Another Sunday, Another Olympic Race

Yesterday I lined up for my 2nd Olympic tri of the year in just 7 days!  With the FUN  pain of last weeks effort still fresh in my mind, I was thankful to have gone to the event with Jordan and knew that there would be many other friends out there along the course to cheer.  If you want to skip to my major take away from the race...scroll down :)

The weekend had been fun already, with Mark off racing I spent Saturday on two different bike rides.  One with a friend who is doing her FIRST Ironman this weekend at CDA...can't WAIT to watch her! And then later, my sister came down and we got to ride. Which was super special as I don't think we've ridden bikes together since before my first niece was born...3 years ago!!  now if I can get she and my BFF KC to ride bikes with me, I might not stop smiling.  Saturday evening Jordan came over and we made dinner at home, relaxed and got gear together and then hit the hay for a good nights sleep.  I can sleep well before a local short race, but ask me about my pre-Ironman sleeps and buddy we have an entirely different ball game!

I raced this same race last year with only a couple of course alterations and this year went 2 minutes slower...bit faster on the swim/run/transitions and a bit slower on the bike...I was cursing the weights that I lifted earlier in the week as I was climbing the 1k+ of hills over the bike course!

Pre-race nutrition: Trying something new for race day (have eaten before long rides) two servings rice, two eggs and gluten free soy sauce made the night before and heated up race morning.  TASTY!

Pre swim: Osmo Pre-load to help with salt loss

Swim: 24:01 or 1:33/100M LY 24:14

Pre-race FOG!

There was a delay to the race due to heavy FOG that hadn't lifted over the reservoir yesterday.  So as we finally set off 10 minutes late the fog was still thick like pea soup.  I got on the local, always out of the water first gal, and knew that she would have the paddle boarder with her and that would be a great sighting tool as you couldn't see the buoys.  As usual though, she swam a 22:xx so I made it only to the first buoy with her.  I keep swimming and then looked up and was like, where am I?!!  I saw a few men around me, who had gone off ahead of us and then stopped- tread water and finally looked FAR left and saw the buoys hugging the island we were swimming around about 100M in the distance.  DOH!!  Bummer, but I put my head down, swam straight towards the buoys and had lost my 2nd in the water position.  I got out of the water and heard 4th female.  I passed one gal in transition and it was time to go ride my bike!

Bike Nutrition: Cytomax Energy Drops 1.5 packs and Osmo Active Hydration  ~300kcal's
Bike: 1:13:42 VS LY 1:11:14
Onto my trusty steed and I set out to see if I could find those two gals looming up ahead.  I knew that power swimmer from earlier would take me a while to find and the gal that I passed in T1 is a pro cyclist, so knew that she would be blazing past me in the opening miles.  It took me until around mile 18 to find super swimmer and I had passed one other gal but had been passed by one as well so coming off the bike I was in 3rd place OA and leading my AG.  Turns out though that more than a few racers took a wrong turn and cut the course by about 3 miles, seeming to ride an hour flat on a 24 mile, 1500ft of climbing course...not a chance really at your local, no pro in sight, triathlon.  This week I wasn't able to get my heart rate up like last week, really not that confusing since last week began my return to training and I had hit the weights.  Feeling flat?  No need to analyze this one sista!  Move along, nothing to see here...huffing and puffing and trying to not pedal squares!

Run Nutrition: 1 gel and water 100kcal's
Run: 46:05 vs LY 46:12 or 7:20's/mile per Garmin which said 6.3 miles
I hit the run in what I thought was 3rd overall, but then saw Jordan and thought to myself, huh wonder when she passed me, we always cheer each other on and in a small race at the front of the women's race, you are very aware of when you see another gal.  So Jordan ahead of me landed me in 4th but I kept plodding running and at mile 3 caught Jordan to get into "3rd" OA and try to hold it for the last three miles. Thankfully this is where I start to find my rhythm and was able to keep a steady pace for the last three miles and come across the line winning the AG and 2nd OA after it was discovered that the gal who had "won" overall biked an hour and unfortunately missed the same turn that others had.

Beer and a pint glass to drink it in!

Race directing is tough and it really stunk for so many racers to have to be DQ'd for something that (yes, I know it's our responsibility to know the course) could have been prevented with better course markings.  Some folks in the sprint did the entire olympic bike...could you imagine if that was your first tri and instead of biking 16 miles, you biked 24?!!  Not ideal, and thankfully I went on the right path, but I definitely had to yell a few times "which way?!!"

Post Race DQ...a MUST

I came home, jumped into our beautiful and clean pool and soaked up some cool water and rays while thinking about the race.  On the run, I was uncomfortable.  I know that we all talk about getting comfortable being uncomfortable and man am I trying, but I know that I could have gone harder if I would have been willing to hurt more.  But I just couldn't get myself to do it knowing that I wasn't going to catch #1 OA she was just too far away.  I don't know if I would have pushed harder had she been closer, but it is definitely something I will be working on....how to continue to push through and hurt more when you know you are capable of swimming/biking/running at a faster pace.

Next up is another Olympic (I think) at the end of the month and then Vineman 70.3 in July!

Happy training!!!