Race morning I awoke with the familiar feeling of pre-race nerves, not knowing what the day would hold for me, with questions in the back of my mind... would I be able to have the swim I wanted? Would my troublesome hamstring hold up for the run? How does my fitness compare with a month ago?
Since I’m about halfway through my first season as a pro, I have learned some lessons and wanted to make some changes to my racing strategy this time around. My biggest issue has been staying with the field during the swim –I’ve usually ended up swimming alone, coming out of the water at the back of the pack, leaving myself with the daunting task of making up the deficit on the bike and run. Thus, my main goal for Racine was to swim strategically (ie, swimming with a pack faster than I, which has more or less been my goal for every race, it just hasn’t happened). I knew I’d need to swim hard, get a fast start and being alert as to where other swimmers are. I was ready to swim as hard as I had to in order to stay with the field and not worry about how tired this would make me feel for the bike and run.
I also decided to change my warmup routine a bit, bringing my trainer with me to the race site and getting in a good 20 min bike warmup before bringing my stuff to transition. Normally I just do a run warmup, but I feel that this doesn’t warm up my legs adequately for the bike and end up feeling pretty lethargic for the first 30 minutes.
Stepping outside on race morning the weather was already hot and humid at 4:30am. After warming up on the trainer for 20 mins at the race site, I was already sweating quite a bit. I was thankful Chris was there to help me with my pre-race prep and provide encouragement!
SWIM (30:37 actual swim time- PR!!)
The swim start was a beach start into shallow water, followed by a point-to-point swim southward along the shore of Lake Michigan. I was excited as this was my first wetsuit-legal race as a pro, and I do love wearing my wetsuit! The cannon went off and went off we all ran into the shallow water and I started dolphin diving to get out faster. This worked pretty and I merged over to where the faster swimmers were and keep looking over to make sure I was in contact. Before too long I found myself swimming with a pack of five. I knew there were 3 women out ahead of our pack but I could see that they weren’t too far ahead. I kept focusing on staying with the pack, staying on feet and not veering off. I was super excited knowing that if I stayed with them, I’d be that much closer to the leaders at the start of the bike.
I exited the water in 30:37 (official time was 31:34 after a 200m run up the beach to the timing mat), a 2 minute swim PR for me for the 70.3 distance, and just 3 minutes back of the leader.
BIKE
I passed 2 pro women pretty soon at the start of the bike. I briefly looked at the other women riding disk wheels, wishing I had one for this race! It would have been perfect on the windy, slightly rolling course. However, During my Bible studies the past months, I’ve been reading through the book if Isaiah and one thing I’ve been reminded of is the importance of relying on God, not on things. As a pro, having good equipment is definitely important, and I am thinking about upgrading some of my equipment soon, but to put to much focus on it, thinking that I have to have this or that in order to perform well, is distracting and can take my focus off of things that are most important. So, after entertaining the thought that different wheels would have enabled me to bike faster, I quickly put aside the thought and told myself it was possible to have the fastest bike split regardless, with the equipment I had on that day, and decided to just focus on that.
About halfway through the bike, I passed the third place woman and could see two more up the road- before long I had moved into 2nd, and finally into the lead around mile 45! As we approached T2, I started feeling a little nauseous with a bit of headache and my sweet-tasting drink was not appealing at all. I got passed just before T2 and came in about 12 seconds back of the leader, with the fastest split of the day by 2 mins in 2:24.
RUN
After a quick transition, I headed out on the run course and almost tripped over the base of one of the barriers. I could tell I was lacking electrolytes, starting to lack some coordination and feeling a bit nauseous, so decided to take some of my salt tabs and hydrate ASAP, and get lots of ice to cool my body down. I could see the leader about 30 seconds ahead and I knew I theoretically should be gaining on her, but my body would not cooperate. It felt extremely hot and it was very hard for me to pick up the pace. I was praying that my body would hold on and that I could maintain that pace for the rest of the run. Normally I do well in hot races, but looking back I probably did not have optimal hydration in the days leading up to the race- usually I’m drinking a lot of electrolyte drinks like G2 and coconut water, but this time was drinking mostly water since I didn’t stop at a grocery store until the night before the race. This is DEFINITELY a lesson well-learned and I will be paying extra close attention to this in my next races!
I saw Chris quite a few times out on the run course out on his bike yelling encouraging words, which really helped distract me from the discomfort I was in and keep me motivated. At the run turnaround I could see I had a good gap on third of about 6 minutes, but I was also disappointed I wasn’t having the run I knew I could, when first had been so close within reach. Gels and Gatorade were tasting disgusting to me and I decided to throw away my gel flask as I felt like I couldn’t stomach it. I was definitely feeling out of it and at one point, Craig Alexander passed going in the opposite direction and yelled some words of encouragement at me, and my brain was barely coordinated enough to formulate a response.
On loop 2 I was stopping at every aid station to load up on ice, pour ice water on my head, drink coke and water, and take salt pills. With one mile to go, the third place woman passed me, the moment I’d been trying to prevent for the entire run. I picked up the pace a bit and saw that she was not really pulling away. With a quarter mile to go I spotted Chris up ahead on the side of the road and he started yelling excitedly that I needed pass her and go for second place now, that he knew I had more left (see photo below). This gave me the kick I needed to start really picking up the pace and I made my pass on the downhill toward the finish. I started sprinting the last 200m to the finish and crossed the line in second, about 26 seconds ahead of third. The finish line volunteers brought me straight to the med tent for an IV, which was my first time in the med tent post-race! Even though I’d for the first time as a pro been in a position that had the potential to win the race, I was also extremely happy with my second place finish, especially given the way my body was reacting and the close finish.
Best of all, this race earned me enough points, along with my other 70.3 races, to get a slot for the 70.3 World Championships on September 11, 2011, which was one of my goals for the season. Chris will be racing as well as some FFT teammates and other friends- should be exciting!!!
Many thanks to coach Eric for all the great workouts and advice, coach Alex for all the hard work for the FFT team, Chris for supporting me so enthusiastically at and prior to this race, and my FFT teammates for the inspiration and encouragement. I love competing at the level I am, and am extremely blessed each day for the people, opportunities, and experiences God has given me!
