Monticelloman Race Report

Instead of enjoying the Apple Blossom festival this year, I headed down on Saturday to race Monticelloman with some of my Snapple teammates. After having the stomach flu the last time I headed down to Charlottesville to race, I was READY to have a solid day and start my season!

Snapple post race!

Swim

I carefully listened to the race director before the race explain the course. It looked simple enough, but with only two main sighting buoys, I was concerned it would be difficult to navigate and knew it would call for extra sighting!

I had high hopes that with the collegiate contingent at the race, I would have someone to swim with, but once my breathing steadied and I got used to the 64 degrees, I passed all the females in front of me and put the pressure on. I wasn't as cold as I expected, but it took me until the final buoy to really get into my stroke.

26 minutes later and slightly frozen, I excited first female and completely disoriented, as per the usual. I came close to falling down in transition, but didn't, so that's an improvement over my last two triathlons.

Bike

Once on the bike, I headed out debating if I should pull my arm coolers on at some point to keep me a warmer. I was in the company of a few males, so I decided to wait until things thinned out and hoped I had a few people to ride with.

After a few cat and mouse games up the early rollers, I put in a hard effort and passed ALL of them.  I would rather have a hard effort early on, then get a draft penalty. Unfortunately, after that, I saw very few people the entire ride so I stared at my bike computer and focused on nailing my nutrition.

The course was two loops, not closed to traffic, and also had an Olympic race going on riding some of the same roads. It was one of the more difficult courses I've done to maintain a steady effort (even with staring at my power meter), so I was thrilled to arrive back at transition right at my target watts.  While my time wasn't what I had hoped, my watts were 20 watts higher than I've done in a half ironman.

I chatted with Chris in T2 while I was putting on my running shoes, then headed out for the final leg.

Run

I took off on the run course at what felt a steady, manageable pace, but my calves were cramping almost immediately. I assumed it was nutrition, so I took a salt pill and had some of the diluted ironman perform I had in my fuel belt.  I wanted to walk, but I thought about the transition run I had done this winter in 12 degree temps, and kept going.

Around mile 4, my stride started opening up and since all my splits had been 7:30 or below, I thought I had a shot at my goal of beating my open half marathon PR (1:34 high). I saw Mindy, Ellen and Bart soon after, so that was an awesome pick-me-up before the turnaround.

Soon after the turnaround, I latched onto a male. I'd catch him on the uphills, he'd dropped me on the downhills and I'd do my best to stay a few yards behind him on the flats to block the wind. I'm sure I drove him crazy with my wheezing, so finally around mile 10 I pulled up with him.  He picked up the pace and surprisingly, I was able to stay with him!

When we hit mile 12, I picked it up and put everything I had into getting to the finish line. I was ready to be done. I crossed the line first female, and eighth overall with a new half ironman PR after 4 hours and 44 minutes.  Hopefully next time I'll break into the 4:30s, but it was a pretty darn good day!

Prizes were pretty awesome - I was very excited about my new watch and another Jefferson cup. HUGE THANKS to my family, Chris and my coach Lindsay for supporting me on my good training days and bad. Thanks to the sponsors of the Snapple Triathlon Team for providing me with the gear to compete and my teammates for providing inspiration daily.

Next up is round four at Eagleman.