Acworth Women's Race Report!

I'm counting down to my final race of the year, Clearwater!

Today I raced a fun, local event that my sponsor helps to put on. It's an all women's race and is basically designed for beginners. It is a very short sprint: 400yd swim, 13 mile bike and a supposed 5k run.

Of course it's not any sort of an A race or anything, and quite honestly, though I do enjoy being finished in roughly an hour, sprints are just not my distance. However, I really like doing them as a test to my fitness level. How often are we told during our training to go threshold for over an hour?! So they make for great opportunities!

I had several little goals for the race...

1. Attempt to beat all of my splits from last year. In Sprint distance racing, this can sometimes be hard because there is not a lot of room to play with the time. But, I've got some pretty big room for improvement, so I figured I could do something small!

2. Hope to take off 1 min total from last year's time between the swim and transitions.

3. Come in the top on the bike and catch my teammate, Jennifer Lesser, who is an AMAZING swimmer, and whom I knew would be way up there coming out of the water before me. However, she's a great cyclist as well, so when I tried to catch her at Irongirl, it didn't happen. So I was prepared to work HARD today to try! :)

4. To continue working on trying to push on the run. I was told going into it that due to construction, they had to change it this year and they thought it was long... uhh.. yeah, it ended up being long.... 3.7 instead of 3.1! That's kind of a big difference for a sprint! :) So I was focusing on having a faster PACE than last year!

The good news is that I accomplished almost all of my goals!

Last year my swim was 6:49....This year 6:18, so a 31 second difference. Happy There! No I'm not a speedy swimmer. At least not yet! :) But I was pleased with the improvement. Oh, and my teammate Jennifer I mentioned earlier... she had the fastest swim of the day at a 5:05!! WOW!!

I wanted to focus on transitions on this race too. It never feels like I'm wasting any time in there, but I'm always on the slower side, so I was bound and determined to move my way through there today! T1 for last year..1:14.... T1 this year.. 1:04. Ok, again... pretty happy with that. Would like to see that go down to sub 1:00, but a 10 second make up from last year I'm happy with!

My bike I wasn't sure how much I could do with because I had a pretty good bike last year. The bike is short, but kind of hilly and I pulled off a 36:52 last year.... This year I did a 36:30. Again, really happy with that. I came in 3rd on the bike split for today! And I did finally catch Jennifer! Well, we kind of came in together pretty much. I beat her into T2 by seconds. And normally the bike is a place that I can work, but not kill myself and still do pretty well. Well today, I REALLY worked for that time!

T2... again, out to be super speedy! So far I've made up 41 seconds between the swim and T1, so I've got 19 seconds to go to meet my 1:00 time cut between all 3. Last year I did a 1:00 flat in T2 and this year I was at 45 seconds!! So, soooo close! I missed my goal by 4 seconds, but still happy! I'll take it and especially the sub min in there! THAT is a key thing I've been missing!

The Run... well here, is where I wasn't as happy. As usual I should probably say. I came out of T2 just ahead of Jennifer and another girl in my age group. Within the first few minutes, they'd both taken me. I came out of T2 in 4th place overall and ended up finishing 10th overall!

10 overall this year compared to 15th overall from last year... Yeah... that's great! But there is a part of me that wants to kick myself for losing it all there in the end! My run last year was a 23:58 for a 5k, which is a 7:44 pace. This year I ran a 28:53 for a 3.7 something run and again that is a 7:44 pace. It was a little hilly, but I CAN run faster than that.

I guess it's like I told Jen... there is something inside of me that doesn't want to go where I need to go to do what I need to do on that run. It's like I'm scared of running at that point where I feel like I can't catch my breath, and I'm going to fall over and puke at any second now! I know I can do it for 1/2 mile intervals, but I truly don't believe in myself that I can hold that for 3 miles, much less almost 4. It's like I'm running out there thinking, no... just hold back and conserve because if you don't, you'll blow up!

BUT... that's what makes these races so great! I can break it down and say, ok... this is what went right and THIS is what I need to focus on and learn, and take to the next level!

So overall I'm happy! I have a tendency to be really hard on myself about this kind of stuff, so I've had my kick myself moments and I'm now learning from it and moving on!

I've got 3 races left for the season, and I want each one to get me closer and closer to my season goals! An international race on Labor Day weekend at Callaway Gardens. I'm revisiting my first triathlon ever, so I'm really looking forward to that! The South Carolina 1/2 Ironman on September 28, and then CLEARWATER!!

So starting this week, as Jen put it, "Be Ready!" Game is on! Training is on full tilt! And I'm out to spend the next 3 months learning how to SUFFER for around 5 hours!! Anybody want to join me?!!

K