This weekend I was able to travel down to St Petersburg, FL and compete at the St Anthony's Triathlon, one of the premier Olympic distance races in the US. It consists of a 1.5k swim (.94 mi), 40k bike (24.8 mi), and 10k run (6.2mi). It is a regional championship race that boasts of strong competition and a ton of participants, this year there were 4000. It is also part of a series of races called the 5150 series which offers more prize money for professionals than any other races. Yesterday the top pros earned $10,000 each, not bad for less than 2 hours of work :-).
Me and Matt left on Saturday morning to make the 7 1/2 hour drive down to St Pete and arrived there around 4:30pm. We went straight to packet pick-up and then to check my bike into transition. Alot of the bigger races they make you check in your bike the night before. I kind of like it because I don't have to worry about toting it around with me all evening. Once my bike was checked in we visited the fairly large expo that was going on, then went to find something to eat. After dinner, we drove the bike course so I could get an idea of what it was like as I had never done the race before. After this race and my experience at Bold Eagle, I have realized how important it is to be familiar with the course prior to the race.
Sunday morning, we got up around 5:20, I had my usual pre-race breakfast, and we headed over to the race venue. You could feel the excitement in the air as 4000 people were busy setting up their transition areas and getting ready to race.
 |
| Pro men on the start line |
When I got to transition, I heard an announcement that the swim had been shortened from 1500m to 1000m because of the strong wind that was stirring up the water. They decided to actually move the location of the swim away from the pier and seawall. I wasn't too upset, I was just glad to hear that they didn't cancel the swim altogether.
Once my transition was setup, I headed over to the swim start. I was in the seventh wave of the morning, so didn't have to wait too long to start which was nice, the last wave didn't get to start until two hours after me. I got to watch the pros start which was pretty cool. There was a field of about 70 top tier pros including some of our former Olympians and 2012 Olympic hopefuls..  |
| One of our former Olympians, 2012 hopeful, and eventual winner of this race |
We had a beach start for the swim, which means we ran into the water from the sand. This was one of the roughest swims I've ever done. Mostly because the crowd never really seemed to thin out so it was hard to get into a rhythm. Typically it'll be rough, with people hitting, kicking, running into you for the first 200 yards or so and then clear up, but this time it was like that the majority of the way. Due to the change in the swim location, once we got out of the water we had about a 1/3 mile run up to the transition area. |
| My swim wave about to start |
 |
| Coming out of the swim |
The bike course was pancake flat, but it was pretty windy which slowed us down a little. There was one part of the course that I was definitely grateful that I had seen the day before. We went through a neighborhood on a golf course that had several very large speed bumps and I saw at least three accidents that occurred because of them. Probably people with their head down, not expecting them. One looked really bad, there was a lady sprawled out on the road, not moving much, with a puddle of blood by her face (there was an ambulance there).
Once onto the run, it was getting pretty hot and there wasn't much shade on the course. My legs felt pretty good though, and I wanted to leave it all out on the course, not hold anything back. One of my mantras throughout the race was "don't wait," as in don't wait until later to push hard. It paid off and I actually ended up running a personal best for the 10k, 41:06, which was the 10th fastest run split for the women (not including the pros).
 |
| Finish chute |
I ended up finishing 5/104 in my age group and 45/994 women overall. I was pretty happy with that as my goal had been to be in the top ten of my age group. I also ended up qualifying for the championship race of the 5150 series which is supposed to be the most competitive race in the US, if not in the world. The only drawback, is that it's the weekend before Beijing and it wouldn't be possible to do both. I have two weeks to make a decision, so I will be doing alot of praying over the next few days. Feel free to throw any advice my way :-) Overall, this was a well worthwhile experience. I have wanted to do this race for a long time and it didn't disappoint, going above and beyond my expectations of how a race should be run.
No comments:
Post a Comment