Last year I was so excited to be racing again. this year I was nervous about the fact that it was a sprint... I've been doing mostly Z2-3 (sometimes Z1!!) training... and I've noticed that Z4 is getting more and more painful...
So it was going to be 1:15 of pain...
The plan was:
1) Finally "race" the swim. I've finally overcome my fear of open water swimming and I wanted to see how I could do if I really focused on push hard on the swim
2) Once on the bike really work the hills. Obviously it's red line the whole way, but I really wanted to focus on the hills
3) On the run - never give up, never surrender
Started the day with my banana/almond butter squeeze pack breakie
One bottle of EFS consumed on way to race and during Transition set up
This was a tri the parks race, which always means a lot of socializing for me. One of my favorite parts of racing!!
I set up my transition, fretted about how far the mount/dismount line was from my rack and cursing the fact that I STILL haven't learned how to leave my shoes on the bike.
I did something I've never done before a race before, I went for a 1.5 mile run warmup. It felt good! Then I headed down to the lake to start swimming, swam out to the first bouy and back to shore. I felt ready to get the show on the road.
Swim - it was uneventful... I was left in pretty lonely water pretty quickly. I started running over some of the guys from the waves in front of me. Really tried to push it. Exited the water with exactly the same time as the year before... oh well, at least I wasn't tired!
T1 - ran up the long long hill to transition... it went pretty smoothly even though I originally went down the wrong lane... there was a small gap in the bikes so I ducked under the racks (finally something good about being short!!) and got to my spot. Glasses, helmet, shoes, just in case gu in back pocket and off!
Bike - bike felt really good... I'd taken the week almost completely off from the bike and it seemed to be a good thing. Just felt super strong for the entire ride. Completely uneventful ride, which is always good! The ride has two out and back sections where you can check on the competition. I'd passed two ladies within the first two miles of the bike, and oddly, I only counted two people in front of me on the first out and back... I thought, that's weird, I must have missed someone. On the second out and back again, it seemed I was third on the road and very close to the girl in 2nd. Wow. That is a bit surreal. Eventually I passed the girl in second and cruised home. The last 2 miles have a slight down grade, I was able to avg 24.o mph on those last two miles. Brought me home in 33:47 (21.7)
T2 - I did have to deal with the nightmare that was running in my bike shoes, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Put my run stuff on, dropped off my glasses because it was overcast and a lot of the run is through the woods
Run - the run starts off immediately in the woods. I was a little nervous as first, slipping and sliding on the roots and rocks. There is also a very steep downhill followed by a very steep uphill. I slowed down a bit here to keep my footing, but it is almost a blessing because you catch your breath just a little. Once you get to the other side of the ravine, you are on paved road for about a mile out and back section. As I was running back, I saw the ladies I passed on the run and knew I couldn't slow down. I was in complete oxygen debt at this point. I had no idea how fast/not fast I was running because I had accidentally left my watch behind on my bike. I just kept pushing and trying to ignore any pain. I knew once I made it back into the woods I was withing 1.5 miles of the finish, so that's when I really started to push myself. Tried to sprint at the end when I knew I was close, but I was already at my limit. Run time 23:03 5k.
 |
| From Racing and Training 2010 |
Crossed the line as 2nd female on the day.
 |
| From Racing and Training 2010 |
I did end up 3rd OA as there was a wave of ladies behind my wave and while the didn't catch me on the road, their time was faster than mine.
Still, 3rd OA was an unbelievable result for me. Most importantly, I had improved upon my 2009 time by almost 4:00!! 2:45 of that was in the run (so almost a min faster per mile on the run).
 |
| From Racing and Training 2010 |
This race gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to push the pain aside in order to complete the task at hand, which I think will serve me well at Cedar Point!
0 comments:
Post a Comment