Lap pool in the backyard? Yes, please! So spoiled.
Yes! Always such a treat when I get to go on a trip with just the husband! I was really looking forward to this one! A much-needed get-away for Karl and me together while the kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. It's been over a year that we had a chance to do this and that I've had my favorite race sherpa and bike mechanic busy PhD student with me. But between me racing and him working, we still managed to have a whole lot of fun!
Silverman 70.3 ended up being a GREAT race for me and I ended up on the (extended) podium in 6th place and with a decent pay check! Happy birthday to me!!! Below is the more detailed race report. I hope that you might learn something for your own race preparation and execution or just enjoy a good read.
Happy as a clam. Hot, dry, sunny = my preferred race conditions
Race Plan
I want to make this blog more personal and share a bit more of my journey than I have in the past. This time, I will share Coach Liz's race plan for me with you. I always love to see what she comes up with and read it MANY times to internalize it and then execute on race day. The 'execute' part doesn't always work out according to plan but I am always TRYING. Here it is:
Pre-race:
Keep it simple.
Manage your details going into the race like any other race.
You know this course and it suits your strengths. Given the field, I think Top 10 should be your goal. You should be feeling very confident that you are capable of racing the other girls this weekend. Not just racing your ace but AGAINST the others. You are ready to RISE UP to the challenge.
Swim:
Be familiar with the course. Check it out well!
Bike:
Race fast when the course is slow! Meaning: Work the hills then recover on the longer descents. This naturally suits you well.
Run:
Run the descents a little harder and stay steady on the climbs.
(But think through how this would work for YOU compared to your own experience on the course.)
Mindset/Mantra/Motivation:
You do not have to feel good to race well. You just have to be present and race.
You might feel great or you might feel like absolute crap. In either case, you race the race and look at it like a checklist of things you need to do to race well that have nothing to do with how you feel.
Don't wait for or seek out a magical feeling. Just race!
Don't think too much. Race from a place of trust and confidence. It's in there!
MAKE IT HAPPEN! This race is in YOUR hands. You know the course - OWN IT!
Ready to roll! Love the desert for racing!
Karl and I arrived at our wonderful homestay in Henderson on Thursday late afternoon. I totally lucked out with my hosts yet again! The Peressini family is fantastic and all 3 of them (parents and daughter) were also getting ready to race. It was great to have two full days here before the race on Sunday. I felt good about my taper. It wasn't a full-blown taper and that's exactly how I like it. Pre-race workouts went well but not great. I felt fine but not amazing. Excitement was at a good level - thrilled to be racing on a course that I love and know well but not feeling much pressure or nervousness. I have by now done enough 70.3 races to feel comfortable at this distance and trust myself to know what I am doing. I am not there with 140.6 miles of racing yet but hopefully getting closer with each race.
Race Morning
We decided the husband had better stay at the house and work in the morning and then come down to T2 in time for the run. The glamorous life of a PhD student! So I rode one of the first shuttles out to Lake Mead which was easy peasy and gave me plenty of time to get ready. I was a little bit worried about the wind since my last experience with a windy race was IM AZ and that didn't go so well although I always thought I do well in the wind. On my warm-up jog I saw the race director casually talking to some random guy, so I walked right up to him and asked his brief opinion on how the wind will affect this ride. He was very kind and told me exactly what to expect. All set now!
We got to warm-up in the water as well, which isn't the norm and always a plus! The wind caused rather high waves just like the day prior when I swam in it but I wasn't worried. I like swimming in rough water and have always done well in it compared to other age groupers but the pro-field is a different game, I suppose.
Swim
It was mayhem from the start. The waves made it hard to see what is going on in front and I had the most body contact of any pro race I've been in so far. But I stayed calm and just tried to go hard. What else can you do?!? Eventually I saw the group ahead of me that I knew I should've been in (seems like this is the story of everyone's swim) and I tried to bridge the gap but it wasn't working. Eventually I found two other girls to swim with - yes! I knew it would be slow and we were too far back but there was really nothing I could do but keep swimming hard. So apparently I know how to have fun in waves but not how to swim through them fast enough. Lame! More practice would be good!
The Bike
I cruised out of T1 with one of the girls in our little swim group and she promptly dropped me like I was standing still! Yikes. This confused me because usually the girls that I get out of the water with aren't THAT much faster than me on the bike. A little later, once I figured out that the speedster was Nikki Butterfield*, I had a good laugh. OF COURSE that girl knows how to ride her bike!!!
Not sure exactly what went through my mind but I guess I just figured: Well, that was a bad swim, so I'd better ride like the wind and try to catch some girls! Which is exactly what I did. Or tried to do. There was no one for quite a while and I was all alone. Which is fine with me. I sort of had an eye on power just to see what it was doing but was planning on riding mostly by feel. I caught a couple of girls eventually and then Carly Johann went by me. I had heard the announcer say her name as we came out of the swim, so I knew she wasn't riding all that much faster than me if it took her 15 miles to catch me. So I decided to stay with her no matter what. And it worked out well! Sort of screwed up my plan a bit though. She is a very tall athlete and hence a bit heavier and had the opposite strategy than I did. She rode hard on the flats and downhill and took it a bit easier on the uphill. We went back forth for a while but eventually I sort of just adopted her riding style.
