it was a rough swim start for me. definitely aggressive. within 4 minutes of the start my goggles filled with water and then i realized i had lost my contact. i would not have been able to start the bike with only one lense. i have VERY bad vision and it would not have been safe at all. i stopped, treaded water, took my goggles off, confirmed that i had, indeed, lost my lense, reached up and found it on my lower lid. miracle of miracles. so, there i am, in the middle of a like with my contact on my finger surrounded by 170 of my closest friends. somehow amidst the jostling of the swim start i managed to tread water, put my contact back in and continue on. by this time, though, i was fairly rattled. had a bit of trouble breathing, got mildly panicked and back stroked for a minute until i regained my composure. i had a goal of placing here, but the negative self talk started in the swim. "there is no way i can place now with a terrible swim. why bother?" fortunately i was able to push through that and plug along. i ended up feeling pretty strong on the second half of the swim and only finished 6 seconds slower than last year even with the contact/panic debacle. i will turn that into a positive thought as i head into eagleman in 3 weeks.



i don't know how i can avoid this water in the goggles thing. i've tried a bunch of different pairs and this pair was GREAT in the pool. who knows. one thing is for sure, i need to make sure i have an easily accessible spare set of contacts in my transition bag. i did pack them for this race, but then i took my bag to the fexy tent so it wouldn't just sit there in the rain. if i had not found my contact on my lid (seriously, how did it NOT get splashed off?!) i would have been SOL for this race.

11 ag rank. this surprises me because i was not in a major hurry. i was already feeling pretty dejected about the swim time and wasn't feeling the race at all. i also realized that my garmin had frozen up when i hit the lap timer at the end of the swim. no more data for me.

try to keep a positive outlook and push through.

i was nervous about this bike, not the course, but the conditions. columbia is not the course i would pick to ride wet, but it is what it is. i had already told myself i was treating it as a training ride when i realized the weather conditions. then my swim sucked so i was even less motivated to push it. i was also passed early (before homestead) by two women in my age group. F$%&. (one of them would place 2nd AG and one i would repass in the run). in the end, i felt really strong. i told ryan later that i remembered columbia being really hard. i did not have that feeling at all during this race. i felt super fast on the flats and small uphills, and passed a gazillion people on every uphill. hills definitely seems to be where i (relative to others) excel. i wanted to practice coming out of the saddle a little instead of just grinding away seated. that helped some. my legs never got fatigued. i finished feeling faster and stronger than when i started. no bonking. no misery. who knew? i guess all that bike training is paying off. I am also really happy with the improvement, this is a about an 11 min PR on this course. i also moved from 27th place in AG to 10th on the bike.

i could have pushed the pace harder, but i didn't want to be stupid on a wet course. i took corners SLOW and soft pedaled down hills. in the end, i still think it was the safest thing to have done.

3rd in ag; felt okay here.

bike didn't rack as smoothly i would have liked. maybe that cost a few seconds...(which could have made me 1st in AG...DOH).

i had no idea what pace i was running, but i knew that i was passing a lot of guys from the wave in front of us....and they weren't all guys that looked like they were dying. i felt totally in control during this run. HR and breathing felt controlled. i never felt like i was in trouble. felt okay on the hills, as okay as one can feel on the gatorade wall.
about mile 2 i saw a few women in my AG. it's strange, my gut reaction is to just hover behind them for a while...almost like i'm afraid to pass. i assessed my pace and my comfort, felt good, felt like i had enough juice to maintain it the whole way and then just started passing. i was really surprised at how many women 30-34 i passed on this run. i started thinking that maybe i would have a chance to place afterall.
i felt absolutely great on this run. i never had cramps or even those quad tingles i get every time. no one i passed even attempted to run with me. not even for a second. i passed and was gone every time. i was grateful for that. i was not looking forward to getting into a sprint off with 2 miles to go. i really feel like my running is on the precipice of something great. i was so happy with a sub 46 min run....and even more surprising is that i did not struggle for this time. i definitely feel like i can get faster. this was a 4 minute PR over last year. i went from 10th AG to 3rd in this run.

nothing. i'm now wondering, though, if i'm not better off running without a watch. i wonder if i do better when i just listen to my body. i know i would have been happy with an avg pace of 7:30. if i had seen i was doing that, would i have just maintained that? who knows? some experimentation might be in order.

nothing.


the swim. period. it is totally possible for me to take off 4 minutes from that swim time. that will make a big difference. especially if i can continue the bike and run improvement.

it is also worth mentioning here nutrition. about 30 minutes before the race i ate a hammer bar and took one enduralyte pill. i used my aerobottle on the bike with 2 scoops of EFS. i drank probably half of it. i used efs gel twice on the bike and once on the run. i had poured 3 shots of it into my (hammer) gel flask, but my 3 servings were definitley smaller than that. i had gel left in the flask when i finished. water only on the run course. nutrition felt fabulous. it was a cooler overcast day. sweating was probably at a minimum.


This was over a 15 minute pr on this course for me. i am over the moon about it. the fact that i also got to AG place is even more exciting. it is so gratifying to see this years hard work paying off.

ryan and i also placed 2nd in the married couple division. YAY!!!!! it is totally fitting since i would have never even tried this sport without him.

all in all, it was a successful race due to how it finished. my mental effort was a little all over the place early on, though. I will used this to grow from. i think i could have been 2-3 minutes faster if the swim had gone "as planned", but i guess every race isn't going to go swimmingly ;). in retrospect, i think i might have gotten more out of this experience because the swim didn't go well. i now know that i have a stong enough bike and run to make up for minor debacles in the swim even in a competitive field. in the future if the contact thing happens to me again, I think i will be less likely to get so dejected. my mental "funk" after the swim, I believe, cost me time the whole way throughout the race. because i didn't believe i was contending for anything anymore, i kind of let my "killer instinct" down a little. i wasn't attacking like i would have if i had gotten out of the water in 25 minutes. this is just a lesson that there is always hope when you have a strong bike and run. i'm grateful for having learned that lesson.