Monday, May 18, 2009

FLORIDA 70.3 RACE REPORT

4th place overall. Very happy with performance yesterday. Although today I feel like I got hit by a truck. A big Semi truck to be exact. Note to self...I will never race the weekend of May 16-17 ever again. To my loyal blog readers if you remember last year, I was suppose to race Memphis in May but ended up not racing because of a sinus infection and bronchitis. Well, this past Friday I came down with some sinus congestion and sore throat. Not good. Saturday morning I woke up and thought my head was going to explode. I did an easy ride, went to the Pro meeting and then slept the rest of the day. I kept telling myself I would be fine to race and that I've even had some of my best performances when I wasn't feeling 100%. I woke up Sunday morning feeling much better and was ready to give it a shot. Here's how it all went down...

Swim- Horrendous. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong on the swim did and I will leave it at that. My head was not in the race and I was just going through the motions. I felt weak, slow, and was all alone on the swim and I just wanted to be done. My swims have been going well in the pool, but I've been a bit inconsistent with my swims the last couple of races. I was about 2 minutes down out of the water and that is unacceptable. I think I was about 5th or so out onto the bike.

Bike- I was so glad to be on the bike and forget about my swim. And that I did...I knew there was a lot of racing still ahead and I couldn't let the sub-par swim effect the rest of my race. Jo Lawn passed me quickly on the bike and I was determined not to let her get out out of my sight. My biking has been going well and I knew I was capable of biking with the big girls. Well, I eventually passed her back and was on a roll. My legs felt light and even though snot was flying everywhere my head was back in the race. Magali caught me and passed me and Jo Lawn was right behind her. We rode together for most of the ride and even had the pleasure of a motorcycle escort to make sure we were 'legal'. At the turnarounds I noticed that we were catching Brooke (2nd) and Nina(3rd). At about mile 35 or so I took the lead of our group and caught up and passed 2nd and 3rd place. I was excited as I was in 2nd place and all I thought about was that my name was probably on Ironmanlive.com! Even though Leanda was way ahead I was still pretty excited. Jo Lawn and Magali passed me again right as we got about a mile or so from transition. I was 4th off the bike and 3rd out onto the run.

Run- 80% on grass! I couldn't believe it. Cross Country running is not my specialty. Anyways, I was third out onto the run and just tried to get into a rhythm. I was quickly passed my Jo Lawn again after the first mile. I tried to stay with her for as long as I could but it didn't last long. At the first turnaround I saw Nina Kraft running fast. Within the next mile Nina passed me. I just kept plugging along, picking up my feet, and trying to get as much water, ice, sponges at every aid station that I could. I was even stuffing ice down my suit to keep cool. At about mile 8 I could see that I was getting closer to Nina. This got me excited and I thought that I could probably catch her with 5 miles to go. Mile 9 I passed Nina as she was bent over about to vomit or something. I quickly passed her, in case she did vomit because I didn't want to see it, hear it, or smell it. Not sure what happened to her, but she kept on racing and I saw her at the next turnaround and was about a minute or so behind me. I couldn't believe it. I thought I had dropped her but she bounced right back and was now running fast again. I really wanted to keep my forth place position as 2nd and 3rd were quite a ways ahead of me. The last couple of miles I just kept repeating in my head "please don't catch me, please don't catch me, please don't catch me" and it worked! I ended up holding onto 4th place and was very excited...and exhausted. I was really pleased with my run as I have come along way the last 6 months or so. I am finally able to run consistently without any pain and it is slowly but surely paying off.

So, today was an off day to recover from the race and the congestion. I will take this week easier to make sure I recover and then the plan is to race CapTex ITU on Monday.

I want to thank Juli Fiocca for being an amazing cheerleader out on the run course at Florida 70.3. She was so positive out there and it was nice seeing a familiar face in the crowd.

1 comment:

Marlawanda said...

Thanks for the race report, Amy. Great job and I'm looking fwd to cheering you guys on at Cap Tex. Hope you feel 100% soon.