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Monroe, Louisiana
Time flies when you're training hard! The winter months have come and gone and it's officially tri season. My goal race is the Nautica South Beach Tri in Miami in April, but I was looking for a warm-up race before then. The Warhawk Triathlon fell into the perfect time frame for both myself and training buddy Brinn, who is getting ready for 5i50 New Orleans in a few weeks.
We got a late start on Friday evening because of the Hattiesburg Irish-Italian Fest 5K. We had 25 BRAND NEW runners from our New Beginnings Training Program complete the 5K. This group faced some serious challenges- pretty much every training run was cold, raining, or both. They are pretty tough, though. GREAT race turnout, perfect race-day weather, lots of happy faces, great success! Very proud!
We arrived to Monroe late and the morning came too soon. There was definitely a little anxiety about kicking the season off and racing again so I didn't get much sleep. We arrived early to the race site per usual to check in, get settled, and warm up. Somehow Brinn and I BOTH got our timing wrong and thought the race started at 7:30, so at 7:10 when we arrived to the pool ready to do our swim warm-up and the pool still wasn't open, we started freaking out a bit. The lifeguard arrived, we jumped in and did a couple hundred meters plus some pick-ups, then looked around confused at 7:30 when we were still one of the few athletes in the pool area. The race started at 8... Whoops! And that's why we're here- to get the mistakes out of our systems and PRACTICE! We spent the rest of the time with a long warm-up and practicing starts and turns.
Swim 6:06, 1:32/100m
The swim was a time-trial start with about 5 seconds between athletes. I was number 22 in the water and it was pretty congested. I asked the guys around me what their EST's were and they all said 5:30-5:45. LIARS! Within the first 50 I caught up with the person in front of me. By the next 50 we were swimming 3 wide with the guy two spots in front of me. I didn't feel comfortable trying to pass the guy in front of me and being able to hold pace, so I swam next to his hip for the next 100 and took advantage of some drafting. At the 200m mark, I decided I needed to pick it up and had a strong but still chaotic second half. All this week I'd been working on a strategy for snaking the pool, but the turns were too congested so my plan went down the drain. Finish time 6:06. A little slower than I expected, but ok considering all the congestion.
Bike 29:18, 22.5 mph
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Run 20:47, 6:57/mile
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Finishing up the run & cheesing big because I just won my first tri of the season! |
Finish 57:37. 1st Overall female
Took away some fun hardware and prize $$, which is ALWAYS a plus. This was a solid race for me. I'm happy with today's performance, but am more excited about this season. None of the legs were particularly outstanding, but none of them held me back. I'm looking forward to continued improvements. It's going to be a good summer!
Results HERE
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