left on Friday at 4 pm and we got there with enough daylight to drive the bike course, which was the same road our hotel was on. We knew that the bike course was a pretty decent climb, but we had no idea how hard it would be. We went to the hotel and got our race bags ready for the next morning. We had to get up at 5:00 because Shauna had to be there to volunteer at 6:00. We ate breakfast and had a cup of coffee and then headed out the door. We were the first ones there :) Amber and I got our Transition set up and then stood around until it was time to head to the swim start. It was nice to see some familiar faces from Boise and chit chat. We got our wet suits on and walked into the water and it was COLD! Amber started in the first wave and I was 5 minutes later. The swim was pretty quick since it was downriver with the current. I didn't feel like I had even worked at all when I got out! There was a little jog to the transition area and on the way I was able to get my wetsuit down to mid thigh, when I got to my bike I dropped it the rest the way off, put on my helmet, glasses and race belt and took off. 1:42! First in my age group and 15th overall for T1 time! The only downfall was when I got on my bike I realized I didn't undo the velcro on my shoes so I had to fiddle with them a little bit to get my feet in. As we made out way out of town I was looking for Amber but never saw her. The hill climb was pretty tough and I was really wishing I had practiced more on the dump loop :) It took me over an hour to get to the turn around at the top and I was so happy to be going downhill, as I was headed down I finally saw Amber....I thought for sure she had been ahead of me the whole time, but she had taken longer in T1 :) I managed to keep the braking to a minimum on the down hill and tried to keep up my speed and stay in aero...I am such a wimp at going fast. I made it into T2 and quick put on my shoes. I was out on the run and feeling pretty good, but it was getting hot. I had my fuel belt at transition, but opted to only take one bottle to run with. That turned out to be a mistake because there were only 2 water stations. The run course was flat and a mix of paved path and trail. At one point we ran under an under pass with only a few feet wide trail. My first 3.1 mile loop only took me 27 minutes! Shauna was even surprised to see me so soon. At that point I knew I would slow down for the second loop, but I decided to make a goal of 1 hour for the 10k. I am glad I did that because otherwise I would have really been dragging on the last mile, but I had to step it up to achieve my time of 1:00:08.
Amber finished just a little bit after me and looked great!
After we got our free beer from the food tent we went to lunch at a pasta place at the mall right by the race area. It was really good.
We went back to the hotel to shower and take a little nap and then we went to the Deschuttes Brewery for dinner and beers. We went to bed early that night because Amber and I had to volunteer at 6 am and Shauna was racing.
We got up and got the car loaded and got a coffee on the way to the race. Amber and I handed out timing chips and helped out with late registration while Shauna got ready for her race. We didn't get to see Shauna start, but we did see the rest of her race. She did awesome and finished under 2 hours. We got the car loaded up and headed out to lunch on the way out of town.
The drive home seemed to take longer as usual, but it wasn't too bad.
The race was totally worth the drive and I would definitely do it again.
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