Race Report: USAT Northeast Regional Championship 4th place 30-34 age group and 20th overall
So I have been full speed ahead on my training plan for 24 weeks now and Saturday was my first "A" race of the season. I was feeling healthy, strong and ready coming into this race. With age group nationals being so local this year in Burlington Vt I was expecting this race to be big and filled with talent, and that's exactly what it was. With the fog rolling onto the lake they had to delay the race for thirty minutes and also shorten the swim to aprox. 1/2 mile.
Once I got into the water I had a very smooth and clean swim. Transition went smoothly as usual and I was off on the bike.
Starting on wave two I had a lot of bikers ahead of me. I was passing groups of 20 racers during the whole race. This race course is very challenging and hilly so my legs seemed fatigue very early on. I didn't think I was going fast and the bike just seemed never ending which mentally and physically started to get draining.
As I came into T2 I had really wondered what was left in the tank for this hilly two loop run that was ahead of me. Luckily my training paid off, and I started my run as if I had fresh legs. I went about my run with very consistant splits and pushed hard all the way to the end. Luckily I saw Raphael Bingart near the turn around area and knew we were very close to even times after corrected timing. We are very competitive with each other so seeing him was very motivating as I did not want to lose to my training partner!!
On the second loop I saw him in about the same place so I knew I was running his pace, which is fast, we gave each other a high five and kept pushing. I came into the finish feeling pretty good about the race. I gave it my all and all my training paid off.
Despite the heavy legs on the bike I was faster in all three disciplines than the year prior and I hit all of my goal times. The kicker on all of this was the night before my race I was called out for work, an emergency had occurred and I didn't even know if I was going to be able to make the race. At 7 pm friday night I had to leave my house and work till 11:30pm. I came home, ate some dinner and tried to fall asleep for the next day's race. I think I got 3 hrs of sleep. So I am very happy with race result!!
Thank you coach Michael Donnelly and all of my training companions.
Race Report: Pawling Triathlon
The Pawling triathlon is a huge long-standing local triathlon. Even though it's not a pro or national event, the race sells out at 650 people some 6 months before the race. That's just incredible, so I decided to use this race as my tune up race for the Northeast champs. Last year was my first time racing the event and I wanted to come back with a vengeance and go for the win. Just walking around transition before the event started was a good feeling. It was a sea of Bikeway. There was about 20 or more of us racing and then even spectators had our jerseys on, it was awesome.
The race got on its way on time and I was fortunate to have gotten staged on the first wave and rack due to a good race result from last year's race.
I came out of the water in the top 5 which was fine with me. There was one swimmer who was just out!! I think he came out of the water almost 2 minutes faster than me, it was unreal. As I got into transition there was 3 or 4 of us all trying to do transition at the same time on my rack, but I got in and out and it was time to go catch the fast swimmers. By mile 4 I was in the lead with 2nd place hot on my tail and he didn't want to let go. We swapped places back and forth til about 3 miles to go when it was time to drop the hammer. I came into transitioon with a 30 second gap and never saw it shrink all the way to the finish line. I finished first place overall and brought home another win for TEAM BIKEWAY. It was great to race with everyone there and at the awards ceremony there was a huge cheer when I went up to get my trophy, and that felt great.
Coming up I have another "A" race in August and will be racing the week prior at the West Point Triathlon. The A race will either be USAT Age Group Nationals or Orange County Olympic Triathlon in Newburgh. Between now and then I will be doing a couple of local races and also two Xterra races in the north east. Bring on the race season!!
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