We arrived at the race venue on Saturday afternoon. Within a few minutes of checking out transition I learned that the race officials had announced at the pro meeting that there would likely not be a swim the next day on account of the waves that were being predicted. Ugh, but oh well. I hoped for the best.
We stayed at a nice cottage on a small lake approximately 30 minutes from the race venue with our friends. Race morning we awoke to no wind and great weather. I was optimistic that we would swim. We drove to the race site and the wind was CRAZY! Sand was blowing everywhere and there were white caps out on Lake Michigan. I knew right away that we were not going to swim. Sure enough, they announced that there would be no swim and that there was a small watercraft advisory. I didn't even bother unpacking my swim equipment and just took extra time to set up my bike, do a run warm up, and hit the bathroom.
Similar to NOLA, we lined up by age group on the start line and were sent off 1 at a time, approximately 3-5 seconds apart. My goal going into the race was to really push the bike and see if I could still get off the bike and run. With the swim being cancelled, I knew I really had to push the bike. I decided not to let any other girls in my age group pass me. For a while there was a lot of jostling. At one point another girl and I had to slow almost to a stop to allow an ambulance to pass. This allowed some other girls to coast past us. I got on it and muscled my way back into contention. The bike pretty much went on like this until the last 5 miles or so. I had run out of salt tablets in my dispenser and needed to pull some out of my back pocket. This resulted in me having to coast and soft pedal. Needless to say, about 4-6 girls in my age group passed me. Again, I muscled it back into contention, but was unable to catch one of them. I rode into transition, and was pleased with my power average, my cadence, and my bike split.
After a not so fast transition, I racked my bike and headed out to the run. I felt a little more tired than usual, but still felt good running. I was able to hang around my goal pace until I hit a big hill on the 2nd loop of the run and had to slow up by about 20 seconds. The last 2-3 miles were tiring, but I made it in, and was happy with my run split.
Overall, it was a good race for me. I achieved my goal of pushing the bike and still being able to run. I PR'ed both my bike and my run split and feel pretty strongly that I could have achieved the same performance (or very close to it) even with a swim beforehand. I placed better OA than I had at NOLA, but it is still very clear to me that not swimming negatively impacts my competitiveness relative to the rest of the field.
My nutrition worked well, and I had no GI/stomach/pain issues--which is a huge accomplishment for me!
I gained more confidence in my racing abilities at this event and learned even more which will help me prepare for the upcoming world championship races in Las Vegas and Kona.
* I need to better organize my nutrition on the bike to have quick access. This time I taped gels on my top tube, and that worked well, but I need to move my salt stick dispenser to a different, more easily accessible location. I also think I will add another salt stick dispenser to my bike to prevent the pocket digging issue. I am going to investigate getting a gel flask to mount on my bike to see if that will make the process more streamlined.
* I know that I can push the bike a bit and still get off and run well. I can bike just as fast as the other girls and be competitive in all aspects of the race.
* Given that the weather was overcast and cooler that day, I probably didn't need to visit every aid station. I was passed by another girl on the run and noted that she seemed to put time into me at each aid station. In the future, I will take the weather conditions, etc. into consideration and may run through every other aid station to improve my run split.
* I continue to need work on getting my transitions faster. I will practice this in preparation for the next 2 races.
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