5430 Race

What a GREAT race!!! A humongous THANK YOU to Barry and Jodee for all their hard work over the years to make 5430 Sports so awesome! I love all of your races and appreciate all the time and energy you have put into them...and there is so, so much behind the scenes work that we don't even know about too. And once again, the awards were Fabulous! As you can see from my award, I ended up 4th...but let's not get ahead of ourselves :)

Race morning started off a bit hectic, as I rolled out of the Boulder Twin Lakes Inn (Thanks Binesh!) in the complete darkness...I realized my disc was rubbing my frame. And it wasn't an easy wheel swap that I needed to make...I had to change my casettee from my HED Jet disc to my super speedy HED Jet 6; and also change out the race tire and tube. Randy made sure I stayed calm and took plenty of deep relaxing breaths! I reached the transition area and could start to feel the excitement of the race scene...it was going to be a fun day. I got my transition area all ready to go and headed out for a short run before heading down to the water for a quick swim warm-up. Before I knew it, it was Game ON!

The gun sounded and I took off. All of the pros started together...so I tried to find some good feet. I didn't have my normal spunk and start speed and was not in the best position around the first bouy. I put my head down and swam up to third position behind Timmy and Joanna. As we rounded the second bouy, I could see that Timmy was starting to get a gap, so I put my head down again and sprinted in hopes of finding his feet. Well, I never quite made it to his feet, but I did come out of the water as the top woman and 2nd out of ALL the pros! As I tried to get my bike out of the rack, my back wheel was stuck on something, so I ended up sending things flying every which way...but still got out on the bike course first.
The bike course was 2 loops, the first loop we were pretty much out there on our own, but the second lap was a completely different story as there were age-groupers everywhere! I felt pretty good and tried to keep my pace steady, with hard efforts uphill and even harder downhill. But for some reason, my legs weren't clickin along quite like usual and I got passed by ALOT of girls. I think I ended up coming into T2 in 8th place. And my entrance into T2 was comical as my shoe flew off my pedal when I took it off, so I had to 180, go back pick it up, and since I didn't want to waste more time putting it back on, I just stuck it in my mouth, yummy! And once again as I racked my bike, I ended up causing bikes to go tumbling every which direction, no idea what my deal was with those racks! I headed out on the 2 lap run and had to take a pee break right away...I actually had to pee while on the bike but just couldn't seem to let it go :) guess that is something I'll have to work on.

I got my head focused and decided it was time to run some girls down. I actually ran my way back up to forth, which I was pleased with. My run split was not indicitive of what I'm capable of, but I'll take it for the day. So all in all, a solid day, with lots of lessons learned, and a great result against a field stacked with numerous world champions. Congrats to everyone who races and thanks for the challenging competition!

During the race, my new coach, Lance Watson (more to come on this in another blog) and I decided to try a different nutrition plan. I ended up taking in 9 gels on the course and LOTS of caffiene...well LOTS for me! As a non-caffiene person, I feel the effect of small amounts, so the 300mg during the race hit me hard post race. I had so much energy and ended up having tons of fun handing out water and gatorade to the racers still racing...and also doing a bit of dancing!

Bike and Run photos provided by David Young. Thanks David!