We woke up at 4:20am, showered and jumped in the car for the 1:20 drive to Culpeper, VA. When we showed up at 6:30am, the place was buzzing with people already. It’s an 8am start so I was surprised to see lots people there, hanging out, relaxing before the race. And, these people looked like serious competitors – decked out bikes and fit. We checked-in and set up transition and had an hour to hang out ourselves. We jumped in the water and did a short barefoot run.
Swim:
[Liz: 16:14] [Justin: 17:10]
Justin was the first wave group, men 35 and under, I was second. It was an in water start, wetsuit illegal (water temp was 84… 14 degrees warmer than the outside temp at the start!). Lots of weeds in the beginning but it didn’t bug me so much. The start of the swim was kind of brutal. I wanted to try to swim hard but I was getting caught behind other girls or sandwiched between two. I found it hard to break from the group but at the first buoy turn, I found my space and decided not to kill it as I was pretty tired from fighting the group. And, let’s face it; I’m an awful swimmer, so killing it would probably mean I would come in 20 seconds faster than I had, haha.
T1:
[Liz: 1:28] [Justin: 1:33]
The mounting line was up a short hill which sucked because you had to push your bike up but other than that, an uneventful T1.
Bike:
[Liz: 54:39, 17.7 mph] [Justin: 52:23, 18.3 mph]
The bike course was a 16 mile, rolling hills through the farmlands that just made for a beautiful ride. I tried hammering out the bike but the uphill’s always get me, though I think I did well on the downs and flats, at least I was happy with my pace. I love seeing how many girls in my age group I can pass on the bike. I feel fairly confident in my biking outside of hills so it’s always a fun game for me to play to pass the time. I passed three or four girls, mostly all within the first 15 minutes of riding. The bike went by quickly and before I knew it, I was heading into T2.
T2:
[Liz: 1:33] [Justin: 1:25]
We had to run our bikes down the same hill we had to run them up at dismount which wasn’t so fun. I need to start learning how to dismount barefoot, it would have made running downhill much easier and my time at the rack quicker.
[Liz: 16:14] [Justin: 17:10]
Justin was the first wave group, men 35 and under, I was second. It was an in water start, wetsuit illegal (water temp was 84… 14 degrees warmer than the outside temp at the start!). Lots of weeds in the beginning but it didn’t bug me so much. The start of the swim was kind of brutal. I wanted to try to swim hard but I was getting caught behind other girls or sandwiched between two. I found it hard to break from the group but at the first buoy turn, I found my space and decided not to kill it as I was pretty tired from fighting the group. And, let’s face it; I’m an awful swimmer, so killing it would probably mean I would come in 20 seconds faster than I had, haha.
T1:
[Liz: 1:28] [Justin: 1:33]
The mounting line was up a short hill which sucked because you had to push your bike up but other than that, an uneventful T1.
Bike:
[Liz: 54:39, 17.7 mph] [Justin: 52:23, 18.3 mph]
The bike course was a 16 mile, rolling hills through the farmlands that just made for a beautiful ride. I tried hammering out the bike but the uphill’s always get me, though I think I did well on the downs and flats, at least I was happy with my pace. I love seeing how many girls in my age group I can pass on the bike. I feel fairly confident in my biking outside of hills so it’s always a fun game for me to play to pass the time. I passed three or four girls, mostly all within the first 15 minutes of riding. The bike went by quickly and before I knew it, I was heading into T2.
T2:
[Liz: 1:33] [Justin: 1:25]
We had to run our bikes down the same hill we had to run them up at dismount which wasn’t so fun. I need to start learning how to dismount barefoot, it would have made running downhill much easier and my time at the rack quicker.
Run:
[Liz: 24:23, 7:51 min/mile] [Justin: 25:02, 8:04 min/mile]
Running out of T2, a girl in my age group passed me and she had great speed. She ended up placing second in my age group. I tried to just keep a good pace as the first half mile or so is slightly uphill – no walking allowed. My feet were a bit numb but they always are after my bike. I thought I was running slowly, as it certainly didn’t feel as though I was going very fast. You break off from the main road twice onto side roads for two out and backs. I saw Justin on the first out and back which is always nice to see a familiar face when you need it! Each back in the out and backs were slightly uphill but didn’t seem so bad when running them. With about a half mile to go, I heard a girl coming up on me breathing quite heavily. She passed me and I looked down at her calve to see the number 28 and thought, OH NO! I’m not letting you pass me this close to the finish! So, I picked up the speed and passed her back… she passed me back again. I see, she’s a fighter. The last stretch to the finish is on grass and there is a sharp curve that turns right into the straight away to the finish. I passed her again as we reached the grass and just kept screaming at myself in my head to go fast. She was on my heels until we hit the sharp curve in which I dug deep and shot out a full out sprint, finishing first! :) Exhausted from the final stretch battle, I took a second to breath, turned around, gave her a high five and we laughed at what a nice finish that was. It was fun.
Total:
[Liz: 1:38:15] [Justin: 1:37:31]
So…from the results Justin ended up beating me by 44 seconds. Whatever dude, I beat you badly in EagleMan!!!!!
[Liz: 24:23, 7:51 min/mile] [Justin: 25:02, 8:04 min/mile]
Running out of T2, a girl in my age group passed me and she had great speed. She ended up placing second in my age group. I tried to just keep a good pace as the first half mile or so is slightly uphill – no walking allowed. My feet were a bit numb but they always are after my bike. I thought I was running slowly, as it certainly didn’t feel as though I was going very fast. You break off from the main road twice onto side roads for two out and backs. I saw Justin on the first out and back which is always nice to see a familiar face when you need it! Each back in the out and backs were slightly uphill but didn’t seem so bad when running them. With about a half mile to go, I heard a girl coming up on me breathing quite heavily. She passed me and I looked down at her calve to see the number 28 and thought, OH NO! I’m not letting you pass me this close to the finish! So, I picked up the speed and passed her back… she passed me back again. I see, she’s a fighter. The last stretch to the finish is on grass and there is a sharp curve that turns right into the straight away to the finish. I passed her again as we reached the grass and just kept screaming at myself in my head to go fast. She was on my heels until we hit the sharp curve in which I dug deep and shot out a full out sprint, finishing first! :) Exhausted from the final stretch battle, I took a second to breath, turned around, gave her a high five and we laughed at what a nice finish that was. It was fun.
Total:
[Liz: 1:38:15] [Justin: 1:37:31]
So…from the results Justin ended up beating me by 44 seconds. Whatever dude, I beat you badly in EagleMan!!!!!
Post Race:
We grabbed some food and packed up our stuff and put everything into/onto the car and headed back to relax and hang out for the awards. The race waited until the very last finisher came in before the awards ceremony started which was pretty cool and very respectful. AND, even cooler, most of the racers stuck around for the awards ceremony so you had a large crowd… most races everyone leaves immediately but this was cool that people actually wanted to stick around.
This race was awesome! Will def. be doing it again next year!!
