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 Swim
Comments: Started out with what I felt was a comfortably hard pace. I could see some girls immediately start to pull away and I tried to not get discouraged. Right away, my shoulders felt fatigued. They felt that way for the first half of the swim. I was slowly catching waves in front of me, but for the most part had pretty open water. While it was nice to not be swimming over people, it also meant no real opportunity to draft. I glanced at my watch around the first turn buoy and it read 15 minutes. I estimated I would do ~32 minute swim. I made the final turn back and could tell it was choppier headed this way. I was also catching more people in waves in front of me. I knew this meant a slower second half. The good thing is my navigation was really good. No issues with swimming off course. 2010 swim time was 33:54 so happy to be over a minute faster. What would you do differently?: I typically don't mind swimming in a wetsuit, but based on how my shoulders felt so fatigued for the first half, I am not sure of how much of an advantage I get. Definitely will consider swimming with the sleeveless in Placid, dependent on the water temps.  Transition 1
Comments: It was nice to have the wetsuit strippers. Was a LONG run to the transition area. Once I got there, I sat down and peed as I got my socks, shoes, sunglasses and aerohelmet on. Having the stuff in a lightly tied grocery bag didn't really cost me any significant time and it was nice to have dry socks and shoes. I opted to go with the polarized Oakleys I usually wear which turned out to be fine. I also decided against wearing bike gloves. Initially my hands were a little slippery with the wet handlebars and residual chamois butter on my hands, but once things dried, it was fine. Once I had everything, I ran to the mount line, but had to walk the last few feet up the hill out of the transition area as I was breathing pretty heavy. What would you do differently?: I know sitting wastes time in transition, but I was multitasking. 2010 T1 time was 5:03...so some improvement.  Bike
Comments: It helped having done the course in 2010 with the same bike course. I knew the first 12 miles would be slow and I could make that up with the rest of the race. I felt good on the climb outside of town and ate about 15 minutes into the ride once my HR settled down. I have been trying to figure out what works best for me nutritionally during the race. I went with mostly Lara bars and drinking only water. Brad passed be about 19 minutes in as we were climbing. Always great to see him on the course. I was focused on spinning up the hills and trying to maintain the goal watts on the flats and downhills. Overall, the weather was very favorable with overcast skies. Every so often, the sun would pop out and I was thankful we didn't have a full sun day. Overall, I felt really good on the ride. Energy was up, mentally I was staying positive and my legs felt good. I popped 2 Excedrin migraine about mid-ride because I had the slight start of a headache. Most of the ride was uneventful. The course is challenging in spots, but I think the terrain I've trained on has helped me just as much mentally as it has done for me physically. Training on Mt. Weather, Stumptown, Taylorstown and in the Catoctin mountains puts hills in perspective. I knew I could ride up the hills in Syracuse easily and I knew I had ridden up harder hills. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. The back half of the ride is net downhill and fast. The last few miles was a single file "no passing zone" since the one lane is shared with bikers finishing the bike along with runners going in 2 different directions on the run course. This was the worst part of the bike course. You can only go as fast as the line of people in front of you and it also caused the run course to be very narrow here making it difficult to pass people. Finished the ride happy and feeling good though. What would you do differently?: As always, do a better job at maintaining my target watts at the end of the ride. I think this time around, it was somewhat due to the terrain and not my tired legs. 2010 bike time was 3:23:03...happy to shave 8+ minutes off! Transition 2
Comments: I had no issues racking my bike and immediately sat to take off my bike shoes, pee and get the run stuff out of the grocery bag. I decided against wearing a visor since it sometimes gives me a headache. I grabbed my race belt to put on as I ran and had my empty handheld water bottle to fill at an aid station. What would you do differently?: pee faster 2010 T2 time was 2:45.  Run
