5430 Sprint

Yesterday was the kick off to my triathlon season and it was a big success for me! And with it being the Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year there was good energy in the air for a great race!

I have never considered myself a "speedy" athlete. I've always been much more successful in the long course stuff. Let me just say, I'm thankful I ran so much through the winter and have been focusing on my speed because it's paying off. I went into the race saying I was going to race it hard the entire time. It was short enough to be able to go all out so no slacking off for me today! My goal going in was to place top 5 in my age group, top 3 would have been fantastic!

We were the first woman to race and it was chaos from the gun. I placed myself up front and to the outside so I could avoid the madness as much as possible. It was all out and I knew I had a good chance of being up front with the top swimmers as I'm swimming pretty strong already. However there was allot of feet grabbing and crawling up on top of eachother for the first 100 meters. It was the most aggressive swim start I've done (with the exception of Kona). I sat on someones feet for most of the way until the turn towards shore were I decided to pick up the pace a bit. I'm not sure but I think I was 5th out of the water??

Quick transition and I was off on my bike. I saw 2 other girls running out with me so I knew I was top 5 or so at this point. I immediately passed 2 girls and could see one more out a good ways in front. It took me a while to hammer my way up to her but I passed her about mile 4 and as I passed I threw down to make her have to work to catch me. I was hoping she would think there was no way and let me go. I held her off for a few miles but she eventually caught back up. We went back and forth for a bit but eventually she got far enough ahead I couldn't keep up. She didn't necessarily look like the strongest runner (not that you can really tell) so I was hoping if I could just keep her in my sight I could run her down. I never lost sight of her so I wasn't giving up. At this point I thought there might be one more girl ahead of her but I wasn't sure.

Another fast transition and I was running! This run was brutal and HOT (and it was only 9am!). I think I was at LT pretty much the entire time. My run pace wasn't as fast as I would have thought it should be with as hard as I was working but I think I was worked up trying to catch these girls that had the lead. At this point I knew I was in for a podium so I wasn't going to let anyone catch me to push me back to 4th or 5th. I saw Kevin coming in from his run right when I hit the dam of the reservoir. He shouted "3rd female and they're all running slower"....it was on!!! I made my way to the turn around and I saw the girl I was challenging on the bike and just a little ways behind her another female, all running hard, I'm not sure they were really running slower but they had probably picked up the pace by now! Ok, so I'm in 3rd..not bad! Right after the turn another girl passed me and there was NO WAY I could keep up with her but luckily I realized she was an age group up from me and I let her go, it didn't matter. There weren't any other females heading out that were too close to me so I knew if I could hold this pace I'd get 3rd. The run home on the dam was hard, I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure there wasn't anyone sneaking up behind me and it was always clear. I crossed the line in 1:23:57 in 2nd place (10th female overall)! Turns out the 2nd girl I saw running in was 17 so I wasn't competing against her anyways. Although, the announcer wasn't paying very good attention because when I crossed he shouted- 1st female! Ummm, 3 others had come across already?!? Oh well!

The general consensus was that the swim and run were maybe a little long. A friend of mine had a GPS that measured the run at 3.17 miles. Doesn't matter but it's nice to know!

All in all I was really happy with my race. It was a PR on that course and to get 2nd made it even better. Now, can I do it again for the Boulder Peak and Longcourse and podium for the series?! The girl that beat me is doing the series so I think she is my primary competition, although the other races will likely pull in some new faces.

None the less, great start to another great year and hopefully plenty more PRs!

Here is article in the local paper!