Syracuse 70.3

“Fear is gradually replaced by excitement and a simple desire to see what you can do on the day.” -Lauren Fleshman

“When you put yourself on the line in a race and expose yourself to the unknown, you learn things about yourself that are very exciting.”
– Doris Brown

I couldn’t decide between the quotes, both were perfect. I have to be honest, I was really nervous for this. This triathlon shindig is a whole new world for this runner. The training is different, the gear is different, the whole process is different. I gain a lot of confidence from training and racing. However there hasn’t been any races and I feel I haven’t been getting in enough of one sport to gain the confidence I’m used to gaining from running. Nonetheless, trust your training, trust yourself, and trust your coach.

I had no time goals for this race, I thought it would be cool to hit close to 5:30 but other than that my race goals were:
1) have run
2) smile
3) make it hurt

It’s safe to say that I successful hit all three. I haven’t had this much fun racing since HS (sad I know). I genuinely just had so much fun. I loved having 10+ people from Ithaca in the race and I loved seeing them out there! I loved starting with Amanda, tears and all.

Swim: 42:19
This was an 11 minute PR. No, you’re not misreading it, but you can reread it 😉 there was no anxiety from open water swimming, chest wasn’t tight. The water was a perfect 69 degrees. I got kicked in the face, I got hit a bunch of times, but I was fine with it. I finally got into a good rhythm around the 7th bouy, so it took a while but then I was in a happy place. YES, I was in a happy place swimming. So I just kept swimming (yes I did sing it). Coming to the finish, I realized how happy I was swimming which excited me because I was close to biking. The day was only going to get better.

Bike: 3:07:19
I was content with my bike. It’s a pretty hilly course and I didn’t feel like I killed myself. I was smart and happy to be out with Timmy, who did a great job by the way 😉 A friends dad was able to give me some great advice while i was picking up my numbers.. It really stuck with me. He told me that I had done this all before.. that I’ve been in crazy races that go out too fast and I’ve been in races where I’ve had to dig deep to reach goals.. He said this would be no different, as long as I was smart in the beginning of the bike and let it go in the run. I doubt he knows how much that really impacted me. It finally made me ready to race. But back to the bike, the guys kept flying by me but I was passing a lot of women so Timmy and I just kept chugging along taking in food and osmo active. There was no upset tummy and no bloated feeling, it was great! There was a lot of bike love in the race. I was smiling at the country side, so happy to be home and so happy to see the beauty. I was almost sad I had to depart from Timmy, but then I was finally able to run.

See, I was smiling 🙂

Run: 1:38:00
I WAS SO HAPPY TO GO RUN. I could keep hearing Brian saying slow down, slow down, hold back, keep it relaxed. I hadn’t seen the run course, but it heard it was hilly. There’s no way it could be hillier than Ithaca so I came up with a game-plan: shuffle up the hills, run the downhills and flats. It was perfect. So that’s what I did, and I looked for people I knew. First was Beth (who looked awesome, completely crushing it), then Amanda, Jim, Paul, Katherine, Tom x2, Laura, Craig and Jessica, along with all the people who came to watch. First loop came and went, I shuffled, ran, drank water, took some gels and made it back to the turn around, sad that I only had one more loop. After the first uphill back out, I was happy that there was only one more loop, but I was planning on making it hurt. It did. A lot. I wanted no regrets and I was going to make that happen. I just started moving more with 2.5 miles to go. I remembered to ditch the sponges with about a mile to go. By the way, I just have to say, sponges are awesome. I loved that idea, come on running races, get with it! Final downhill in the grass, could here the finish line, it gave me goosebumps, I just started running harder. Then I could see it, silly thing is I think I kicked. Then it was done.

 

I saw my mom, Alex, Marie and Gilly and was so happy. Then I sat on some ice which was equally as awesome as the sponges. I wanted to do it again. I love that distance. 5:33:46. A 20 minute pr. Everything came together, there was no negative thoughts, that’s right, none. I’m excited to get to Placid, but first a little vacation to England and then a few more solid weeks of training.

A big shout out to Brian for coaching me, Dale and Gerrit for keeping me healthy, family and friends for keeping me sane, calm and dealing with me. Oiselle team for the constant support and love. Coeur for support, courage and extremely comfortable clothes that make me feel and look good! 😉