You can imagine that my month of August was pretty serious from a training perspective, but in fact it was more serious from a health perspective. What, I mean from this is healthy eating, enough sleep, monitoring recovery. Every little thing counts. Not that my training wasn't important but the more important thing was that I was recovering enough to not dig myself into a hole. In the heat of the summer down here in Texas, sometimes its hard to avoid. Hot Water pools, Sunburn Hot bikes, and Drenching run sessions can leave you in a pickle if your not careful. With the helps of my two coaches Tim and David we were able to pull back when I had indeed been a little cooked, and start the taper process a little earlier. You have to be honest with yourself because sometimes its hard to hear the words "don't do that", but listening to your body and listening to your coaches will only lead you to an even faster athlete.
I headed to Des Moines on Thursday afternoon so that I could soak in a recovery day while at the host hotel, check out the course and just begin to mentally prepare. Big Thanks to Jeff at Bay Area Schwinn for helping with travel this year. Theres not much to Des Moines but hay and farm but the one thing they did have was lots of beer! I would have to hold off on that one until after the race, but at least it was something to look forward too! HyVee was nice enough to put up the pros in the Embassy Suites and it was really cool to just be in the mix with everyone else. It helped to remind me why I was there, but also remind me-- Hey You are one of them too! Having breakfast in the lobby with world champions walking around, and heading out to do workouts while seeing everyone else finishing theirs was really exciting. I am not really one to be "star struck", but I was definitely feeling like this was the Championship.
Saturday afternoon all 60 of us Pros (30 male and 30 female) headed to our usual pre-race meeting. It wasn't until then did I start to feel those pre-race butterflies. I was immediately extremely nervous!! I called my mom and my boyfriend just to calm my nerves and reminded myself I earned my sport here just like the rest of them. It was time to Fight, not hide like a little puppy behind my chair. I got my dinner and off to bed early. Slept extremely well and before I knew it was 4am and my alarms were blaring.
Due to extreme flooding from days prior, the course had been revamped so that it was now a 4 loop bike course. I was happy to still be able to do an Olympic distance (the age groupers had to do a sprint!), but I knew that a loop bike course did not have my best interest. I still didn't let this worry me and I knew I Just had to go HARD.
I was excited to swim, but I was also nervous. I am used to being around 10 girls at the start and today would be 30. This is actually a good thing when your talking about swimming fast, however its definitely a little nerve wrecking thing about all the arms and legs. I reminded myself of how I "fought" in NYC a few weeks back and nothing went wrong, so I could surely put my fight up now. Thanks to Blueseventy swim for my fast swimskin that helped lead me to a PR swim. Here's a pic of us lining up and then us "fighting".
We swam hard for 300m and then took a quick turn, which is where things started to mix up. There was all the sudden a little sand bar and some girls were swimming and some were up and running. I didnt know what to do, so I swam half and ran half, then dove back in to continue the attack.One goal of the swim: Don't lose feet. Heading back to T1 I had to constantly keep reminding myself to stay focused. Its always that second you stop thinking that you either loose the pack or drop the pace, so always stay in the moment when you are racing! I exited the water with some girls, in a huge swim PR of 18:20! This was a great success! This comes out to an average pace of 1:08/100yd, which reminds me of a workout I had done two weeks prior to the race. Coach Tim hung on the side watching me do 20x100 holding a 1:08 pace. Every rep he reminded me to stay focused. If I went 1:09, it was him reminding me "come on now, every second counts". I remember thinking that during the race and was pleasantly surprised to see my open water race pace finally hit my pool pace. I have been working with Magnolia Masters for two years now. Year 1, we saw huge improvements in the pool, but nothing translated to open water. Year 2, we began to work on that top end speed (which still needs work!), being confident, and swimming consistently day in and day out with a group that pushes myself. It is nice to see the improvements pay off. One of my goals when swimming with these pro female ladies is to always limit the gap between the first girls out of the water and myself. I take super star swimmers like Sarah McClarty and Lauren Brandon and compare their times to mine. At the beginning of the year they were putting a near 3 minute gap on me by the time the swim ended. Every race this year, I began to see improvements, and finally this race I moved that 3 minute gap down to a 1:50 gap. Theres still lots of work to be done, but for now I will be happy with my progress. One of the key things to my improvements here was not that I was necessarily any faster than I was at the beginning of the year, but it was simply learning to swim with the pack and get comfortable at an uncomfortable pace. Dont be afraid to grab those feet or you will never swim faster!!
Onto the bike and there was a couple girls starting with me which always reminds myself that I am in this race. I took each lap as I could and tried to stay consistent with my power. I also watched my "staggering position" as to make sure I was not going to get a penalty like I did in NYC. With the bike course cut into a smaller region we now had 11 officials in a 6 mile span. They warned us that if we did something wrong, it would be seen today! 4 Laps went by fairly quick on my ACW Kona but just not fast enough. One of my big things this off season will be working on my biking fitness and leg strength so that I can catch back up to these girls.
I exited the bike with other Texas gals, Kelly Williamson and Lesley Smith. We were for sure to take off running with a group like that so I had to remind myself to settle into my pace and not over cook it. However, I never really had a spark from the very beginning. I usually take my Powerbar Gu 2-3 miles into the run and today I took it at mile 1, looking for that extra energy. My legs felt heavy and like gorillas, and I found myself counting the miles and trying to tick them off. I was determined to get to the finish and when girls are still in sight you must fight. I wish I could have ran a better run time but I just didnt have it in me that day and I ran what I could honestly do. Maybe I swam and biked too hard? Maybe I didnt drink enough on the bike. Who knows? Its crazy how every race can have its ups and downs even when you do everything the same leading up to races. I know one thing for sure--I gave this race everything I had. At camp earlier this year my roomies and I had this one saying: "Bombed out and depleted. Drain the tank". I was absolutely like this at the finish line and literally remember saying "I'm tired" for the rest of the day probably every 10 minutes or so! haha.
The HyVee Championships lived up to its expectations and I look forward to more years of championship racing ahead of me. As Always big thanks to my coaches Tim and David for their expertise advice and help. OutRival Racing and Magnolia Masters for exceptional friends and supporters. BlueSeventy Swim for the fastest swimming gear as well as SBR Sports for de-fogging my race day equipment. Cobb Cycling for a happy bum. Third Coast Training & C. Fosters Associates for keeping the body happy. Tru Tri Sports, Boundless Nutrition, Bay Area Schwinn, Rudy Project. Family, Friends, and Chase.
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