The swim at the SuperSeal Triathlon almost got cancelled...due to high E Coli levels...but the morning of the race they announced that we would have a swim. Now I am in the Valley of the sun, preparing for my race last Sunday. It rained all day Saturday, so that...tataaaa...the city couldn't allow us to swim in the water because of possibly high E Coli levels. The Marquee Triathlon turned into a Duathlon. Like at SuperSeal I had mixed feelings...but I think there was more happiness then sadness involved ;-)
I warmed up for about 5 min (note to self...more warm up needed :-) and then started the race with the men's elite/under 40 wave. We went out at a nice pace, so that I finished the first 3.1 miles in 18:09. I went into transition with 2 guys, and I believe there were 3 more guys in front of me, but I wasn't sure. At this point I was just hoping to have a good race and not get left in the dust by those guys.
I was somewhere in lala-land on the bike. I passed a few guys and one guy passed me, which made me think: oh yeah. We are racing...I have to push a little harder. Sometimes I have a hard time focusing on the bike. It feels fast, but once someone goes by me I realize that I have more gears left and I can push harder. The bike went by fast and it was fun to ride on part of the IM Arizona course.
I got onto the second run and saw 2 guys in fron of me. I caught one about .5 miles into the run. He was funny. He told me he is a swimmer, duathlons are really not fitting for him :-) I told him to come with me and we can push each other, but he decided not to. At mile two I caught the first place guy. I decided to pass him and keep the momentum going-because I knew I had some good runners behind me and needed that cushion. At mile 4 I looked back for the first time...and saw that one guy was closing in on me. The gap got smaller and smaller and the feeling of knowing you are going to be swallowed up is not fun. Your mind tries to mess with you :-) You can't do it...oh yes you can...no...yes...At mile 5 I turned my brain off and pushed hard...I must have looked back 20 times in the last mile and it seemed like he was RIGHT THERE...but I held him off and finished the race with a 37:XX run.
I found out later that there was one more guy in the 40 + wave who finished ahead of me, but I am super happy with the result. I have never been that far up in the men's results!!! Here is Coach, happy to see I was holding off the guys...if you could zoom in on me you would see that at this point I was still worried about getting caught :-) This might have been the first time Nick saw me without a smile on my face!!!
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