Swim
Comments: My wave included all women 39 years and younger. Good swim. I decided to try something a bit different with this race. Usually I start in front, right in the middle of the pack. I fight for the first 30 seconds and then try to get my breathing under control. This time I started front row, but slightly to the left of the "center" group. I then swam like a mad woman to the first buoy in an attempt to lose the crowd. It worked!!! By the time I rounded the first buoy, I was left to swim with the faster ladies. Looks like I was the 7th woman out of the water overall. What would you do differently?: Nothing really. My sighting was spot on, my drafting was good. The Gulf was rough, but I'm strong in OW, so it suited me. Transition 1
Comments: I ran into T1 like I had a fire lit under my ass!!! Had the 5th fastest T1 time out of ALL the women. What would you do differently?: Nothing. This was a best effort T1 time. Bike
Comments: I didn't do a fancy mount. Just clipped in as fast as I could. It took me a few minutes to bring my HR down and find a pace that was comfortably hard. When I reached an avg. of 21mph, I recall telling myself that I needed to back things off 'just' a bit. I held just under 21 mph for the remainder of the bike leg and was happy with my Garmin avg of 20.8mph (the 22mph crap posted by ChampionChip Timing is bull-- the course is nearly 1 mile short). **NOTE: The race & Champion Chip Timing amended the distance for the bike course. Official results are now showing the bike as 13 miles (which it was) and not the advertised 14 miles. I'm changing my race report to reflect the correct mileage. The wildlife preserve that I train at is 'very' windy, so the bit of headwind today didn't really bother me too much. While the out & back loop is nice and makes for a fast course, the turnaround was terrible. It was quite sandy and someone had just crashed when I hit it. There was also this weird "train track" type bump in the middle of the road that you had to cross at the turnaround. A bit dangerous. What would you do differently?: Not much. I think I raced smart. I backed off a bit to leave something in the tank for the run (even though I didn't want to). The eventual winner of my AG passed me around mile 5 & then gained 30 seconds on me. I know I could have held on to her, but I was a bit nervous about overbiking (since I overbike so very well). Overall, I'm satisfied. I felt strong & comfortable. Transition 2
Comments: Another fast transition time for me. I did not do a fancy dismount, but I'm cool with that. I also decided not to mess with socks for this race and I think it helped. I pretty much ditched my bike crap, put on my shoes and then just gathered my bib number, visor and mini-handheld all in my hands and exited T2. I then got "dressed" on the course. What would you do differently?: Fancy dismount into T2? Run
Comments: Garmin had this course at 3.16 mile. My ONLY goal for this race was to run sub-8 min/mile pace. According to Garmin, I did. According to the 3.1 mileage used to calculate official pace, I didn't. Whatevs. The run is (and probably always will be) my weak link; however, I felt very strong today. I kept my cadence high and was not passed by a single person. I could see my AG leader about 1 minute ahead, but I could not gain ground on her. She's got some pretty great running credentials (Boston Marathon runner), so I actually feel really great about only being approx 1 min. behind her. I actually negative split this run. At mile marker #2, my Garmin was registering an 8 min/mile pace. As I mentioned before, my goal was to run a sub-8 pace, so I found that little extra "something" and kicked it into a bigger gear. I finished averaging a 7:56 pace (according to my Garmin). Very pleased. What would you do differently?: This was a very strong run for me and a 5K Sprint Tri PR. Post race
Warm down: Just some fresh water and lots of hugs from friends and family. What limited your ability to perform faster: I honestly feel like I gave it my all. When a race is finished you always think about where you could have pulled 'something else' from. I was 2nd place in my AG by a mere 57 seconds and the girl who won is an awesome athlete. I was also nearly 10 full minutes in front of the 3rd place girl. I finished the race as 5th Overall Female (out of 116 women). My highest gender placement ever in a triathlon!!! Event comments: Awesome South FL sprint race. Highly recommended! Last updated: 2010-05-13 12:00 AM
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United States
Venice YMCA
90F / 32C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 29/300
Age Group = F30-34
Age Group Rank = 2/11
Woke up at 4:15AM. Downed a bagel with some light cream cheese + my usual coffee. Out the door by 4:45AM. Drive to Englewood took about 45 minutes. Felt fully awake-- which was good.
This was a "B" priority race for me and I went into it without much of a taper at all. In addition, 36 hours before I either had a slight case of food poisoning or I was battling some sort of viral bug. Let's just say that I made friends with the porcelain God for a good 2 hours. I went into this race worried about energy levels and hydration.
Quick 5 minute swim in the Gulf to the get my heart rate up. Rock-n-roll surf! Made a goggle adjustment.