So a tradition in Newfoundland is our end of May road race. Traditionally, we get hypothermia and the winner is the chubbiest or best dressed cause it tends to snow. This year was much better weather wise.
So my winter training was aimed at improving my swim and run as I came into tri from cycling anyway. I bought a Cervelo and did my time on the trainer, but sat in the car Friday driving to the race thinking how sour I was gonna be when I got my ass kicked for not doing enough intensity on the bike....
Saturday morning was the 15k time trial. I was pretty mellow going in because the morning was all about my partner. She has lost 70lbs since last August and was registered to do the TT on her mountain bike. She had a great race and really enjoyed it - 15k is the bike distance for her first tri this summer, so she was pumped to beat her "anticipated" time for that. She looked great on the course, smiling and giving it hell. At the finish, my time was slower than my best time on the course, but I felt like I had put out a high effort and kept my average speed high as well as my heart rate. I was thrilled when I found out I had put a minute into the girl who beat me last year - not bad! I then did a 10k run easy as I was skipping the crit - my scars from last year are just starting to fade a bit! Good thing too, since there was a pack crash with broken bones and all.
Road race was Sunday morning. It was 8 laps with a women's distance of 64k. My objective is always to hang with the mens pack until I blow up and hopefully go off after the other women and with some guys I can work with. The attacks on this course always come on the biggest hill (very creative, guys) so I was being careful to be up front hitting the hill every time. On the third lap, they went hard and I hung on desperately at the back. Then they cooled it a bit for a while, with some steady increasing on lap 4 that dropped all but one other woman. We hung on hard til a major attack on the first corner of lap 7. I went off with four guys I was pretty matched up with and we decided we were not being left behind (they had three laps left, I had a race to win). We did a deadly pace line that brought us back at the start finish of lap eight, my last, to cheers from the pack! Lap eight was fiesty but I was so pumped to be in the mens pack, only woman, in my last lap that I stayed in solid. At the last corner, the boys kicked me out to the front to win my race outright, so I happily obliged hauling the boys through the start finish at 42km/h. What a day!
I gotta say, I love how guys mostly reacet to a competent female rider in the pack. They give you the respect you deserve and the respect you give them. I pulled an equal share, and tried to not hog the easiest positions in the group. The pats on the back when we hauled back in on lap eight were easily the best feeling of the day as I felt I had busted my ass in the paceline to get us there, taking double turns at the front in that group. All in all, I am pleasantly surprised with the power I have on the bike. It seems like my hard work in all three sports has paid off. First tri is 28 June, so we will see then!
Thanks for reading!