FLORIDA 70.3 RACE REPORT

I had a good taper and really expected to have a good race. I didn't have the race I wanted but had some positives to take away with me. We got to the race site around 12:30 on Saturday so we could register, rack the bikes then check in to the hotel and relax. We stayed at the Contemporary Resort right across the lake which was nice. No issues with registration, went quickly. Glad we arrived early in the day because the bike racks were first come, first serve and a lot of bikes were already racked. I got an ok spot but the transition area seemed huge. We ate dinner at the hotel and I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible heartburn and didn't sleep well the remainder of the night. We walked to the race from our hotel which took about 30 minutes so that was a nice time to get the legs moving and get the motivational juices flowing. I was in wave #11 out of about 15 so way in the back of the pack. I put on my new Blueseventy Pointzero3 skin suit and toed the line with the other girls; we had the women 40-44 and 18-24 in our wave. I had an awesome start. Got out really quickly and felt good about that. I saw the girls on my left coming by and tried to stick to their feet but went too anaerobic doing this so I had to let them go - that was the demise of my race!! They got away from me and were too fast to catch up to later. I kept thinking how long the swim seemed but it went ok overall (everyone swam slower this year, ?long course). Since our wave was later, we had a ton of slower people to navigate through but I stayed pretty aggressive. I hit the beach and was shocked how slow my time was and immediately went into damage control. Got through transition pretty well and got on the bike and started hammering. It was quite windy, blowing about 10-20mph all morning. I have been doing plenty of speed work bike sessions in the wind at Fort Desoto and was glad for that. I rode really aggressively because I was so ticked about my horrible swim. The bike was pretty uneventful overall. A lot of slower riders to pass and some serious drafting trains coming around me from the men 30-39 AG's! I didn't see a race marshall all day but tried not to get concerned with other poeple not racing legally. I probably didn't drink enough on the bike but didn't have any real problems. I got into T2 and completely lost my rack! Eeeeek. I did find it right behind me eventually and got going on the run. I made sure to hit my watch out of T2 just to see how I was running the first few miles. I ran 6:47 for the first mile and felt pretty good, didn't feel too fast but I knew I would slow down. I quit looking at mile splits around mile 4 when I was averaging 7:05-7:10 pace. I had some good periods and some bad periods in the run but it went by relatively quickly. I knew the girl who ended up winning my AG was way out in front but I wasn't really aware of anyone else, just concentrated on my personal race. I ended up 4th which I wasn't happy about but I lost the race in the swim. The positive I took from the race was my bike, which was a little faster than last year under much tougher conditions (wind) and my run was a bit faster off the faster bike. I'm not going to lose sleep over a slow swim but will do underwater video session the end of June and try and improve my technique. I am really sore today and am glad I have only a four day work week before Memorial Day weekend! I'm going to take the next four weeks and get back into the gym a lot and try and ride a lot before we get into ironman training for IM Florida. I talked quite a few people about the race and most did around what they thought, not all. The Dane did pretty well, 10th in the AG and got a slot to Clearwater 70.3 World Championships (I declined my slot since IM Florida is a week prior). We had fun hanging out afterwards and trading war stories. Now, time for a little R&R!!