Chattanooga 70.3

Chattanooga was a really cool little town!

It was a whirl-wind of a week leading up to my departure for Chattanooga. After my first season win the weekend before, the focus was on recovery and staying fresh. All week long though, I found myself fighting fatigue and just figuring it was the "taper crazies".  I packed my bags, prepped my wheels, and went through my checklist everynight to make sure nothing was missing. Well..nothing was missing, just my legs.

Big thanks to Kiwami for getting me my suit in a matter of hours!

I traveled to Chattanooga in a 2 part series since my DC elite team was having their annual training trip starting thursday of the week. This allowed me to break up the trip into two drives and also take advantage of some awesome team photography the morning before departing for my final leg of the trip. (pics to come!)

Sneak Peek DCTriElite Team

Tour of the facility at QR

Bike getting some maintenance love

I arrived in Chattanooga around 4 pm Friday and went straight to Quintana Roo Headquarters. In my last blog I mentioned I had some bike troubles, so they went straight to work to fix the problems and I could sleep at ease knowing my bike would atleast work. I also got to tour the facility and catch up with other QR athletes which is fun when you havent seen each other in a long time. I headed over to my homestays soon after for a fabulous steak dinner and some relaxation. My host family really went out of their way to make sure I had "delux" accommodations and made me feel right at home. Its really a huge perk of racing pro and getting to meet so many wonderful people.

Saturday was the typical pre-race routine: couple shake out workouts, check in, legs up. Except legs up happened way earlier then usual and I should have seen that as the tell-tale sign that my body was fighting something deathly. To add to the body stress, the night before the race the weather gods were calling for a vicious storm to brew that didnt look like it would let up. I went to bed wondering if we would even race the next day at all, but was willing to do whatever the conditions let us. Little did I know that that storm would actually be my body and the undesirable demons that came.

This year I have really been trying to focus on my mental game. Key mantras I practiced were examples such as "you dont have to feel good to do good", or the infamous endurance athlete problem , "it will go away, just need a long warm up".....Waking up race morning to a sore throat and body aches I knew this was not a good sign. I shrugged it off, again remembering you can feel bad and still do good. I tried to keep this thought in my head all day. It was clear from the beginning I had nothing, but then I remembered my second thought...."it will go away"...."it will get better as the day goes on".....I tried REALLY hard to keep being positive, but to be honest it just plain old hurt.

3 PR6's in a row. Make sure you take your own bike!

The swim:
With 30 seconds to go, I had an OH SHIT moment because I was still warming up in the water and the girls were lined up ready to go. I rushed over and off we went. Not being able to make the pack was faulty start number 1 of the day but I didnt break down, I just went on with my day and swam as hard as I could. We swam "upsteam" first and then majority "downstream". Exiting the water in 8th position and 27:03, non-wetsuit, I was OK with this and actually is one of my best 70.3 swims to date. I have been searching for that 26:XX for a while now and I am so darn close! I remember seeing them pull the red turn buoy down the other side of the river and remember thinking "What the?" (if you dont know what happened in the AG race, google it).
The Bike:
I took the long T1 run back to my bike and accessed how I was feeling. I blew a couple snot rockets and was glad to get on my bike rather then keep running. My Coach David has really instilled in me  lately that I can bike with these girls and frankly I knew I could too. One key workout that came to mind, I practiced for 3 weeks in a row surging and recovering and knowing that I could recover from a blow to the legs gave me the confidence to head out on the bike and see what I had. I quickly noticed I was breathing extremely hard and my legs felt like jello. "Thats OK, it will go away". I focused on calories in and got all of my nutrition in no problem and as prescribed. I actually remember thinking that I could close my eyes and fallen asleep I was so damn tired. By about 40 miles into the race all the sudden the group of Pro women that I was LEGALLY riding with got swallowed up by groups of AG men coming in packs of 10 plus. We yelled at them and cursed them. I was not going to get a penalty for your dumbass fault! AFter about 10 miles we kind of gave up and just hoped for the best. AGers DONT draft...its that easy. Either go ahead, or drop back. Dont ride next to me. I finished my ride only about 10 watts under my goal which for how bad I felt makes me know I have the fitness, just need to not be sick :) OTB in 2:34 and 22mph avg.

"Running"

The Run:
I was optimistic starting the run. My first 3 miles were not what I wanted them to be but I tried to just keep moving. Everything hurt, my lungs burned, every swallow I took was a constant reminder of how bad I felt. I ran with an AG man for almost the whole race and he just talked to me about anything and everything. I actually really am thankful he was there to distract me. At the start of Lap 2 I sat on the road defeated. Nothing left in my body. Would I DNF? I CAN do this. Out of the respect for my competitors, even on a bad day I could still move "fairly" fast. I pushed myself forward, one foot at a time. I was really digging deep. I was trying not to cry. Running down the finish shoot I weaved and tried to stay straight. Well, to say I gave it my all, is far from a lie. I really did, it was just not the day I had hoped for.

After a poor race performance, some find it hard to put together the words that describe how they feel. Feelings ranging from anger to sadness, from defeat to optimistic, the questionable doubt of "what-if"? For me, I am pretty good about being positive and drawing on the goods, dismissing the negatives, and learning that deep down soul searching feeling. But I am also human, so I may dwell for 24 hrs and then its time to recover, refocus and get back to work. Catch ya in a few weeks and thanks for all the cheers.

Meeting up with Friends post race make the days better.