North East Triathlon, North East, MD 8/12/12
Early in the year I worked hard on developing my race calendar for
2012. Picking races that would hopefully
help me prepare for the full distance Ironman that I am scheduled to complete
on November 18, 2012. As it turns out, I
have not had the best training year due to the plantar fasciitis. This led me to make the decision to transfer
from the Olympic distance to Sprint distance race for North East Tri. My foot continued to bother me after DITR Tri
and I decided to rest it until this race.
So, although my decision to shorten the distance was difficult, I also
knew that it was probably the safest thing to do.
Despite my disappointment of my foot not healing and doing the short
distance race, I was still looking forward to going that day. I was fortunate to race with great friends
that day, to include Kate, David, Trish, and Karen. Race day was beautiful, sunny, cool morning,
with a warm afternoon. North East, MD is
also a quaint little town that I think is worth visiting for the afternoon and
tapping the day off with a delicious bite to eat in town.
After getting set up in transition, Trish, Karen, and I headed off to
the dock for our Sprint start. There
were two waves of racers and we were broken up into male and female. The water temperature was quite steamy again,
a balmy 85 degrees. This was probably
better because getting into and out of my wetsuit (aka sausage suite) may have
actually taken longer than the swim itself!
This was the first swim this year where it felt like it was more of a
contact sport. I don’t think it was that
there were more races, but that it was a short distance and most people push
harder. Anyway, I remember bumping,
hitting, kicking, and swimming over several other races. I figure that this is good practice for my
ironman when I will be starting with 2000 people!!! The swim went by pretty fast and it was tough
to sight with the bright sun glare. I
felt pretty confident with my swim, although I wasn’t sure how I placed overall
at this point.
After a little run out of the water and back to transition, I was off
onto the bike! I’m always a little
relieved after finishing the swim and starting the bike. The first half of the bike course and nice,
some rolling hills and decent flats. I
managed to pass a number of men on the bike, as well as a handful of
women. The second half of the course was
a little more hilly, but I tried to power through them knowing I was only
biking 16 miles. I managed to pass
another female on the second half, but I noticed that I saw fewer and fewer
people on the bike, could this be because I was so incredibly fast I passed
most other racers?????
Heading into transition 2, I was apprehensive about having to take on
the run. It was only a 5K, but I also
have not been running since early July…..I was also working to incorporate some
new running form during this race (more of the midfoot strike with better
posture). As I headed out onto the run,
I was able to check out the competition in front of me since it was an out and
back course. During the first quarter of
the run, I didn’t see many racers coming back, however the top men started
showing up soon after that. My focus for
the run was to 1) not injure myself, 2) try to push just hard enough, 3) have
fun! But this competitive side keeps
coming out and I started to monitor the number of women in front of me as they
were coming back. I had two women pass
me on the first half of the course and noticed that by the turn around there
were only two more women in front. So
that meant that coming into the second half I was in fifth place overall for
women! Even though I tried to keep my
place, I did have another woman pass me on the way back in. I must admit that during the last stretch
into the finish line (about a quarter mile), I was trying to get some glimpses
behind me to make sure I wouldn’t get passed J I finished feeling pretty good and ended up
coming 1st in my age group! Finish time of 1:34:07!
It was an all-around great day for our group that went down….David came
1st in his age group and Kate also placed 1st in
Athena!! After the awards, we enjoyed
some fine food and drink at the well-known Woody’s along main street. I also have to give kudos to Piranha Sports! This was the third race I’ve done with them
this year and each one has been well organized with great race support and food
for afterwards!
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