After finishing up the MMM, I had left my bike in Canton, MI, because it was not shifting properly and I had taken a chunk out of the carbon frame with my chain. Thankfully, it was just cosmetic. Since I have had issues before getting into town the day of a tri, I opted to drive up to MI the day before so that I would have time to pick up my bike, race packet, take the kids to the beach, and then out to dinner at Noodles & Co, my favorite pre race restaurant.
Here are a few pics from the beach the night before the tri:
With the race not until 6pm, it was a long day leading up to it. When you live out of town and don't come back very often, there are lots of people you need to see. The day included going to a splash park, playground, neighborhood pool, and slip n slide at my in laws. Crazy day considering I had to race still, but whatever. I was going to be super hot again, so my expectations were more to just have fun. Here are a few pictures of the day of the race, before the race.
I finally felt like I could leave the kids to head over to the race site. I got there, and it just didn't feel the same without a lot of my former TIA buddies. Cristina was not there, because she was on vacation. I found Robbie and Kari, and got ready for the start. I was racing AG instead of elite, because I am now in Kari's AG (35-39), and would rather start with her than by myself. I am really glad I did.
My swim was OK. Nothing fabulous, because it was a non wetsuit swim. My time was better than my pool times, which was a boost, and I came out just a few seconds after Kari. I passed Kari on the bike right out of transitition, but we were back and forth a lot. We were super close to the same pace, and I finally had to back off a bit. I didn't want to get caught for drafting, and keeping up with her was just a bit overtaxing. I kept her in sight, and we ended up with nearly identical bike splits. This race reminded me of when I used to race in the same AG as Colleen K. Kari really pushed me like Colleen did. And similar to Colleen, I was able to catch Kari on the run. I didn't quite have a PR, because it was hot, and my run speed wasn't there (and my swim on the race where I had my PR was a wetsuit and SUPER fast -meaning short). However, I was close, and finished fast enough to be considered "elite" still. Nice.
The funniest thing is that since I had a last minute wave change out of elite, they had me in the wrong wave when I checked the results. They had me starting 20 minutes later than the first gun, not 15, and so my swim time was a BLAZING 14 minutes! Yes, that was totally wrong! It looked nice up there, and put me in 3rd place! It was funny because had I not said anything or noticed, no one else would have. It is not uncommon for someone with my run and bike times to have a swim time like that! I got it corrected, and dropped down to 6th. Not too shabby for my first race in this new AG. I looked at the other results, and had I not moved up, I would have been 4th, if you count the other person who was also 35 that was ahead of me in my own age group and drop the 30 year old who just moved up too, as if none of us has changed. Oh well. It was fun, though! My official time was 1:23:57. That is something to be happy about, though. Especially because my PR had a fast swim time and was not nearly as hot out. I had a bike PR too.
I'll try to get my Muncie recap up shortly. I am also working on a guest post that is pretty inspirational. I'm hoping it will help me as I try to recover from this illness.
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