...after returning from the Splash and Dash on Thursday night, I ended up driving back down to Phoenix on Friday afternoon for the Nathan's Triathlon :-)
The race was in Tempe/Phoenix, and the predicted temperature was 107!!! degrees.
I spend Saturday getting my bike checked out by the TRIBE Crew, and they did a great job - the shifters worked great.
I heard that about 4 professional females will race in the event, but when I went into transition on Saturday evening to put my bike on the rack, I was THE ONLY ONE on the rack. Confusion confusion confusion.
After a little "research" I found out that Katie Ellis (a local pro) is also competing in the race.
My friends Pam and Shannon and I had a hotel room about 2 blocks away from the start: PERFECT!!! No searching for parking!!!
We got up and got going.
My race started at 6:46 am and the mixed elite wave was fast!!! We swam right into the sun, I just followed feet, because I wasn't able to see any bouyes.
I raced without a watch, so I had no clue if I was fast or slow (as it turned out all the times were slow, because the course was about 400 m longer). I jumped on the bike and started passing a lot of the Sprint Distance Triathletes. I have to say it was a little chaotic out there with that many people (1600 is the cut off). Many people also didn't know that you shoudl stay on the right unless you pass athletes. Mhhh...
I thought my time was pretty slow, because the effort-level didn't feel too high, but I ended up having the fastest female bikesplit by 2 min. (13th fastes in the guys race).
I passed Katie Ellies with about 5 km to go and was hoping to keep it like that until the finish.
The run felt great!!! The first lap was just awesome and I felt really fast. But this is Phoenix and it is hot, so going into lap two I got a little thirsty. I kept dumping water on myself, and tried to drink as much as I could, but ou know how much you actually get into your mouth :-)
I finished in 1st place overall females, including pros and amateurs, and 8th or 9th in the guys (pro and amateurs). Too bad the race announcer didn't see me cross the line about a minute ahead of Katie. So he announced her as the winner, but it ended up being right on the results.
RED ROCK RACING did a great job putting on the race and taking care of our equipment, us and all the spectators.
I can only highly recommend the events they are putting on.
After the race we drove back to Flagstaff immediately, I kept falling asleep the entire time. Early wakeup calls do that.
I am planning on racing in a Halfmarathon next weekend. It will be great training for the upcoming Longhorn 70.3.
HAPPY TRAINING!!!
2 comments:
YOU ARE AWESOME!!! I was soooo excited to hear you won the race! I was bummed that I couldn't be there but I had to work at another race :( i ran with a couple friends of mine early Sunday and they were headed to Nathans afterwards and I told them to watch for you. I jumped up and down when I got the text that you smoked it :)
Congrats on all your recent wins!! Geez, I miss reading your blog for a few days and when I come back you've won like 5 races. ;) Best of luck in your half marathon!!
Post a Comment