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 Swim
Comments: I started the swim closer to front of pack this time, so I experienced more thrashing than I had in previous races. It was cool to swim in the “moving water” for a while until I fell back to mid-pack. I was glad to have a bright yellow swim cap (vs the “invisible” dark gray & blue caps that other waves had – seriously??) Swim was slow but solid – my time pretty much reflected the drop-off in my swim training over the summer. I drafted well on the first leg, when with the stronger swimmers. What would you do differently?: Need to think through the swim while waiting to start. I started off breathing poorly - exhaling too much too soon - before I realized what I was doing. I went a bit off course on the last leg, as I tried to go around a swimmer & she veered way off course (I should have checked to see which side to pass on, as it added quite a bit of yardage.)  Transition 1
Comments: Long run to transition. I was surprised (and happy) to see that my family had stuck it out and were still there. What would you do differently?: If the chute hadn't been so sloppy/slippery, could/should have run harder to transition area.  Bike
Comments: The shortened/straightened highway route made for an easy course, just some rollers and a few long inclines, with limited washout, so I expected to hit it hard. It wasn’t meant to be – mechanical difficulty hit shortly into the race. I lost my big ring – the chain just wouldn’t stay there – so I had only my easy gears which left me spinning out on even the slightest downhill. I found myself easily passing people on the uphills (something that rarely happens) only to have them pass me on the downhills (something that almost never happens). As I just coasted down the hills I tried to console myself by thinking about how fresh my legs would feel on the run since they’d had such a good chance to spin… What would you do differently?: I need to learn how to fix this recurring issue with my chain. I think it's a 2-min fix & would be worth stopping to fix rather than coasting through the entire bike. Transition 2
Comments: I’d forgotten my race belt, so I took the time to change out of my tri-top into a t-shirt that had my number pre-pinned on. Due to the heavy rain, my shoes, etc, were still in my tri-bag rather than laid out as normal. Took a little extra time pulling them out, etc. What would you do differently?: remember to start garmin as soon as get to transition area - it hadn't found the satellites until well into the run  Run
Comments: Although my most recent 5k was at a 10mm pace, my goal for this race was just to keep it under an 11mm pace. At some point, though, I realized that since I was able to keep up a conversation with the woman next to me, I clearly wasn’t working hard enough. I think I finally get that racing is largely mental – I need to figure out how to convince my mind to get my body to do what it is clearly capable of doing and has been trained to do. On the upside, I’m happy to realize that a 10:40 pace is now easy.. What would you do differently?: set a more aggressive goal and push harder - make sure I am working hard, not just finishing Post race
What limited your ability to perform faster: mental preparation, weather, general conditioning Event comments: The race itself was well run - and I appreciate that they found a way to hold it even under the poor wx conditions. Plenty of kayaks on the course for safety. If the race were cheaper, I'd have no complaints whatsoever. Given the price, though, I think it lame for them to ask you to pay $20 to upgrade to a technical t-shirt, and a uni-sex one at that. No real "expo" here - just a single tent that didn't have any tri-belts for sale. Minimal food/drink offerings afterward. No massage tent. No music (maybe due to wx?) It's a nice laid-back race, though, and the original bike course looks like it would have been fun and challenging. I love the spectator-friendly viewing (and also that it's held at a park with a playground for the little ones) but think they should either offer a little more swag for the price - or lower it. Last updated: 2010-11-04 12:00 AM
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United States
CGI Racing
75F / 24C
Precipitation
Overall Rank = 218/289
Age Group = Athena
Age Group Rank = 3/4
Place: 3/4 (Athena); 8/16 (Women 46-50); 94/138 (women); 218/289 (sprint)
Billing it as a family weekend, we took the kids to North East and camped in the mini-cabins at the state park. The weather the night before the tri was just intense – maybe not a deluge of biblical proportions, but the awesome thunder and lightning was enough to keep the kids awake for much of the night. At 5:30 when my alarm went off, we still had torrential rain with plenty of thunder boomers, so I reset for 6:30, thinking that if it actually cleared up I would have just enough time to make it to the race before transition closed, drop my tri-bag, and go swim. It was still raining buckets at 6:30, but no thunder, so we headed off to see if the race was on, delayed, or what. On the way to the race, there were rocks (from driveways), tree limbs, and debris washed out all over the road – and I really wasn’t interested in biking over/around that in driving rain. At the turnoff for the race, though, the sight of the other athletes crazy enough to race in these conditions just made me smile & I decided to give it a go.
Nutrition: banana when got up; a gel shortly before swim
Dynamic Exercises while waiting for swim wave; no in-water warmup