ok, onto the race report... The lake conditions were absolutely perfect so I felt pretty good on the swim most of the time. It was a wave start with both men and women, so not ideal, but it ended up working out ok. I did get plowed over a couple times and had to maneuver around a few people, but nothing out of the ordinary. I got out of the water with Judy so I took that as a good sign, I thought I remember she is a fairly strong swimmer. I really had no idea how my swim was. I sprinted up the sandy hill and had a smooth transition to the bike. I decided to take an extra gel in this race since last weekend at Lifetime I felt my body start to weaken near the end of the bike portion at Lifetime and thought it could be nutrition-related. I took the gel a couple miles into the 20 mile bike. I tried to hammer away on the bike and felt pretty good with my efforts. I knew my speed was lookin' good on the spedometer, but how I was measuring up to the other girls in my agegroup is always hard to tell. The last 5 miles were a little tough, I was literally counting down the miles at this point. I noticed a few women from my agegroup pass me near the end of the bike and was a little annoyed at myself, but I just decided to catch them on the run. Finally made it into transition and off the bike. Now onto the run... I have been feeling so strong on the run in all the triathlons I've done so far this year and this one was no different. I felt strong and ready to go. Only a 5-mile run was what I was thinking as I was heading out. I'm always a little nervous to push it too hard for fear of falling apart and "crashing". I battled a few side-cramps, but just relaxed and got my breathing steady and they went away. I kept toying with the idea of speeding up. I just focused on how I was feeling at the moment and trying not to worry about how much of the race was left and what could happen. None of the miles were marked, so by the last mile I was wondering where the 'you know what' the finish line was. I didn't know where I was! I finally asked one of the water stop guys and he said, "about half a mile" - ok, hammer it in! I crossed the finish line and felt like I had left a lot out there. Did I leave it ALL out there??? Debatable.
Later in the afternoon I scoped out the race results and saw that I finished 5th in my agegroup. I was more than happy with that! I try not to make goals that have to do with placing and at some point had decided that this race was pretty competitive. Lots of the regulars seem to hit this race, especially since it did not fall on the same weekend as Lifetime this year. It is clear to me when studying the race results that I have majorly improved on my swim, that is not only a total surprise to me, but a great feeling. I never thought that was possible. The other thing I can take away from these results is I have some room to improve in the bike portion. I have been getting some great training time with the Birchwood Betty's, but as I'm planning out my race schedules and training plans, I really want to focus on this area for next year and see if I can see some improvement there.
I felt great post-race and recovery for this size race is pretty minimal. I have to admit I'm a little nervous for next weekend's half-iron. It's just a long time to be out there. But on the other hand, I'm ready, I've done a lot of training, I've already done one this year, and it's my last chance to put it all out there so I will have all of these positives to think about leading up to the race. I'm going to put together a "bike journey" like I did for the Kansas race, outlining positive things & people to think about through the 56 miles. Onto a nice week of taper leading up to Chisago half-iron. This tri season has been so much fun this year, but I'm ready to move on to marathon training and getting some weekends back with the family...
