Eagleman 70.3 RR - Keeping my cool

Highlights: Punching my ticket to Kona and sharing the 30-34 women's podium with these lovely ladies.



Rockstar Podium - Kendra, Shandra, Lisa and Leah

Lowlights: The four minute drafting penalty on the bike. I was in WAVE 20 and spent the entire ride passing people. I make an effort to always ride fair and was NOT drafting. 

The lead up to this race was fairly uneventful. I was my overly anal retentive self and had a checklist of things that needed done, and had them all done early. I knew I was ready for a huge PR and I didn't want anything to go wrong.

Saturday morning I went out on my pre-race ride and my Quarq wasn't working. It had stopped working two weeks ago, and was fine after I put in a new battery, so I tried that again and it still wouldn't work. My dad suggested we stopped at Bonzai on the way out to Eagleman, so we did and they were able to get it working again no problem. We still made it to Cambridge in plenty of time to do packet pickup, drop off the bike and get back to the hotel in Salisbury to relax. 

Note to anyone doing this race: if you can't get in a hotel in Easton or Cambridge, Salisbury is the place to go.

My dad was a trooper and was up at 3:30 with me on race morning. We left for the race by 4:20, parked at the school and took the shuttle to race site (my other tip, use the shuttle!).  My teammate, Matias, helped me with my disc wheel, which was a huge relief! and I saw an old teammate from my age group swim team, Shannon Sullivan, leading up to the race.

With my wave going off at 8:25, I hopped in the water a little before 8 to get in a warm up and calm down. Swimming always relaxes me.  Unfortunately you have to battle some rocks to get in the river, and while I missed the rocks, I hit some plastic and got a nice gash on the bottom of my foot. Not how I wanted to start the day, but I always count on three things going wrong so hey, I figured by this point I had two done.  Wrong!

Thank you Xterra Wetsuits

Swim (1.2 mile, 29:41 - apparently a long swim)

I have really grown to love OWS. The water was a little warm at 73, but within the first few strokes, I felt strong and relaxed. I knew the only way I was getting my Kona slot today was if I put some time into the others on the swim, so I went for it. I struggled a bit with navigation and had to stop quite a few times to figure out where the next buoy was, but felt the strongest I've ever felt in an OWS. I got out of the water feeling confident I had a great swim and was ready for the mud pit of transition! Thank you Xterra for a fast and comfortable wetsuit.

Bike (56 mile, 2:26.46 (PR) + 4 minute penalty = 2:30:46)

I saw no other 30-34 females in transition and was running out in the nice long mud path before I knew it. Once I mounted, my fear was confirmed that my Quarq was not going to work. I heard my Dad cheering and before I made the first turn, my bottle ejected out of my top cage. Awesome, ride is starting out great!

I'm aero - love baby bike!

I immediately hunkered down into my aero bars and started pushing. I tried to take in some of the course views since I wasn't staring at my powermeter, and really did my best to ride clean and stay in control. Around 1:30 in, I was flipping through my Garmin and realized I was having the ride of my life. As I'm getting excited, I come up to a huge pack of probably 20 people that I would have to pass. I sit back for a minute and actually chat with the moto that rides up next to me asking what I should do. They just smile at me. As I'm doing my best to pass and ride clean, I have a male come out in front of me, which is when I hear, "rider 2325, you have a red card."  Say what?

There is no way to sugar coat how devastated I was. I figured right there, my Kona slot was gone. Then I calmed down and remembered that there is a LOT of things that can happen in a race. I had no clue where any of my competitors were and I needed to just do the best I could. The rest of the bike ride went fairly smoothly - nice strong effort, being extremely careful when passing people and getting stuck taking turns way too conservatively.  I made sure to tell my Dad I got a penalty when I went by on the bike so he didn't worry something was wrong, and headed to the yellow box.

Run (13.1 mile = 1:38:38)

After sitting in the yellow box for four minutes, I ran through the mud again (poor baby bike) quickly threw on my shoes and was out of transition. I knew I would have to put on my fuel belt, visor and Garmin on the run to save time. I felt strong, in control and with my first two splits under 7:15, I thought maybe Lindsay's estimation of a 1:32-1:34 wasn't ridiculous after all. Things were good. Then I made the nutritional error of not taking in enough water with a salt pill and spent the next 11 miles with stomach cramps, chills from not enough calories and willing myself not to walk.

 

In the end, I finished the run with a 1:38. Not far off my best half marathon time, so I know my run is progressing and more importantly, I stayed calm and didn't give up when things weren't going my way.

Hurting

Results were slow, but I eventually found out I won my AG with an overall PR and was going back to Kona. Happy day!

 

 

Thank you to the AMAZING sponsors of the Snapple Triathlon team and my Snapple Teammates for providing inspiration daily. To my family and friends that help keep me sane and gave me things to think about in the race, Thank You! 

 

Next up is a bit of a recovery, then a final push to Ironman Lake Placid. I have some fun training days planned, so hopefully I'll have time to share at least a few of them.