2012 USAT Age Group Nationals

USAT Age Group National Championship- Burlington, VT August 18th Olympic Distance

Well there is certainly alot to say about this race. First of all, this was my first Nationals at Olympic distance.

Over the past couple months my body has been rebelling against me and I have been plagued with lots of ailments. I won't bore you with them all. But going into this race I actually was starting to feel like myself again (finally).

I arrived the day before the race, so I was able to get in the water with my coach. Holy waves! I felt like I was at the ocean!! So that was a whole different thing for me. I was hoping race day wouldn't be as bad as this! But after swimming around a bit, I started to feel more comfortable. And of course my coach had lots of words of wisdom.

The day of the race started out calm and perfect temperature. As race time approached the wind picked up and the lake again was very angry. But I was confident that I could conquer this water. My wave of 130 women ages 40-44 went off one hour later than the race started. Teammate Sarah Borell was in my age group,which was nice to have a familiar face in the mix, but I knew I couldn't keep up with this swim star. This was one big race, over 2500 people racing, 900 of which were women. I jumped in the water for a little warm up and soon found that despite the large swells I actually felt comfortable. When the horn blew I started out and made my way through the rough water, occasionally not being able to see the buoy because of the swells or the blinding sun. I may have been a little crooked a few times. But happily I got out of the water in 30 min, which for me in that water was very good.

Off on the bike I went feeling happy the swim was over and ready to hammer. After 2 miles I hit a big bump and lost my water bottle. Crap! I had to ride the whole way with no fluids what so ever, but I did have some Clif blocks that I could suck on. Just after that happened, teammate Raphael Bingert came up next to me with a friendly face and off he went. The ride was great besides some strong winds. I came into transition in 1:10 which is what I had figured. Getting off the bike I was concerned how my back and feet were going to feel, but luckily everything felt pretty darn good. So I took off to the large hill right out of transition and then boogied. I just kept picking the ladies off, didn't' matter what age I just wanted to see how many I could pass. As I came into the shoot there was one last women and oh yeah she was in my age group. I of course had to pass her! I finished the run in 41 minutes and final time of 2:26. I was happy with that. May not have gotten me podium but that's ok.

On the birght side, not one woman passed me after I got out of the swim for the whole rest of the race. What a great experience, I am blessed to be able to do this and race against such amazing athletes. I ended up 30th in my age group. I am confident that I will get better and faster in my new age group!! At the finish there were more friendly Team Bikeway faces, Gilles Bensabeur and Jill Hartley who did fantastic. And Sarah Borrell and Raphael who did great as well. I am sure there were more team mates, but finding them was another thing! So congrats to everyone. And thank you to the guys at the shop for putting on those awesome wheels!!

- cheers