Predictions and results.

To understand this post, you need a little background information on the people involved:

My parents: In general, I have supportive parents. I am very different from them, and they are baffled by at least half the things I choose to do, but they always seem to rally and support me anyway. I know I am very lucky in this regard and I am very grateful to them.

However, my parents are both fairly shy people who do not like crowds, are wary of travel, and are generally nervous trying new things. Thus, when supporting me involves travelling, being in a crowd, and doing things that are new to them (for example, coming to a big race), they get pretty uncomforable. Despite all this, my mom has made an effort to come to my most important races (my first half, MCM, and IronGirl). I never expect to see her out waving signs or wearing a "Team Alicia" t-shirt, but I know what it takes for her to get there at all and I appreciate it.

For the purposes of this story, you should also know that my mother is one of the world's all-time most accomplished worriers. No matter what news/idea/suggestion you share with her, she will come up with a way that it will result in death and destruction. For example, "I just won the lottery!" will be met with "You know, you'll have to pay taxes on that." So, you can imagine her response to "I, your beloved youngest child, am going to swim across a lake, bike on a road with cars, and then run up a bunch of hills in the sweltering heat." She was a little concerned.

Me: Shockingly, the child of worry-wart parents who run away from new experiences grew up wanting to go everywhere and try everything. Yet, having grown up fairly sheltered, I do get really nervous trying new things on my own. My solution: information and organization. The more nervous I am about something, the more I gather all available information and organize my endeavor to within an inch of its life. I am a big believer in lists and itineraries.

How this all comes together: For my biggest races/atheltic endeavors, especially when I know my mom is coming, I invest a lot of time in information-gathering and organizing. This is both for myself, and so I can help my mom feel as comfortable as possible. I give her maps and information about the event that she can read while she waits for me. I also give her approximate itineraries: when we will get there, when the event will start, when I expect to finish.

Historically, my predictions on these itineraries have been terrible. Before my first half-marathon, I told her that it would probably take me at least 3 hours. I finished in 2:24, when she was still in the car driving to the event. For my first marathon, I gave her a predicted finish time of 5-5 1/2 hours after the start. I failed to realize that it would take me 40 minutes just to cross the start line, and I had no idea that I would fall apart halfway through and wind up taking over 6 hours to finish. Thus, my predicted time was off by almost 2 hours.

When I gave mom her itinerary for IronGirl, I made a point of noting multiple times, right on the paper itself, that all times were approximate. Here's what I predicted:

Swim (.62mi): 35 minutes
Transition #1: 5 minutes
Bike (17.5mi): 90 minutes
Transition #2: 3 minutes
Run (3.3mi): 35 minutes

Total: 2 hours, 48 minutes

Apparently, I am much better at predicting triathlon times than I am at predicting run times. I checked the IronGirl results yesterday and here's what I saw:

Swim: 34:24 (place: 1490/1631)
Transition #1: 4:23 (938)
Bike: 1:26:43 (1383)
Transition #2: 1:57 (485)
Run: 38:57 (980)

Total: 2:46:22 (1332)

All in all, my predictions were spot-on. I hope this speaks to how well I prepared for this event. Compared to some of my running events, I spent a lot more time in my tri-training simulating the actual race conditions as closely as possible. I went into this race with a pretty clear sense of what I would be able to do, and I think I came out of it with good ideas about how to improve.

As you can see, the place where I most over-estimated myself was on the run. My best 5K times are all around 27 minutes, so I thought adding 8 minutes would be enough to account for the accumlated fatige and the extra .2 miles. Obviously not. Even though I had done multi-sport workouts and practiced on the actual run course, I was still not ready for how hard it would be. For next year, I definitely need to spend more time biking on hills and then running on hills.

The place where I under-estimated myself was on transitions. Given my love of organization and efficiency, I should have realized that this would be a strength. I actually felt like I was dawdling a bit. I am very pleased with these times (esp. #2), and also sure I can do them faster.

The other significant "result" from this event was my mom's experience. All in all, I think she had a good time. She didn't like the idea of catching the spectator shuttle busses on her own, so she left Annapolis with me at 4:15AM and sat at the finish area until I came through. Luckily, we were able to hook up with my friend Marie's family, so she had company almost the whole time. I thought she might be inspired enough to try racing herself (she is very active and fit). That didn't happen, but she was very interested in the whole atmosphere and the diversity of women competing. She also left with ideas of how to be a better spectator next year. So, now we both have our goals!