Vegas 70.3 World Championships 2011

 A view of Lake Las Vegas from afar

After I had finished my 'last' 70.3 for the season I was sure I had not made it to Vegas. But then on August 19th I received an email that I was invited and could go if I wanted. Even though I had spent the last week eating junk and almost not training because it was my little mid-season break before training for Cozumel, I was far too excited to say no. 

So my coach and I decided I would go and race, but my focus would still be Cozumel, my first full Ironman. Three weeks is just not enough time to have a build and taper to make a race an A race, and I didn't want to take 3 weeks away from ironman training.

Lake Las Vegas

                            

Transition

 The swim started a Lake Las Vegas, a small lake out in the desert surrounded my ritzy hotels and condos. The water was 80-81 degrees. My swim went well. I started out on the very far right. Two of the girls from the far left took off and were out in front. Eventually, another cluster of about 5 girls formed and I was in this group. By the first turn I had moved up to the front of that group and could see the other two up in front. The swim was pretty uneventful, I stayed in 3rd position for the entire swim. I did not want to try to catch the first two because I knew the day had a few more challenges for me.

Just before the swim exit

 We exited the water on the far side of the lake and had to run around the point of the lake back over to transition. Almost enough of a run to call it a quadathlon. This race had 'clean' transition, meaning you don't set your stuff on the ground by your bike, you put it all in a bag. You run to the bags, have yours handed to you by the lovely volunteers, go into a changing tent (or just run through as you grab your stuff from the bag and leave your swim skin for the volunteers to put back in your bag), and off to your bike. The bike was flat 100 yards or so, then uphill for a good long while. Forget about letting your heart rate come down and settling in after the swim.

The bike course was challenging. I don't think it was quite like I expected. It's like when you hear over and over how great a movie is. You expect to get blown away by it's greatness, only to watch it and go 'it was pretty good.' Maybe the course was just talked up too much. Don't get me wrong, it was tough. Around mile 40 (I think?) there was very long slow climb. Or, at least it didn't look like much of a climb, but it was in my smallest gear and going no where. That is what made it so hard, it was deceiving. And hot. The Branson bike course may edge this one out just a bit for the toughest bike course I have ever ridden. I think part of my problems here were not having fresh legs (which I didn't want...saving that for Cozumel) and nutrition.

Overall I think it was one of my weaker bike performances for the year. But still a blast. The first 40 miles of the course that are out in the desert mountains was amazingly beautiful in its own way.  

This picture is of me at the very end. The last 5 miles are all uphill. I was tanked and could not wait to start running!

In T2 I had to make a pit stop. You never want to waste time with no forward momentum, but sometimes your body tells you what you are going to do and you have to listen.

Then onto the run. It was three 4 mile loops. It was basically 2 miles slightly downhill one way and uphill the other. One section had some shade and the rest was like roasting, well, in the desert.

Half of my run went well. The other half I spent feeling sick, like something was going to come out one end or the other. I must figure this out before Cozumel.  This issue consumed my mind for much of the run. Somehow though I think I pulled off a decent run for feeling so sick and considering this was not an A race. 

Overall I finished 24th. Not well, but not too shabby. Good swim, bad bike, ok run, lots of fun the whole trip. Glad I went, wish I had done better, but also glad I kept my focus on Cozumel, I know it will be best in the end.

A big thank you to EVERYONE for all your support and encouragement. It means so much to me, each and every word of support I get makes me happy and I could not this without all the wonderful people around me. Especially thank you to Kyle and Kyer and DiscountTriSupply.com, Krueger Chiropractic, and my parents.

Kyer, Kyle and I after the race! Right after the race they were already telling me about their plans for making my bike even better! How awesome is that??

A few shots of Lake Mead, beautiful and awesome lake!



Clearwater World Championships

Clearwater!! Last race of the season. We shipped our bikes Fedex to try and save money. Turned out to be about as much to ship them down there (because we waited too long so we needed to ship a bit faster) as to fly, but we saved a bit on the way back. I packed all the rest of my stuff on a carry on. Matt had to check a bag. I pride myself knowing that I (the female) was able to pack light. Notice the bag size difference in the picture below. Once we finally arrived in Cleatwater it was beautiful. A bit breezy, but highs around 80 and sunny!

Friday I did the normal day-before-the-race routine. Was feeling really good and getting really excited.

Friday night we ate at Olive Garden. It was an interesting meal. I think it took us about 2 hours. We had a waiter and a waitress that did not communicate one bit, but between the two we still couldn't seem to get more drinks or breadsticks, or anything for that matter. Then Matt got a kids meal, I got only a dollop of sauce with a mountain of pasta, the bills got messed up, you get the idea. It was all good though, at the end of the meal we got the little mints!

Race morning finally came! Even though it was Florida, I was SOOO cold. I stole my dad's jacket muhahaha.

I was in wave 15 of 17. Pros started at 6:45am, I started at 7:50.

Started in the front of the wave. One girl, who must have been 7 feet tall, was out in front right away. Right behind I was in a pack of about 6-8 girls. Dropped that group about half way out. Ran into the prior wave about here too. It got pretty wavy as we got out there! Swimming in the ocean was crazy! You have to time your sighting, if you sight while you are at the bottom of the wave, you won't see anything but water! And salt water makes my mouth taste like vomit. Fun times! I thought maybe I would catch less people on the swim, being a world championship and all. But I don't think there was much difference compared to the other 70.3s I have done.

Came out 2nd in my wave in 25:38 or so.

The bike was, well, a draftfest. Big surprise I know. Some drafting is unavoidable due to the shear number of people on the coarse. But there was tons of blatant drafting. I only saw one penalty given out. I had to pee really bad on the bike but couldn't. I slowed down a couple times to try, but no success. So into T2, grabbed my bag, switched gear, and headed straight to the port-o-potty. It was a struggle to get to the potty from the tent because I was in so much pain-I had to pee that bad. I really need to figure out something different for next season so I don't waste time on the bike or in T2. Bike split was 2:25 or so.

The run was pretty disappointing. I felt so sick. I felt like I ate Thanksgiving dinner followed immediately by Christmas dinner, then tried to a half marathon. Not cool. Had a few puke burps. Then I had shoe issues. Had to stop to fix it 3 times. Just a frustrating run. For the last 3 miles or so I could see a girl in my age group a little ways up. I really made a move to catch her in the last quarter mile or so. With about 100-150 yards to go I started sprinting (I mean seriously sprinting like I've never done at the end of a race before). Then I passed her with about 25-50 yards to go. Yay! But she saw me, sprinted herself, and crossed 1 second before me. Boo.

Here is where I pass her.

Sorry, no photo of the counter pass.

Run split was 1:32ish. Right around where I have been. I know in perfect conditions (not feeling sick and no shoe issues) that I can do better, but given the circumstances, I was okay with my run and total time (4:29:29).

Ended up 6th in my age group and 10th overall. Not like I have a tough age group or anything!

It was a little disappointing to finish up the season like this, but I know I've had a pretty good season. Both performance wise and pretty free of incident (crashes, cramps, etc). But I think this will also help keep me that much more motivated for next season!


The beach after!

Sunshine=one of my favorite things!

Apparently dogs do the driving in Clearwater.

Gut rot...yes please!!!