Comments: I started out running and felt pretty good. I immediately saw Nate and got a high-5 from Sloan. I was not a fan of running on the grassy part around the parking area and had to walk on the uphill and slanted section. I ran the downhills and flats on the run course, but the hills were tough for me to run up (both length and grade) and I figured I would be better off power walking up them. It was great seeing so many people on the run and always great to see Brad off the bike and running strong. With the two laps, it was nice to look for Kari, Jeff, Ernie and Heidi. I took GUs at mile 4.5 and 9 and drank water from my handheld bottle. My hip started aching about mid-run (guessing from the steepness of the hills). The downhills hurt just as much as the uphills. It was great to see Brad and familiar faces at the halfway turn around. The second loop wasn't much different than the first. The grassy part of the course seemed muddier and the angle of the one section was bothering my hip and causing hot spots on my feet. I was taking cups of ice on the second loop...pouring some water on my head, eating some ice and putting ice in my rear tri top pocket. The time spent on the run flew by. It was easy to break up the course mentally and with it being a two loop course, there were a lot of people. Once I hit the final aid station, I told myself I couldn't walk again until I was done. What would you do differently?: Not sure I would have done anything differently. I know I can (and have) run faster in previous races, but given the course terrain and my hip, I think this was a good run for me overall. In previous races, I know I would have found myself walking more, but here I was proud of myself for continuing to run when I wanted to walk at times. There's always room for improvement, but I can tell I have gotten mentally stronger on the run portion. 2010 run was a 1:59:13, but on a different run course that was net downhill. Post race
Warm down: I grabbed water and found a chair to sit before finding Brad. We cheered finishers coming down the chute until the announcer said for everyone to evacuate the area due to bad weather that was coming through. We saw Jeff finish, got to the car to grab umbrellas and was able to see Heidi within her last mile. We waited at the car a bit before heading back to the race area to get food and collect our things from the transition area. The skies completely opened up at this point, but thankfully we were under the food tent for most of the bad weather. They kept people from entering the transition area until it was more clear from lightning. Once we got our things and got back to the car, the parking lot was gridlock since it was one way out. So we hung out in the lot with friends rehashing stories from the day. Event comments: Having done this race in 2010, I think it's great all of the pre-race and race day activities are all in one spot instead of a split transition. Even though the run course now is significantly harder, I like it better since the old run course had you running on the highway. It may seem petty, but the color of the women's shirt was awful...bright peach color while the guys shirt was blue. Also, I was not a fan of the last few miles of the bike course with the no pass zone. It seemed unsafe having the bike come in on the same route with runners going both directions. I saw people passing in that section and crossing the double yellow line to do so. Overall, it's a great race though. I would definitely do it again. Last updated: 2015-06-24 12:00 AM
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United States
World Triathlon Corporation
80F / 27C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 928/
Age Group = F 35-39
Age Group Rank = 30/57
We drove to Jay and MA's Friday night so we could see them and drive a little less on Saturday. We were up and on the road by 6:00 am and arrived a little before 11:00 am. We checked in, did a short ride, racked our bikes and checked out the swim course. We linked up with others, listened to some of the pre-race meeting, I got a short ART massage and then we headed to the hotel. We stayed about 15 minutes outside of the race site at Crestview Suites. The hotel location and amenities turned out to be perfect for us. It was nice to have the extra room of a suite along with a coffee maker and toaster in our room.
Having done this race in 2010 when they delayed the start due to traffic (one road in/out of the race site), we decided to leave around 4:30 am. That meant a 3:50 am alarm. I woke up without issues and felt rested. The coffee pot was set the night before and I had an english muffin with almond butter and a banana as I got ready (and I made another for the road). Ernie, Brad and Heidi piled into my car while Jeff and Kari drove their van to the race site. We took back roads and arrived pretty quickly. We hit the port-o-potties, got body marked and set up transition just as it started to rain. I decided to put my T1 and T2 stuff in separate grocery bags tied once hoping it would keep things mostly dry.
We waited out the rain in the car as we had some time to kill. Having gotten to the starting line hungry in some races, I had a Lara bar and a Honey Stinger waffle while waiting in the car. I put my wetsuit on at the car since we couldn't have bags in transition. We hit the port-o-potty lines again. With me starting first in our group at 7:20 am, I kissed Brad and wished him luck as Heidi and I made our way to the beach. I took a GU about 20 minutes before the start.
One thing I know helps me (even if it doesn't feel good at the time) is to get into the water and get water into my wetsuit and go under. I lined up towards the front of my wave so I could start towards the front and Brad managed to find me in the crowd.
Other than getting in the water a little and peeing in my wetsuit, no real warm up.