So I'm gonna get down to the nitty gritty: New Orleans 70.3 race report. I'll give the full details below, but if you want a brief snap shot here it is: 4th place age group, total time 5:13:XX which is a 6 minute PR on a tough day. This is the highest I have ever placed in a 70.3, which tend to have highly competitive fields. I was really happy with my swim, but bike and run were tough with the conditions. Lesson's learned 1) need to tweak nutrition a little bit. came off the bike with some GI distress 2) Bike has definitely improved- felt strong but need to keep more consistent over the ride 3) Run needs some more work. Felt like I was running strong, but couldn't hit expected paces. Overall I am realllly happy with my performance, especially given the fact that it seemed to be a slow day over all. Thanks to Coach Michelle for getting me here!
For those of you wanting a more detailed report.....
Pre Race: The nature of my job makes race prep a little interesting. Normally, I would love to get to a race Friday night, sleep in a little on Saturday, check in for the race, prep all my gear, eat a big late lunch and then spend the night with my feet up watching inspirational sports movies or countless episodes of Property Brothers while stuffing my face with nutella and peanut butter sandwiches. Unfortunately, I work late on Fridays, which meant the only option for the 6 hour drive to New Orleans was Saturday morning. An early wake up call and a large Dunkin Donut's coffee later, we were on the road. Getting to NOLA was uneventful, and check in for the race was a BREEZE. They were super efficient, and I want to give them props because this was a dream compared to the nightmare of check in at Austin. But by the time we made it to town, checked in, and ate lunch, it was already 4:30 in the afternoon, which means my lounging and relaxing time was significantly cut short. Not a huge deal, but didn't really get a chance to get in my normal pre race ritual of getting my hair braided or getting my race day manicure. This may not be a big deal to some, but I am a creature of habit and breaking tradition is really upsetting. No race day mani = truly tragic. In all seriousness though, I really wish I had time to get my head on straight. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and the rush of the day made it difficult to get things into perspective.
Race morning: Up at 3:30. banana, bagel, peanut butter and a pop tart for good measure. Lots of water, a little perform and off to transition. set up was easy breezy and then i spend the rest of the time trying to figure out the swim course.
The swim course was in this lovely N shape. there were yellow buoys, green buoys, and orange buoys, right turns, left turns etc. a little confusing. but the waters were still and calm ( at least, when 2000 people wernt thrashing around). NOLA is a time trial start, which I love. We started in waves, and each wave went off in groups of 8 a few seconds apart. It made swim start a lot more tolerable but I was 8 waves in, which means I also had to swim over a ton of people. But my new wetsuit kicked ass. After spending 8 years racing in a sleeveless, I finally splurged on a more-than-entry-level wetsuit with sleeves, and boy did it feel good. Oh, but I totally forgot to hit start on the garmin until about 400 meters in. So that was awesome.
Other than swallowing too much water, swim was great. 33:11, PR.
T1: LONG T1. I had a spot near bike out though, so that made up for it. Uneventful. Had a hard time getting out of my wetsuit, sleeves were an added challenge.
Bike: I had been told this was a notoriously windy course and this year was no different. I had been told that in general it was a head wind out, and a killer tail wind in which I knew I could handle. Jeff and I had done a ton of training in Galveston and I had plenty of experience in head wind for at least 50% of any given ride. Unfortunately, on race day headwind was the name of the game. looking at my data, it looks like there was about a 10 mile stretch we got some reprieve from the wind. My heart rate recovered a little bit and I was average about 24 mph but it was really short lived. In retrospect, I can tell from the data that I didn't do a great job of managing my effort over the entire bike course. The headwind on the second half was a real surprise, since the first 25 miles or so had already been brutal. My fault. Lesson learned. As far as nutrition: I have been experimenting with using EFS liquid shots during training. The taste is palatable, and it really had been working well, but I was supplementing with power bar gel blasts, perform and stinger waffles. Unfortunately, something didnt sit right on Sunday. I got off the bike with a little GI distress. Something I definitely need to work on before Brazil
T2: easy peasy. not much to discuss
Run: Ah, the run. Running is by far my favorite part of any tri and as usual I was excited about this. I came off the bike not feeling great but I need to remind myself that this usually shakes out in a couple miles, or at least once I get on the course and someone hands my some ice ( chewing ice ALWAYS settles my stomach on the run. Don't know why, all I know is that it works). The run course was lonely, windy, hot and FULL of long slow inclines (not steep, but enough to slow you down). Definitely not what I was expecting at all. Coming into training I was feeling super confident about my run, so as the 13 miles progressed and I realized it was not going to go the way I wanted, I was getting a little bit down on myself. But I just pushed through it, tried to keep cool and got the run done.
All in all, I am happy with my finish, but definitely have a few things to work on before IM Brazil. Great day off training ( and my healthy eating...mmmm tacos for dinner, back on track tomorrow!) but back to training and focusing hard until May 25th.
