Wow, what a day and what a race! I was beginning to dread this race this week, feeling tight from soccer and the mountain riding out in WV, late work nights, difficulty sleeping and just stress with all my presentations coming up. In fact, had you asked me last night if I woudl take a refund if it was offered, I wouldn't have thought twice about taking the cash! But wow, did I ever surprise myself! Got down to warmup for about a mile, feeling ok then pulled on the wetsuit, tested out the water and then prepared for the inevitable. It was an in water start, with 71 degree water, so it was wetsuit legal, and when the whistle got started. Typically the swim is my strongest part, but without having the pool at NRL to use anymore, it was a bit tougher to get the necessary workouts in in the time I had. I felt pretty crappy during the swim, getting the inevitable swimmers crawling over your back at times, and even getting punched in the goggle to the point that I thought I was bleeding and getting a black eye about 1/2 of the way through. But when I climbed out of the water for the 1/4 mile run to the transition area I looked at my watch to see a 28:38 swim. Not fantastic, but still only about 15 sec off of my time at this course in 2006 when I was able to get much more swimming in. I felt pretty rough on the run to the transition area, but had a quick switch, and getting on my bike and going within 4:02, besting my 2006 time by about a min, so I was now in the black time wise in my attempt to beat my time here 3 years ago. Once I started on the bike things started to click, I was consistently surpassing 20 mph on the relatively flat course, passing a number of other racers while only getting passed by 3 or 4 myself. I started to labor towards the end, getting a pretty nasty side stitch and feeling nature calling pretty terribly. I got back in with a time of 1:15:33, a full 3 and a 1/2 mins faster than my 2006 effort! The second transition was pretty quick, about 1:21, but it could have been better with me looking for my hammer gel for a good 20-30 seconds of that, which I never found. It must have been eaten by the guy next to me on the bike rack. Oh well, I grabbed some sports beans and hit the run. The run started off pretty tough, with me deciding after about half a mile that I had to stop to take a pee in the hopes that it might cure my side stitch. Oddly enough, it did. After the nature break, I fell into a pretty comfortable pace, regularly knocking down miles between 7:25 and 7:51 min/mile! I finished the run in 49:03, a great time for me. Overall, I finished the tri in 2:39:02, my fastest Olympic ever!!! Furthermore, I found out that I finished 20th overall and 1st in my age group (and NO I was not the only one in my age group!). This was by far my best race ever, I couldn't have asked for more!!! Betsy has the sprint race tomorrow! Will give an update and upload some photos tomorrow.
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