One of the best things about this race is that there is no air travel, just a 90 minutes drive from school! I drove down Friday after class and met Ed and our training partner Bj at the course. We did the normal swim, bike, run routine that the day before the race always calls for. It was so nice to have both of them there!
The day of the race was pretty boring until the 3:30pm race start. I leisurely woke up, did my shake out run around the hotel then stretched and stayed hydrated until it was time to head to the course. I got to the course around 1:30pm and did my bike warm up in the state park before we were able to enter the race course. Since the race is on the main road going into the park, we could only enter during our allotted 15 minutes between races. After entering the course and parking, I found my favorite juniors under the Triton Elite Team Tent before continuing my warm up.
As the start approached, we were called to line up. We lined up in the sand on the beach then walked about 150-200m into the water since the lake was so shallow. By walking that far, it ensured that the swim was much closer to a 750m swim as opposed to a 200m swim with 550m of running/dolphin dives. Don't get me wrong, there was still a great deal of dolphin dives and running as we exited the water! So the swim went by quick and I made the mistake of being in the middle of 2 packs going into the first buoy and got converged on. I was able to only make up a little time on the way back to shore. As soon as my hands felt the bottom I started dolphin diving then running through the water up onto the beach to transition.
I had a smooth first transition and made a small chase pack within the first lap. We ended up being the second chase pack and tried to catch the pack ahead with no luck. The bike was 4 laps out and back- no hills and nothing real technical. We were able to work fairly well as a group but were unable to gain any measurable time on the next pack.
I stumbled with my running shoes in T2 a bit. Once I was out running I felt significantly better than I did in Barbados two weeks ago, but my legs were still not responding the way I would have liked. I focused on my form and raced hard until the finish! This was by far not one of my best races, but I continue to learn about myself as a competitor. It is still March and there is so much time left in the season to be excited about!
Next stop: Mooloolaba World Cup!
