Warhawk Triathlon Race Report

March 15, 2014
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


Today I wanted to see what I was capable of with the bike. I've had some pretty solid rides over the past few weeks and have been feeling some real improvements. Today I wanted to see those on paper. I felt strong from the beginning. There were a lot of turns, but when I wasn't slowing down or speeding up, I was putting in some fast efforts and I felt like things were finally meshing. The course was flat, but challenging. After the race someone said they didn't realize they were going to be doing a crit today. On the drive home, I replayed the course in my head and counted 19 turns. But there may have been more... 29:18, 22.5 mph. Not as fast as I was expecting, but I still feel good my moving speeds.

Run 20:47, 6:57/mile

Finishing up the run & cheesing big
because I just won my first tri
of the season!

Most of my anxiety for today was about the run. I didn't know how my body would be feeling at this point or how it would respond to the fatigue today. The past few weeks have been pretty volatile. One of the guys on the bike told me the girl behind me was a strong runner, so I needed to move it. Focus on form, get my head in the game, quick feet, don't think about how bad it sucks- you can rest in 21 minutes, just keep moving. A couple men passed me with some speed, but no sign of any girls (I peeked on the turns). Most of the course was on concrete sidewalks, which made me nervous. I tried to stay on the asphalt as much as I could to avoid the harder surface, even if it meant a few extra steps. 3 miles felt long... I don't think I had much more speed today, but once I got into a rhythm things were ok. I think I'm set up for some strong 10k's this summer (fingers crossed!).

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