I raced this past weekend in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for 2009 Age-Group (another way of saying amateur) nationals. This was my last race of the season, so i knew that i had to give it my all. This was, after all, my "A" race. I went into the race with the thought that the top 18 from each 'age group' would qualify for team usa and the worlds race in budapest in 2010. I assumed that this meant the top 9 in my specific age group would qualify (i was in Male 18-19), and there would be another 9 coming from the female 18-19 age group. So let me start it off like that.
I started the swim with a MASSIVE wave with the top athletes in the entire race. I'm not a strong swimmer, so i knew i wouldnt come out very well, but still in the mix of things. A few days before the race, there was a big rainstorm, so the town was forced to open the floodgates in the river. This created a ridiculous current in the river, delaying times extremely. So i suffered through a 10 minutes longer than usual swim, and got into transition. After a quick transition i got out onto the bike (my specialty).
Immediately i began to hammer and catch up with some of the top people in my age group. I passed many of the people that had been faster than me on the swim. The course was 20k, 2 laps, with a little of 1000 competitors, so the course was incredibly crowded. At times i found myself trying to get out of the draft-zone, but it was almost impossible to not draft at some times. That was ok though, because i didnt get penalized, even though i thought that i really could have been. Got off the bike in good position, and i was ready to just run my way onto team usa.
I started running and immediately felt a little bit of a side stitch coming on. This has been a recurring problem this season so i had researched a bunch of techniques to get rid of it. I used all of these techniques, shorter strides, belly breathing, breathing on every other left foot. I managed to keep the side stitch away and pull out a 39 minute 10k, which is slow for me. I didnt know if i had made team usa, so i immediately went to the team usa tent after the race. I found out that i had come in 10th place, which at the time i thought was 1 place off of team usa!!!i was so disappointed, until iw ent to the team usa tent and the lady there told me that it was actually the top 18 per age group per gender, as opposed to what i had initially believed. so, in the end, i was very happy because i made team USA!!!! I'll make sure to have a 2010 race report when i get back from worlds in budapest!!

oh yeah, and sorry for the rant.