Texas 70.3 Race Report
Race week didn’t go very well. I left camp on Monday and 43 hours later arrived home in Boulder. As Doc predicted the travel made me feel sick and tired and by Friday old stress case MBE was not feeling well at all. But with some rest and words of wisdom from Doc and support from Eric, i was ready to go out and give it my all on race day.
Unlike Singapore, once the race started it went smoothly. The swim was easy….no men to elbow me in the face. I got clean water and exited the swim with a decent lead over the rest of the field. Once on the bike, i felt pretty good but just was riding at the level of the other ladies. I battled the win on my own and finally saw some of the other girls around halfway. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep their pace and struggled into T2 in 7th place. Once on the run, I struggled a bit the first lap and faded to 9th place. But after 5k, my body woke up and I started to cruise. I managed to start moving up the field and landed in 4th place as the top American in the US Pro championship.
While I would have liked to have finished a bit better, it was a good test out there and valuable learning experience. I nailed my nutrition much better thanks to having my First Endurance drink and gel with me for this race. No impromptu bathroom stops or puking like in Singapore so I learned never to be without my First Endurance products! In addition, I learned that I need to raise the level of my cycling. It was a tough day out there on the bike for me battling the crosswinds and I saw that I have more work to do there. Likewise, I learned never to give up. After the first lap of the run, I would not have predicted that I would be able to salvage my race. But around 4 miles the legs and body woke up, then the run started to get fun as I was able to start hunting down the other ladies. Finally, I learned that the travel takes a bit out of me and next time I need to both build more time into my travel around the world to a race and also not stress about feeling subpar race week.