Tri the Mountains
We had an amazing time this weekend at Escape to Blue Ridge- Tri the Mountains! AJ Petrillo, Georgia Multisports and co put on a great race. After a weeklong battle with a lake bug I was uncertain about my original decision to race in the OPEN/ ELITE category, but I felt bad backing out.
We started in the front. There were five women and about ten men. For possibly the first time ever I was ‘first out of the water.’ Running into transition, I was excited by that and had a great transition time.
After that, I instantly burned up my lead with an insane shoe fumble. My body hadn’t gone hard in awhile so I think the whole racing thing was especially shocking and my whole body was shaking trying to get my feet in my shoes. It was epicly terrible. #2 Rebecca Rush who is a great cyclist caught me back in short order and keeping her in my sights was a solid effort. I did pass her once just to check that I was giving it an honest effort and that pass didn’t last long. I was satisfied with dropping back a little on each hill and catching up again on the flats and downhills being careful to allow a few extra bike lengths so there would be no question when the official came by. I am fortunate in that my Felt IA from Podium allows me to go fast on the fast parts of the course, even when my legs aren’t feeling it!
At the turnaround it looked like Katie and Julie were catching up and I saw John right there too, though he had started six minutes behind me. Kept on the gas to the end and transitioned right behind Julie. Got out quick on the run and relaxed a bit when I saw we were over a minute ahead of the next two ladies. My legs were feeling pretty bad on the uphills on the bike so my run plan was to maintain a steady pace as long as no one was in sight behind me.
The run course was mostly uphill and lonely though it was great to see everyone from Podium at the top of the first hill. Matt yelled at me to just keep a steady pace and I didn’t see anyone around. I chugged through the first two miles and my legs definitely were not feeling too springy. The last little bit goes into downtown and I sneaked a look back to make sure I had it and saw John creeping up again. Well that motivated me enough to take the pace way down the last quarter mile as I didn’t want to get passed in the chute (though of course he was far ahead of me clock time).
It turns out Julie and Katie made up a ton of time on the run so so my pacing plan worked but barely! Julie finished only 20″ behind. It was cool to be first across the line and win the open but I had a few mixed feelings about racing in the category. For one, not all the fastest women in the race did choose open so it wasn’t a true race against your competition. Two of the women who started with the group had faster times. I would have liked to have us all racing together instead and it would have changed the dynamic of the race, possibly the outcome, and certainly enabled us all to go a bit faster. On the plus side it was fun to think about strategy instead of racing against the clock. And it was fun to win money at a race which doesn’t happen every day. This is actually only the second time I’ve won money at a triathlon.
Right now I am signed up to race open again at Lake Logan so I’ll give it another shot! After I crossed I waited to see how everyone elses’s races went down. For Energy Lab athletes, friends, and other ATC and Podium pals, it was an awesome day! Also, there were shiny kits from Endurance Concepts, ITL, Freeflite and just about every other group in town. It truly was a community race!
Fast newcomer to the sport Jodi racing to the finish!
John DeKock and John got bumped into the OA after the removal of the open guys. They both had fast and oddly quite similar times!
Deirdre had a solid race despite being sick and ended up top of the AG
Michelle ended up third in the AG with a super solid bike split and besting her previous sprint pr by eight minutes
Lisa was not feeling great either with a back tweak but still rocked the Podium with 2nd AG
Other ATCers did amazingly well and had podiums and PRs all over the place. Team Podium was out in force and took a ton of awards, too. All in all, a great day and we’ll be back again next year! Ten more weeks to go in #12weeksallin!