We were picking up more girls, which was fun! On some long hill around mile 40, I went by her again and that was that. I didn't see her again. I never got passed on the bike. I also never got passed on the run in this race. I guess that's what happens when you swim very poorly!
Nutrition and hydration went very well. I think I have that dialed in pretty well for a 70.3 now. I saw my average normalized power and got a BIT worried that I was in trouble. It was slightly above what I averaged at my last two 20-minute FTP tests. And here I was trying to go that hard for about 2.5 hours PLUS a half marathon. Oops! I kept calm and told myself: You race better than you test, so you are FINE! I wasn't worried. No idea why not. It just felt right and I was ready to die on the run. I just did not care about blowing up!
I passed a few more girls toward the end but figured I was still rather far back. Maybe Top 20 off the bike. I guess I wasn't sure how many girls actually started and I did NOT allow myself to check out the other girls coming back from the turn-around on the bike. Too distracting.
*Nikki is a former pro cyclist who represented Australia at the 2007 and 2008 UCI world champs.
The Run
First two laps were lonely. I don't like the age groupers messing with my riding but I do like them on the run! Ha. Good thing the husband was there. I told him to let me know how far back from 8th place (money!) I was and he said something like 1:30. Wow! That TOTALLY surprised me. I got out of the water in 17th and off the bike in 9th. I passed 8 girls! In a field like this I thought that was pretty good. It's not like these girls don't know how to ride their bikes.
Caught two more girls pretty quickly (one of them being Melanie McQuaid - WHAT?) and was feeling rather good. I was going hard but felt like it was sustainable. Again, I decided I had never been in the medical tent in over 18 years of racing, so I was willing to give it a good shot.
It's interesting how racing is ALWAYS hard. And yet it can feel so DIFFERENT. This time I felt like my body AND mind were both on the same page and it felt almost 'effortless'. Obviously it wasn't but you know what I mean... I kept eating and drinking and popping salt tablets and waiting for more girls behind me to pass me. But that never happened!
On the last uphill I saw one girl catching up to me RAPIDLY and I knew she was flying and might catch me. And then I saw Jeanne Collogne in front of me and realized that I had made up a lot of time on her and she must be suffering. I was like: CRAP! I don't want to have to catch anyone at this point! I just want to get to that finish line! I am in 7th right now and I am ok with that and even if the girl behind me catches me, I will still be in 8th! Haha. Clearly I was suffering by now. But today the mind was strong and I wasn't going to give in easily, so I got closer but then I got worried about the turn-around at the top. What if she sees me being so close behind her and totally turns on the jets and I won't be able to catch her? There was no way to sneak up on her. And I really didn't want to battle it out for the last mile. So as soon as she turned and saw me I was acting like I was feeling terrible. I bent over and pretended to cough up a lung (that has always been a talent of mine, I used it in high school to get out of class for a few minutes and meet up with a friend). After the turn, I put it into the next gear, gave some worried spectators a smile, gathered myself, and passed VERY decisively with no response from her. I know... Don't ask. I have no idea where I came up with that little stint. But it worked. And the other girl never caught me! It wasn't a pretty last mile but I got it done.
Smiles for miles today!
This was FUN! Things really came together today and that makes me happy. My left leg is feeling better in general and it makes a big difference, especially on the run. I felt good physically today and decided to just go for it. I was ABLE to go for it and the mind was in the right place. I have been working on my mental game quite a bit and I hope that maybe it's starting to pay off. This race shows that I can BIKE HARD and then still RUN HARD. Now I just need to be able to apply that to the long distance...
Friends at the finish line!
Huge thanks to my good friend, Louis, and his kids who drove over from Flagstaff to see what this triathlon thing is all about and invited us to their fancy hotel for a great dinner on Saturday night. I think Silverman put on a great show for them! I loved seeing them out there, sign and all! The husband was great at being all over the run course on his bike and giving me his support. He hasn't been at a race of mine for almost a year and it was so good to have him here!
Thank you, volunteers and race organizers!
Karl may or may not have chatted away during the entire award ceremony and thus not taken any pictures. One of the few times I am actually up there! So I made him take me to the buffet at the Bellagio for my birthday dinner. It was the perfect ending to this day!
The Peressini family had fantastic races and it was great to share this day with them! Congrats to Dan and Kristie who qualified for Worlds in Australia and to Tarragon for making it onto the podium in her first 70.3! Thank you for being such wonderful hosts!
A huge Thank You to my fantastic sponsors:
Coeur Sports - The BEST in women's athletic wear
T3 Triathlon - My FAVORITE triathlon shop
Fuji Bikes - In LOVE with my Norcom Straight
Zoot Shoes - My shoes of choice since 2008
Cobb Saddles - Most COMFORTABLE saddle ever
Osmo Nutrition - Hydration at its BEST
Honey Stinger - The nutrition that keeps me going
Tifosi Sunglasses - I wear them every single day!
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