There wasnt a whole lot of lead-up to this race, just a sprint race that I wanted to do (and obviously do well at)
Pre-Race- Woke up at 4:50 and jumped in the car to make my way from Decatur Il to Springfield Il. Got to the race site a little after 6ish. Followed my nutrition and set-up routine like always and was about to make my way to the swim start. I didnt know that it was ok that the USAT officials could harass the racers. Im putting my stuff out of the way next to my bike (one race bag nice and neat, IN MY AREA) and this lady comes up from behind me and says I need to move all this 'STUFF' (wetsuit, which I was going to wear, helmet (which was going on my handle bars but didnt need to go there yet since it was just going to get knocked off in the bumps from other racers walking by, and my goodie bag (which was going in my race duffle) I told her my plan and her words to me, "it dont even matter Im giving you a citation" Before she has even finished this sentence she walked away from me with her clipboard!!! Awesome, instantly pissed that we havent even been told to leave TA yet and Im getting a penalty!!!! So you can imagine my mindset before I got into the water, props to my GF who was there trying to cool me down haha.
Swim - Swim was a short out and back and it was pretty uneventful. Pushed the pace hard for about 30 seconds till a nice group formed then tucked into the back of the pack and just swam. Came out of the water (500m) in 9 minutes. A little slow but I wasnt going to make it around the 4-5 guys in front of me who had slowed considerably but were all side by side to each other. T1 - 49 seconds
Bike - I realized what XC800RUNNER was going through a few weeks ago and road off the front for all but the first 2 miles. I had no one to pace off of, chase down, or defend against so I just road. I never could get into a decent rythem and my pace suffered a bit but for the 12 miles I averaged 22mph so cant complain all that much. I had ended up coming in the bike first to find 400+ people standing at T2 cheering, screaming, banging drums, cowbells <-------- I was sooooo jacked! T2 - 29 seconds
Run - Started the run out of T2 still alone and once agian got to run for the first 200m through the crowd that was still going nuts! My legs were really tight....couldnt get them to turn over, couldnt get the hips to do what they were supposed to do, but had to keep moving. I was finally able to loosen up at the turn around. My return trip was just over 9 minutes and I was finally able to see another person for the first time in about 40 minutes! Coming back over the bridge to the FinishLine I could here people screaming and hollering already. I turned into the park and the finishing chute was jammed with people and barking dogs. Total run time was 20:29, not my best time and I knew the first 2k or so was killing me but it all worked out in the end. Finished the 500swim, 12mile bike, 5k run in 1:03.39 good enough for 6th OA and 1st in my AG. One of these days Ill be able to break into that podium or a top five but until then just gotta keep doing what Im doing and wait for my day. Never did get the penalty..........