TriRock Philadelphia

Saturday didn’t really start off on the right foot as my 45min bike ride turned into a 2hr extravaganza (25min of which was spent at a YMCA trying to figure out where I was and how I was going to get back).

I asked THREE different people for directions and each time this was the result

Despite being confident that there would be no swim on Sunday I went to a pool anyways to do the usual pre-race day stuff. Someone in Philadelphia is doing things right as I was able to go to a 50m outdoor pool for FREE (although the cleanliness of the water may have been a little suspect…).

After the race briefing in the afternoon I once again got lost as some of the roads I needed to be on were closed. This led me to driving around what the locals called “the hood” for 40min, at which time I was completely and utterly stressed out and one of the locals convinced a police officer to drive with me following him back to a point I could recognize.  Perhaps not the best day to have before a race, but I was feeling ready to go and calmed myself down before heading to bed.

As the race was to start at 6:30am I didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room in the morning, thinking it most important to grab as much sleep as I could. I had directions to the race site, so what could go wrong? Well, in keeping with the theme of the previous day, I got lost on the way to the race site as well, costing me another 10min (and another chat with a police officer as to where the heck I was). I got to the race site at 5:30, which was cutting things tight as we had to warm up on our bikes before getting to transition, which was to close at 6:15. I did a quick warm up on the bike, but was already freaking out a little due to my unintended detour and the ticking clock, so my heart rate was already pretty high and didn’t take much for me to feel like I was ready to go. I still had to put the stickers on my bike as I hadn’t gone out to do it the night before in the torrential downpours. It was still raining so the stickers didn’t want to stick, so what should have taken 30seconds took a couple of minutes. “Tick tock tick tock” is all I was thinking. I rode down to transition (about 900m) and again, something I did not factor in was 3000+ athletes needing to get body marked, rather than the normal 300. I racked my bike and was out for a run warm-up at 6:05. 10min til transition closes. As I’m jogging along I realize that the new race suit I got on Thursday has sleeves, and I need to go get re-marked on my arms so the numbers would be visible. At this point I was just telling myself to calm down and things would be okay. I was feeling great on the warm-up and it took no effort to get up to a good speed. Time to race.

Swim- 0min0sec - yup, just that fast ;)

It was cancelled due to unsafe waters- not sure whether it was floating trees or something sinister in the waters. This meant a time-trial start on the bike.

Bike- 1hr5min

I was third to go off on the bike and felt awesome. I caught the person who left in front of me after about 4-5km, and could see Alicia Kaye in the distance at certain points on the course, who neither seemed to be getting closer or further away. After just over one lap Alicia had gained only 5 seconds or so. Unfortunately it would appear that I slowed down over the second lap, as her bike split was 50 seconds faster than mine, and the person who left 40 seconds after me ended up catching me. In hindsight I may have been thinking too much about the run on the second lap of the bike and riding slightly more conservatively. A rookie mistake as I know that it is important to always focus on the task at hand. The bike course was a lot of fun, very technical, which offered a definite advantage to those who had done the course before, but with all the twists and turns it keeps it interesting and might be my favourite bike course yet.

Run-39:30 L

I don’t know what to say about this. I am very unhappy with it. The course was perfectly suited to me (flat flat flat), yet I couldn’t execute. I ran as hard as I could but my feet felt like they were falling flat on the ground and I just couldn’t get into that higher gear. I wasn’t expecting this as my training would indicate that I should be running low-mid 38min off the bike. I have no excuses and no reasons for it, I was just slow. I ended up 6^th out of about 25 women, which left me one spot out of the prize money (highly unfortunate as it is getting to that point where student loans have to be paid back L ). This race was far more competitive than last year, likely due to the lack of Olympic distance pro races (the person who came 3^rd last year was 10^th this year), which hopefully means that the race will remain as a pro race. It really was a fantastic course and I would definitely race there again. 

Thanks once again Kristen Pawlick at Wishbone Athletics, C3, Nineteen, Louis Garneau, and Skechers. I wouldn't be able to do this without the support of everyone who is helping me and cheering me on, it really means a lot! Next up is Challenge St. Andrew's this weekend!