The day before I got a horrid sore neck, couldn't even turn my head, I spent most of Saturday trying anything I could to try to regain some motion and was somewhat successul, but still nowhere close to 100% this morning. But up early and off to the race.
SWIM
Warmup just did a shortish swim, it was way easier to breath to the right with my neck so I was not doing bilateral breathing the whole time. Swim start was not good for me, I started off a little too hard and in the middle of a big fast pack and I got a bit panicky, so I moved over to the side to get some space and took some extra breaths, going off to the side though meant that I couldn't see anyone in front of me, and in true Lise style, went a good distance off course in the swim. Came around the last buoy (It was an out and back swim) and i totally got my stride. The second half of the swim felt way better.
2:08 min/ 100m
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| focused and ready to swim |
T1
As per chris's advice I didn't sit down and had a well setup transition so I cut over a minute off my last T1, that was awesome.
BIKE
Bike felt amazing right from the start, I felt like I was flying, even up the hills I was able to stand and sprint...... I was wearing an aero helmet for the first time and it felt pretty awesome, HOWEVER, the strap on the helmet came undone just over halfway or maybe a bit longer into the bike, so I had to stop and try to fix it, but in my panic I couldn't figure out what happened and thought I lost part of the clip so I tried to tie it on and kept going. The tie came undone and I kept trying to tie it on the fly but it wouldn't stay. At this point the right thing to do would have been to DQ myself.... but I didn't. I kept going with only 3-4km left I couldn't do it. I do feel bad about this because it is pretty unsafe to ride with a faulty helmet. When i got into transition the marshal noticed it was undone and got mad at me also and said I should have been DQ'd, she didn't do it, but then I felt super bad and a bunch of people passed me in T2 while she was talking to me. Lesson learned, my fault for not really checking over the equipment before hand, just getting more lazy with my preparation as I'm getting less nervous.... won't happen again or next time I'll DQ myself or really stop and try to fix it. Doesn't help that I got my personal record and top bike time in my AGE group
33.1 km/hr
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| on the bike with the helmet in quesion |
T2
Good other than slowed down by being lectured about unsafe helmet
RUN
Best run yet, felt better than ever, had a good pace and kept it. Not a lot of hills on this course which was a bonus, but I booked my under 5min/km pace that I've been shooting for. The only falter in this was the poor marking of the course, I thought I was coming into the end and sprint to pass someone, BUT had a km to go. Killed my legs and then they passed me again... how embarassing, then by the time I realized it was the finish I had less than 100m sprint.
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| awesome pic, jumping the sign. Thanks to chris for the pictures and company! :D |
4:58 min/km
Over all got 5/24 in AGE, 26/155 in WOMEN and 113/359 OVERALL. Final Time 1:20:03
Pretty good performance, tainted a bit by my moral dilemma on the bike, but live and learn I suppose! I won't let it happen again, that's for sure!!!!
