Race Day

Sunday morning came and the alarm went off at 4:35AM. I woke up nervous but had a pretty solid night sleep which is very rare for me. Guess I knew I needed it.
I grabbed my gear and headed down to the van with Jason and his dad, off we went to the race. We got there in the pitch black somewhere around 5:30 I think, maybe a little earlier. Had to find our bikes and then off we went to make sure everything was ready for our transitions.

We had a great morning. Nice and cool at the start, the water was really calm and there was nearly no wind. After battling the wrong lines for worst set of porto-john's I went over to try and unpack my gear as best I could in the dark. Jason and I then grabbed our wetsuits and headed over to the swim start. We got to watch the pro's take off and then got ready to line up for our wave. The sun was just coming up over the water and at 7:10 our wave ran into the water and headed out towards the sun.

Swim-
On the swim I just let Jason go. That was my plan all along and I know no one believed me because they say I'm too competitive to let that happen (right Sam?) but I stuck to my plan because I would have had to kick to keep up with Jason. I didn't want to kick at all since I knew my legs were going to be doing ALL the work after the swim. Might as well be nice to them at the beginning. So I found someone else to draft off for a while but he couldn't pick a line to save his life so I just pulled in front and then swam in and out of the elite women so he couldn't pick my line and draft off me. It was a nice easy swim for me and I just cruised it all. Heading into the transition I was taking my time because I can't run without shoes for some reason. I took the time to put on my watch, grab my helmet, put on my shoes and glasses, then grabbed my spare tube and co2 then off I went jogging my bike out to the transition. Mounted the bike and off I went.

Bike-
I headed out over the brick portion and just seemed to have trouble getting going. Heading out on the course I had a chance to see the pros shoot by on one of the straight aways while they were heading in the opposite direction. It was pretty cool to see them tearing it up like that. I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing rather than them. Eventually I started to feel pretty good, maybe that was half way in and I started picking up the pace pretty good. Wound up finishing with a 22.0 average. Headed into the transition for the run, couldn't find my position on the rack. Ran right by my area and ended up seeing Jason's bike and having to turn around and head back slowly until I found my gear. It sucked because I lost at least 40 seconds. Once I found it I racked my bike, had some Gatorade, put on my socks which I should have done before the bike so my legs wouldn't have been wobbly, threw on the sneakers, race belt, hat and then grabbed some sport beans and put them in my jersey then headed out on the run.

Run-
The run was good and hot and I like the heat. I kept thinking of what Sam told me about starting off that first mile with a high cadence and small steps. That felt pretty good and I was going 6:45 miles according to my watch over that first mile. I was trying to keep that pace up for a while because I saw someone way off in the distance who I thought ran like Jason, but he was without a jersey and I knew Jason had the Wheelworks jersey, I assumed he took it off in the heat. So I pressed on. Eventually I did see Jason and knew he must have had a fantastic bike to be way out there. Big props go out to him for his first two-thirds. During the run my right quad kept feeling like it wanted to cramp up a bit so after the half way point I tried to shut it down a little and cruise out to be sure I wouldn't bonk before the end, because the race was hurting a little! During the run I was eating two sport beans at each mile and throwing some water on my head. The sport beans helped out a lot and they were easy to eat. The longest stretch had to be just before the finishing stretch because you could see the 6 mile marker from far away on the only really straight stretch. After that people were yelling 100 yards more. Since when does 100 yards equal two-tenths of a mile? People are crazy. I ended up sprinting the last 50 yards because I could see the clock at 2:25 so I knew I was going to get a 2:15 which I was pretty happy about.

So there you have it, 2:15:22 which I'm happy with. There were definitely some areas I can pick up so next year I hope to be faster. I can probably take some time off each leg and a solid amount off the transition so I think I could get under 2:10 with some good training and not putting much time into coaching in the future. Racing was fun and I felt pretty fresh after it. I'm NOT looking forward to Vineman, I'm actually kind of afraid by it because the 6.2 miles of running at 7:11 was painful enough I can't imagine what 13.1 will feel like.

So that's how the race went. It was a good learning experience and the Eaddy's were great hosts. I'm looking forward to racing again next year. I wish I could do it again this weekend.