Chattanooga Waterfront Race Report 2014
Pre-Race
I had very low expectations for this race so ended up being pleasantly surprised. It definitely took the pressure off! I wasn’t sure how my foot would hold up to running a 10k, and I wasn’t sure how well my RockTape would stay on during the swim. Also, I traditionally have bad luck at this race. In 2011, I had a horrible respiratory infection and ended up dropping out, freaked out by the rattling in my chest and inability to breathe. (Pleurisy.. which for some reason certain people in the club love to tease me about. I think it’s terrible, don’t you??) In 2012, I did the race, but had a temperature, which is not a good way to do into the fires of Chattanooga (side effect of a new bc pill- constant fever, yuck). And in 2013, I got sick the week of the race and stayed home.. I literally did not leave the couch Friday- Sunday and missed the “duathlon” Because of all that history, I wanted to just have fun and get through the race without incident. Now onto the race….
Swim
I was thinking this swim might be reminiscent of the great swim of 2012. In 2012 John and I started together and draft off each other and I found some fast feet and swam away. Boy was I proud. Alas, it was not meant to be this time. John swam around me and took off and I couldn’t keep up. Actually I felt kind of terrible in the water.. my shoulder was giving me trouble and I could feel that I was slow without a watch. All in all I ended up a full 3′ slower than in 2012. I know my swim is not worse so I’m not too worried.. just more the IM build and the shoulder/nerve issues in full affect right now.
Bike
On to the bike. I was messing with my power meter a bit the first few miles and finally got it going. Legs were burning a surprising amount for the effort (turns out my seat had slipped about 1.5 cm.. just enough to be annoying and uncomfortable)
My power wasn’t quite what I thought it should be. I kept reminding myself that I always feel that way on this particular bike course and just to go with it. I had looked at my splits from the past few years. (it was one of my first races in 2009 and I’ve started it a total of 5 times and finished 4 times.. but that’s a whole nother story) It seems as though my bike split gets exactly one minute faster every year so in my mind I would be happy with another one minute gain. It was actually nice to have that carrot to focus on. Usually I’m not looking at total time or speed, but on this day, on a short race, I was able to use it as a stick the last few miles.
Run
Run time. I had no idea how this was going to go. I usually have my worst relative run splits at Chatt… because of the sun and heat.. and stairs and a giant hill make the first and last miles pretty slow for me, too. Started out and I was huffing and puffing like a freight train.. which isn’t at all unusual. Legs felt worse than usual but they were turning over okay. I definitely felt sort of out of practice in terms of holding that intensity for a long period of time. Racing is just something you have to do regularly in my opinion.
I also remembered that the first and last miles are slow becuase of all the stairs and big hill, and not to become discouraged. I saw lots of the ATC guys on their way back so that was nice. I also knew exactly where I would see John.. him several minutes ahead now on the turnaround. In my mind if I could do around 7:15s that would be a PR for the course.
Foot only hurt one time.. a minor fork in my posterior tib type pain that reminded me to be super careful on position. I tip toed around the turns and pushed through my big toe. Last mile I couldn’t see total time but I know it would be close with a run course PR. Ended up at 44 something which is about a minute PR for the course. I raced this one with possibly a little less fitness than usual, but the upside of my “rest month- April” is that I am not as deep in a hole as I normally would be 3 weeks pre-IM. Also, the heat and humidity was bad, but I sort of felt like it might be a little less bad than in previous years.
All in all a good race. I was bummed when I found out about my slow swim time.. that basically negated all the time savings I netted on the bike and run. Ended up 1st in AG and 6th OA.. close to 5th but quite far from 1-3. For me at a competitive Oly, I have to be happy at that. I am definitely more competitive in half and full IM so this will probably be the only international distance I do each year.
I was excited to see others perform well. Lots of ATCers on the podium. Actually we had someone up there in almost every category! Also, it was cool that Mishael finished her first Oly and Matthew (huge PR), Karen (Huge PR), Rich (esp considering his Saturday century), and Dan (massive bike split and podium) had awesome races. Great to see ATC and Energy Lab represented so well. I was very proud!
