I woke up at 5am feeling good. All my equipment was ready to go from the night before. I wasn't too pumped for the race as it was quite painful the year before. My goal was to see what kind of shape I am in and hopefully improve from last year's time.
I arrived at the race and setup my transition area and took a bit to figure out what I was going to wear as the weather was bit cool. I got everything situated and spent some time chatting with my teammates and did a warm up run and stretches.
1st Run: ~7:58 pace - 40:37 - 5.1 miles
The first run I wanted to treat like the swim, to come into transition feeling energized and not worn out. My target was a 7:50 pace and I raced at that pace and kept an eye on my HR. My HR started out really high and steadily declined the entire run, I was feeling relaxed and happy with my pace. The miles went by rather quickly, and I even passed a few runners despite the elite field that shows up for this race.
Bike: 1:46:32 - 28.8 miles
I quickly got through transition and started the bike. As with every bike race I do, I have to deal with burning, painful hamstrings and back pain. Right as I started riding my glutes felt like they were going to burst, I was actually happy it wasn't my hamstrings like normal. I kept pedaling hoping for the pain to go away. I wasn't moving very quickly and just tried to keep pushing. The first five miles is pretty flat, but there was a bit of a wind that didn't' let me stop pedaling. It seemed if you stopped pedaling, you would slow very quickly, no coasting on this ride. I finally made it to the hill climb, yes I wanted to do it. I stood up a bit and it relieved the pressure from my glutes and hamstrings. After a few minutes of climbing my legs felt better. I felt good up the hill and made it to the top of the hill feeling good. I then made it to the downhill section, I thought that would feel good but with the wind I had to actually push it to keep a good speed. I didn't get any rest out of it. I hit the flat section and was happy to be done with lap one. The start of lap two was pretty painful as my hamstrings were hurting pretty bad. On a bright note, my back felt pretty good, much better than last year at this point. I struggled a lot through the first section of lap two. I kept pushing and kept hurting. Once again I was happy to climb. I got to use my quads and pushed up the hill, passing a rider. I had been riding alone for quite a while and it felt good to pass someone. I was pounding my legs up the hill, but at least it felt like normal muscles working instead of pain. I hit the plateau and had two riders in my sites. I slowly tracked one down and then passed them on the beginning of the downhill. I felt pretty good knowing there were just a few more miles, most of it downhill. I finished the 2nd lap and it was just a little slower than the first. Until I saw my time I felt pretty good about the ride and fighting through my pain.
2nd Run: ~7:34 pace - 28:45
I was dreading the 2nd run since last year it was a struggle. I started running and my feet were ice blocks. And those ice blocks were attached to jelly legs. I felt pretty worn down, but my pace was solid for the first mile, 7:45 pace. My goal was to beat my pace of the first run, which I feel is a huge challenge for this race. I was surprised my energy level was still high. I then quickly hit mile two and was pumped, more than halfway done with the run. I saw two runners ahead of me and knew I couldn't catch them. Then I thought, why not at least try? So I planned out how I was going to get within 25 yards of the guy in front of me and smoke him at the end sprint. With .8 miles left I picked up my pace slightly and started gaining ground, I was behind by about 100 years when I started. I then hit the turn to go through the dirt path and then sped up even more. I then passed the runner and there went the sprint.. oh well. The next runner was unfortunately out of reach. I decided to go all out anyway and finish strong and sprinted to the finish, thanks JFT2 for cheering me on!
Overall: 2:57:49
I felt pretty good after the race and ended up beating my time by 4 1/2 minutes. My bike time was only 45 seconds faster than last year which is disappointing to me, but its not due to effort or training, its due to something brought on by a back injury and I need to keep working with my PT and overcoming it. I'm very happy with my running and my training is paying off. It was a very tough race and was great to get out there wtih the team and bring it.
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