This past weekend I competed in my third continental cup of the season in Monroe, Washington which was also the first U23 World Qualifying race. The main goal coming into this race was to qualify for the U23 World Championships held in Bejing, China in September.
Race morning came and I was very comfortable with the venue and course layout due to a thorough course preview the day before. The water was measured at 19.0 degrees Celsius making the swim wetsuit legal. All participants were called out to the start line to wait for the start. I had a pretty good start but about half way through the first lap of the 2 lap swim I realized I had missed the lead pack of swimmers. The rest of the swim I focused on closing any bit of the gap I could. I got out of the water with a handful of other girls and used my foot speed to get to transition and mount my bike as fast as I could (which was hugely beneficial since we did end up losing some of our pack between the run to transition and mounting).
The first 1-2 laps of the bike were very high intensity which caused some girls to fall off the back while allowing our chase pack to catch the two leaders. Once we caught the leaders we became a pack of about 7 which lengthened the gap between the field through the rest of the bike. After the first 2 laps I felt much more comfortable on the bike and paid attention to the other riders to make sure I could counter any attack that may happen. There were a couple attempts at breakaways during the bike but none were successful and we all came into t2 together.
By the first 800 of the 4 lap run course there were two girls that had put about 5 seconds on me and two other girls. On the second lap of the run Widney from Canada took a commanding lead and the other 4 of us ran together for most of the race. We were all pushing the pace and when I felt like I was starting to struggle, I forced myself to think about all the workouts I have completed leading up to this race.
At the last water station, which was about an 800 from the finish and the last turn before the finish chute, I made a move so the race did not end in a sprint finish. I made sure that when I decided to go I committed. It was hard to not look back to see if anyone was coming with me, but my track coach in high school drilled into my head that it is a sign of pain and weakness when you glance behind you. Nobody came with me and I just kept pressing to the finish line with no idea if anyone was chasing me down. I ran across the finish line 11 seconds ahead of the 3rd place finisher and closed a significant amount of time on the leader. In one week I will head back over to the west coach to compete in the San Francisco Continental Cup!
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