Archive for July, 2010

FL 70.3 6th Place

RI 70.3 Race Report

I’ve been back running for 3 weeks now and my foot seems to be 100%.  I was excited to get back out on the race course and decided 2 weeks ago to race the Rhode Island 70.3 .  It is very exciting to see so many high caliber 70.3 races popping up on the east coast.  A 4 hour drive beats a 6 hour flight any day!! Plus, my car doesn’t charge me $300 to travel with my bike. 

I made the trip down to Providence with  my friend Angie, on Friday night.  Saturday morning we drove out to Narraganset to get some training in on the course.  We’ve been having quite a heat wave here in the Northeast and it was a hot humid morning, but i’d take that over cold rain any day!  Race prep workouts felt great and we capped off the morning with some body surfing! 

Sunday morning came way to fast as we had to wake up at 3am, eat breakfast, drive 1 hour to the race start, and start at 6am!  Gotta love Wildflower and the 8am start!!! My number one goal for this race was to have a good swim.  My swim has been soooooo bad, but my pool times have my best ever.  I seem to have fallen into this rut of trying desparately to find feet in the swim.  I just bounce from feet to feet, end up in the back and get dropped. My goal on sunday was to just swim as hard as I could;  look for the buoys and not feet.  I swam hard to the first buoy.  There were girls around me and I got clobbered pretty good.  I could feel my lip throbbing and swelling.  I didn’t care because  knew that I was with a few of the girls who out swam me by over 2 minutes at FL 70.3 .  After the first turn, the pace seemed slow, so I went around and pulled for a while, hoping the other girls would spark up, push the pace and go by me.  No such luck as I pulled the entire way back to shore.  The times today for everyone were a little slow.  I am by no means thrilled with my time, but happy that I swam aggressively and I learned a few things that I think will help me break an hour in my next Ironman. 

I exited the water in a smal little pack,  including Heather Jackson, an INCREDIBLE cyclist.  I made a quick decision to try my best to keep her in sight (as least for the first 20 miles).  After 15 miles the dot up the road got smaller and smaller and eventually she was out of sight.  I felt really good on the bike, but definitely felt like I rode the first hour a little above my fitness level.  I started to pay the price.  Fortunately the bad patch was short, thanks to 2 double latte powergels!  I passed Cait Snow on the bike and new I had to put more time into her on the bike.  She is a phenominal runner and I knew my run fitness wasn’t close o a 1:19 at this point in my training!  So, off I went, smashing myself once again!  I biked hard and  felt really strong.  I absolutely love my Parlee TT.  It is so light and aero and fits me sooo well andwith my 808/sub 9, it was swinging up the hills.  I’m not sure what place I was coming into T2, 5 or 6th??? I just knew there were alot of women around me and I was going to really have to fight hard to get top 3.

My run training has been short and minimal, but my tempo runs off the bike have been pretty good, so I set off trying to hold 6:15 pace.  I was grateful to have my super light K swiss K-ruz flats on, because every ounce counted today!   It’s funny how something that never happens in training, can happen in a race. As a temporary fix to my foot injury, I’ve been running with a heel wedge.   At mile 4 it had worked it way up to my toes.  I was worried about injuring myself, so I had to stop 2 times to put it back in place.  I am definitely getting some rubber cement glue today! I  had no idea I was so close to 3rd until about a half mile to go.  The course had many turns andit was hard to seek out the competition.  With less than a mile to go, I  could see her.  I ran hard, I  was running much faster, I was gaining and then I saw the state capital and the finish line.  I missed the podium again my a few seconds!

I didn’t reach my goal of a podium finish, but there are so many positives that I can derive from the race.  I pulled a pack that has been consistently 2 minutes faster than me in the water.  I had the 2nd fastest bike and run split and the fastest bike/run combo and most importantly I am healthy!  With 7 weeks to go until Ironman time, I feel like things are on track and I  will start that race stronger than ever!

2 more weeks til Ironman LP! Kelly is ready to race and I am ready for a hard week of training and some sherpa duties!!