St. Anthony's Triathlon

Just a few thoughts from the race this weekend.

This was the first race I've done on a 650cc bike after Paulo convinced me that it would fit way better. It's definitely more aerodynamic and I feel more in control and more powerful on it. It took some getting used to. I didn't love it at first.

The swim was really choppy. It definitely spreads the group out and makes things more interesting. I noticed that my heart rate didn't get nearly as high as usual because it was more of a strength swim. With a lot of chop you don't get into much of a normal stroke rate because you are constantly adjusting to the up and down of the waves.

I had a pretty good swim, but there was a group of 5 or 6 women with about a minute lead over me. I focused on keeping a strong and steady pace on the bike. We do weekly time trials up a mountain in training and I tried to get to that level of effort and maintain it.

My plan for the run (as directed by Paulo) was to take the first four miles at a steady pace that I felt like I could maintain and then "empty the tank" the last two miles. This was my longest run since my injury and I was nervous! I felt great the first 3 miles and then it got a little harder to maintain my turn over. Miranda Carfrae and Barbara Riveros passed me right before the half way turn and I couldn't keep up with them. I knew there were some fast runners charging from behind me and honestly I felt like I was just waiting to hear their footfalls. That's probably not the most optimistic way to think. The last mile was very hard, but I made it to the line without getting caught and finished 8th.

My 37:14 run split was faster than I thought I would be able to run and that makes me want to get back to Poway and start running up the hills at Blue Sky with the squad (once the soreness leaves my legs)! I credit Paulo's master plan for getting me back to racing healthy - even though I complained about slow treadmill running and wanting to run 5 more minutes. I've also gotten some great PT/ART from Function Smart here in San Diego that's helped tremendously.

I'm really lucky to have an awesome group of friends and training partners in the squad and so grateful for the guidance and preparation that Paulo provides on a daily basis. It's exciting to see the crew getting some good results early in the season, and I think we're all pretty motivated to keep working f'ing hard.

I had a great visit with my parents in Florida and am now back in "Powadise" for a couple of weeks. Flying into Next up for racing is the Columbia Triathlon in Maryland on May 19 but my bigger focus is on the Dallas Pan Am Cup on June 1.

San Diego Spring Action

I've been on a blogging hiatus since my last update in February after a crazy trip to race in Argentina. 10 days after returning from Argentina, I fractured one of my metatarsals during a run session. I've never had any running-related injuries, and there weren't any warning indicators leading up to the sudden pain I felt during that session. It was baffling.

I spent the next 8 weeks working really hard to improve my biking and swimming, and aqua-running 5X60min a week. At times I would get frustrated that I wasn't able to be out running with the crew, or that the pain in my foot wasn't improving. Paulo would remind me that the running would come back relatively quickly and to use this as an opportunity to be a faster swimmer and stronger biker.

I went into the San Diego WTS race last Friday with 4 weeks of running in my legs. I did all of my running on the treadmill at 8-10% incline, starting with 5 minutes and increasing by 5 more every few days. We wanted to be conservative so that I can be sure to be healthy and fast later in the season. I was excited to see how my swimming and biking would compare with the girls at this level of racing, and planned to just run as fast as I could.

Race recap: The swim was aggressive at first with everyone fighting for position, and then it calmed down after the first buoy. I had a pretty good swim and exited the water with a group of about 10 girls. The first few laps of the bike were fast and hard because my group was trying to catch the pack ahead of us. Once we all formed one group the pace slowed down some. On the 7th lap, my pedal came out of my crank (still in my shoe). After some choice words, I dismounted and screwed the pedal back in. By that point the pack was gone, but I started riding with the hopes of not losing any more time. The pedal came out again a little later, and this time I was out of the saddle trying to get some speed, so yea, you can picture what happened - I went down. The pedal was out of order and I was out of the race. Bummer. I came away with just some road rash that's slowly healing. One of the medical volunteers told me that dog saliva would speed up the healing process, but my dog is in Virginia unfortunately.

A full recap of the race can be found here:
http://www.triathlon.org/news/article/san_diego_elite_womens_race_recap

Yesterday for my champagne birthday (24 on the 24th) I decided to treat myself to some super sprint triathlon action. This was a great opportunity to work on some fast transitioning and racing racing with a stacked field of women right in San Diego. The race was a swim-bike-run x 2 and the whole thing took place in a parking lot (lots of laps) and I came 8th. Running back into the water after the first time through reminded me of my lifeguard beach olympics days! I made a bone-head move on the second bike portion and went out for another loop not realizing we had already done the full five, so that cost me a little bit of time, but other than that I loved the format and am excited that USAT will be putting on two more later this season - one in Las Vegas and another back in San Diego.

Now I'm on a plane to Orlando where I will visit with my folks for the weekend (after not seeing them since October!) and race the St. Anthony's Triathlon on Sunday. Stay tuned...