Valpo Tri Race Report
July 14, 2007 Valparaiso, IN
1/4mi swim, 12.4mi bike, 5k run
~70 degrees F, low humidity, mostly sunny, 20 mph steady wind with gusts

Summary: 3rd F, 1st 20-24, 17/363 oa, Good swim, T1 PR (44 sec w/ wetsuit taken off with the hands), Mediocre tired bike, Not so great T2, Mediocre started too fast run. Great food. Reporters. Fun!

The whole story:
This was another C fun race for me. This caps off the third and final week of my final build period. Next week is a rest week (thank goodness) followed by Evergreen Lake (B race or alternate A race because I’m not entirely sure how I’ll respond to the peak/taper I’ve planned for myself).

Pre-race: Got up at 5:45, followed my usual pre-race routine of drinking a cup of infinit recovery mix and a cup of green tea and then I headed over to the park. I sipped another half bottle of infinit before the race. I just jogged for about 10 minutes to warm-up. I spent a lot of time standing around talking to people before the race.

The swim was an out and back around a buoy in a lake. The swim was barely wetsuit legal (76 degrees) and not many people wore them. My wave was Females 18-35 and I think that I was one of three or so wearing one. I was the third of my wave out of the water.
Swim: 6:08 ¼ mile, (16/363 Overall, 4/113 women)

I was extremely happy with my T1. It’s a new T1 PR! That includes wetsuit removal. I thought that I would be ranked lower since I was one of only a few wearing a wetsuit. I guess that it didn’t matter. I forgot the bodyglide as usual and I took off my wetsuit with my hands. I need some of you guys to come out and teach me how to get it off with me feet. Regardless, this has been an awesome season for my T1.
T1: 0:44 (3/363 Overall, 2/113 women)

It was very windy out on the bike course today. I don’t think it was ever at our backs. I’ve had a 3.5 hour bike ride on Thursday and a 4x8 min interval workout with an extra 25 minutes of race pace riding because I was trying (unsuccessfully) to outride a thunderstorm on Tuesday. My legs were crazy tired. Actually they were a little sore too. I spun like crazy and did my best. There were some sketchy riders out there (“On your left!” does NOT mean that its time to swerve left) and I saw a few riders down (maybe the wind was a factor?). There was plenty of medical support out on the course and they all seemed to be attended to. The course was mostly flat. There were a couple of shallow rollers and one more significant hill near the end. There were quite a few corners around which I was cautious. It seemed like there was a squirrelly rider in every corner. There was one M20-24 that I passed about halfway through the bike. He was grumbling hilariously at himself for letting a girl pass him when we started 15 min back.
Bike 38:00 12.4 mi (59/363 Overall, 6/113 women (4 were within 30 sec), 19.7mph)

I’ve really had a string of messed up T2s this season. This time I ran past my spot and then had to go back to rack my bike. I mean, I had to take my wetsuit off in T1 and I was faster there… this is pathetic.
T2: 0:49 (13/363 Overall, 3/113 women)

I caught the leader of my age group 100m into the run. I definitely started out way too fast. I was wheezing by the time I hit mile one and generally for me I should be breathing heavily until mile two and then its ok to start gasping and wheezing. Then I never saw a second mile marker. Apparently it had tipped over and I missed it. I wasn’t really thinking straight and was still wondering why it was taking me so long to run the second mile when I saw the finish line. Then I just thought “Oops, If I had realized that we were on the last mile, I might have pushed a little harder…”. I don’t think that that actually made any difference, but starting out too fast for my current state of fatigue sure did. Still, it was not a half bad run.
Run: 21:56 3.2 (31/363 Overall, 6/113 women (3 within 30 sec), 6:51 pace)

Total time: 1:07:37
17/363 Overall
3/113 Women
1/10 F20-24

It was fun to be the first woman across the line again since the two who beat me were older than 35 and in the wave that started 5 minutes behind me. There were actually about three reporters that started taking my picture and talking to me when I crossed the line. I made sure to let them know that there was at least one 35+ within 5 minutes. They had some great post race food at this race. Ice cream, cookies, bagels, donuts, sandwiches, pizza, etc… I usually am not too hungry after the finish, but today I just wanted the pizza and it was so good. They gave me one of the biggest trophies that I’ve ever seen for winning F20-24. After that, while I was talking to my friend, yet another reporter came and took me aside to take my picture and talk to me about the race. I was surprised out of my mind than anyone would ever want to talk to me so I really had no idea about what to say except how much I enjoyed the race. I’m glad that there was so much media coverage of the race though. Great publicity for the sport! I wonder if my name will actually get into any of those magazine or newspapers. (The lady that took me aside to talk to me after my age group trophy was from Run Midwest and I don’t know about the rest.) It was fun!

Results here:
http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=5947