This was a new race venue for me and didn't know what to expect. Honestly, I really felt like crap the first few days of race week (believe this was a cold and coming down off two heavy volume weeks). Thankfully by Wed/Thur I started to feel better and ready to get busy.
Normal pre-race day ride and run and then pack up and hit the road. I may have went a little long on my ride... more on this later. The drive down Saturday was pretty uneventful although we seemed to have hit every light possible but a good opportunity to rest up and get mentally focused on the race.
We got to LaGrange mid-afternoon and headed to packet pick-up and then down to the race site for some course recon. The entire drive to the race site had zero flats... hmmm.... not what I expected. More on this later...
Pre-race morning: Got up feeling fantastic. Threw on my new Fleet Feet race team kit, ate breakfast (gluten free oats, protein shake and peanut butter gluten free bread slice), drank some coffee and cleared out the system, then Kristin and I headed down to the race site. Kristin is quite the trooper - 6 months pregnant and still no complaints about getting up early to head to the race. Got to transition to set up and accidently put my bike on the wrong rack - it was 0500 and dark. Well, this created quite the stir and severall fellas got their panties in a bunch. Moved my bike to the proper spot and all was right with the world again. Headed out for a pre-race ride and run to get the blood flowing. Everything was in good working order. Let's roll...
Swim: Threw on the wetsuit and hopped in for a quick 5 minute warm-up (lesson learned from South Beach - get a warm up swim if possible). Took a half EFS liquid shot and was ready for the start. Boom!!! Time trial swim start. Swim was great, I was sighting really well and turnover was strong, breathing comfortable. This was a half circle course and alot of sun in the eyes coming into shore, probably cost me 1-2 minutes. Hand touch, stand up - time: 20:20. Holy Wow!! My fastest oly swim by 3minutes.
T1: fast Ttransition and then out onto the bike course.
Bike: Fatal flaw of the race was not pushing on hills. The bike course was up and down with no flats and quite challenging. I really wasn't feeling 100% fantastic and took it way too easy on uphills. I should have had a much stronger ride but legs didn't have alot of extra umph. Maybe it was the heavy volume leading up to this race or something else, really not sure. Challenging bike course though - got down half EFS liquid shot and 1.5 scoops of EFS in my water bottle. Popped a honey stinger caffeinated gel at mile 22 in prep for the run. My watch said 1:03:41 but posted time was 1:06:31. I still think there was a timing error but the RD assured my I was wrong. Not a big deal though. Regardless, not a strong ride for me and needs to improve in the future.
T2: Lightning fast. :33 and I'm off,
Run: Came out of T2 feeling great and super strong (I'm a power runner so mentally this was great). The first mile was a little awkward with a slight uphill and then finally my legs came around. Bam, I gapped 2 guys immediately and then got to the dam. The run over the dam was awesome, got an update from a sighter and he said 6 people in front of me. Are you kidding me?! I tried to just keep my turnover strong and keep pushing. Luckily I was continuing to get stronger the run progressed. First chance to see the leaders and I figure they had 5 min on me. Continued to push but I just ran out of real estate. Still a really solid run for me and feeling for future races that I could have gone faster by atleast 1min. Run time was 35:40 which was great.
Crossed the finish line and looked up - sub-2:05 - saweet. This was 10min off my PR on a much hard course today. Fix the bike, kill the run and sub-2:00 is within my sights. Really happy with this time for a distance which isn't my focus right now. Plenty more work to do...
Overall time: 2:04:58
Overall: 7th / 245
AG: 1st M30-34
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