Race Report: Boulder 70.3 June 15, 2014

June 15, 2014 – my first race of this year.  I can’t believe how time is flying by…Lucas and I planned to have raced twice by now, but had to cancel or postpone due to various work and life circumstances.

This race has been special to me mostly because it’s on “home turf” and people I know and care a lot about come out to watch and support me and the other competitors.  My workplace, Frasier Meadows Retirement Community (one of my sponsors, too!), has brought a group of residents for the 3rd year in a row now to spectate and cheer.  I LOVE THIS!  I love to blend my two worlds..it’s very special to share my triathlon passion and my love for those I work with/for.  I want to say a big THANK YOU to Dave Christen, Boulder 70.3 and Ironman Boulder race director, and his crew for taking care of my work folks…he sets them up with a prime spot for viewing transition and finish line, provides a tent, chairs, and water bottles for them.  It’s so helpful and so caring.

Now, for the “report” — this race went okay. It wasn’t my best performance, by far, but I am not surprised.  Overall, I am happy with it, because in light of all that I have on my plate BESIDES training, and the dips in motivation I have felt over the past year (or two), I felt I did a pretty good job with what I had to give on race day.

T1 was terrible – my timing chip got caught in my wetsuit and I struggled to get it over my foot and off.  You know when you work TOO hard at something and make it even worse — slowing down to figure it out instead of continuing to yank on it would have worked better.  I ended up having to sit on the ground and pull like crazy, while my coach Curt Chesney tried to maintain his composure from the sidelines yelling in his best supportive voice “Whitney, COME ON!”  Haha!  It does make me laugh… now!  I know that my slow transitions have been a source of frustration for him!

My bike was decent – again, not the best I’ve done by far, but I felt pretty strong and consistent.  I made up some ground on a few girls who had gotten out of the water ahead of me (or out of T1 ahead of me while I wiggled around trying to get the darn neoprene suit off my foot!)

The Boulder run course is challenging because of the hills, some uneven footing (it’s almost all on dirt/small gravel), and almost zero shade.  I have run well here in the past, though.  This time…disappointing.  I have been running really well in practice but on race day I didn’t have the capacity to dig deep enough to run how I should have.  I think the main problem was that I was running in “no man’s land” — no one was coming up right behind me where I had to push hard to stay ahead of them, and the girl in front of me was a little TOO far ahead for me to keep an eye on her and stay motivated to push hard and catch her.  I was uncomfortable ENOUGH (I was certainly not jogging!) to just maintain my pace and not dig real deep.  Which ended me up in 9th place overall, and about 5-6 minutes slower than I should have run that course (ouch).

Lesson learned:  You can’t do everything well when you’re spread really thin!  But I already knew that.  I celebrated finishing the course (a few pro women did drop out for various reasons), having wonderful spectators there to support me:  my “Frasier Fan Club”, Lucas, his dad Rusty and step-mom Mary Ann were there are well!, my coach Curt Chesney, and many friends/training partners/acquaintances out on the course cheering me on.  That felt really good, and I truly enjoyed myself.  I am now more motivated and excited about my next race…the Vineman (full) on July 26th.

Thank you to my sponsors:

Tyr – swimwear and wetsuit

Gu Energy – training and race quality nutrition

Zeal Optics – sunglasses

Frasier Meadows – workplace and general sponsor

Retul – bike fitting

Robin Sharp – personal shoe sponsor

Rusty McCain – bike sponsor

And thank YOU for reading!