1st 20-24 AG, 9th Overall Female
4:52.13– 33:47 Swim, 2:34 Bike, 1:39 Run
Where to begin! Besides almost missing the 4am bus out of Boulder to the airport, the travels to Chicago where fairly smooth. Once I arrived, my grandparents picked me up and we headed to the race site to get Ben (yes, our crazy manager) on our way back to the house so he didn’t have to spend the nights in the ‘Black Falcon’. We couldn’t have been more spoiled – endless amounts of delicious food, company and great laughs. We played a little ‘Euchre’ (a great mid-west card game that gets a little too competitive sometimes) and my grandma and I totally kicked Ben and my mom’s butt, it was AWESOME!
The day before race day was also a great day. Early morning shake out run on the farm roads, fun times selling watches, building bike and hanging out at the Timex truck, and a little bike and swim to loosen up the muscles for next day.
Race Day – Since we were staying about an hour away from the site at my grandparent’s place, I had to get up at 4am and make sure to be on the road by 4:45am in order to get there about an hour and 15 minutes before the race start. I know that’s cutting it pretty close, but the bikes were already racked and I don’t usually need much time setting up in transition. Unfortunately when we arrived at the site, the 2600 other participants were all trying to get there around the same time and traffic was completely backed up to the parking lot which wasn’t even on site. Luckily, my mom had decided to come early with Ben and I and dropped us off on the side of the road so we could walk over to the site so I wasn’t late. If we had left a minute later, I would have for sure missed my swim start because we actually had a walk the 1.2miles down the beach in order to get to the swim start. We ended up running and I made it with about 45 seconds to spare! Talk about luck!
Swim – The waters in Lake Michigan were unusually high (75*) so I decided to try out the new Blue Seventy Pointzero3 skinsuit. Stellar choice as I would have completely overheated in a full wetsuit and this thing is super comfortable and fast as all can be, however, I didn’t have that great of a day in the water. I had a cold explode that morning and battled a little panic attack about half way through that was super frustrating.
Bike – Solid day on the roads and the Trek Equinox treated me quite well – especially after Ben gave it a good bath the day prior! The only complaint was the ridiculous amount of drafting going on in front of me that got me a little riled up and irritated and probably wasted a lot of unnecessary energy.
Run – Hang on baby, just hang on! Those were the words running through my head the entire 13.1 miles. After not eating or drinking hardly anything all day because my stomach was churning like crazy, I was literally running on fumes for the final leg of the race. I sucked it up and stomached two gels and that along with Ben biking along side of me gave me the strength and motivation to make it to the finish. Not the time I was aiming for, but definitely a good effort for what I had left to give.
Overall – It definitely was not the perfect race, however, I was pretty pleased and very happy with many of the aspects of it. It was awesome to have the family there to cheer me on as well as the support from Ben and Timex. It would never have been as much fun as it was had Ben not locked his keys inside the truck having to saw off the lock and watching all the happy fans as we ran down the finish shoot tossing free hats out to the crowd! A weekend to remember!
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