After only six short days I was back on the road for another
race. Typically I like my R&R
so I wouldn’t set myself up like this but I knew I was doing a sprint the week
before and a buddy gave me a code for 50% off this race so I went for it.
Going into this race I looked at the course map and thought
eh it doesn’t look like there is too much elevation gain….boy was I wrong.
Let me start by saying this race used to be Rev3 and I did
not do it then so I am not sure how it was handled by them. In 2015 it was taken over by Challenge
and so that is what my report/review will be of. On to it…..
We got up there mid to late morning on Saturday and followed
the GPS directions to the INN where transition was. After packet pickup I started to look around for transition
and couldn’t seem to locate it.
This is when I realized that transition and the finish where not in the
same general area. No big deal we
asked for directions and jumped in the car. As I headed to find transition there were no signs,
indicators or people telling you where to go. I just found myself wandering around. As I turned around for the 3-4 time I
passed a park entrance and figured this is where it must be so I turned
in. Half of the entrance was blocked
so I needed to wait for cars to pull out so I could go in. In the meantime a park ranger came by
and told me I needed to turn around.
I figured there must be another entrance. There wasn’t.
Clearly he didn’t know I was there to drop off my bike. I turned in when he left and found
transition ok.
Fast forward to race morning and I set up transition and was
ready to roll. We jumped in for
the swim and the water felt great.
This was my first time swimming in open water where you could actually
see! Very nice course, until we
hit a huge patch of river life and I freaked out. The seaweed was so high you couldn’t really swim but there
were rocks and sketchy bottom so you couldn’t stand up either. I wish the RD or someone would have at
least given us a heads up but I made the best of it. Off on to the bike. Now this bike course was like nothing I have done
before. You leave transition and
you are almost immediately hit with a huge hill. This hill was so steep I actually witnessed people fall
because they could not go fast enough to keep their bike upright. From there we went down an on to a road
that was closed to traffic. This
road wasn’t closed because of the race though, the road was in such bad shape
that cars were no longer permitted to use it, yet we were riding our bikes on
it? I was not ok with this. After
that the course opened up and it was very nice. I was not too pleased with the
decision to include this road but understand it may have been out of their
control, either way I felt like I was placed in a rather unsafe situation.
Off the bike and on to the run. I made sure to take in some more nutrition on the bike
because of my last olmypic mistake.
(You can read about that here).
On to the run and I took the first mile a little conservative. Through the first 3-4 I was good. It was mostly a trail/XC style run
course, which was tough. For
whatever reason I lost it through the last few miles and I am hoping to correct
this next season. The run course
was tough I will give it that but I still should have had a better
performance.
Coming down the finish I was just excited to be done for the
day. It was very hot out there and
a tough course so it felt good to have it come to an end. As I said before I was not stoked on my
showing for this day and it was just a learning experience.
One thing that was super rad about this race was that I met
someone from Instagram who I have been following for some time now. Shari Ann Nelson is such an awesome
individual and I was happy to connect with her in the NormaTech tent. She is so nice and friendly and I am
glad we got a chance to chat.
Thanks for your advice and help! Check her out on facebook and
Instagram!
I only have one race left for the season and I am starting
to feel all of this training and racing.
Hopefully I can pull it together to go out and do it just one last time.
All for now, until next time
Keep FSU and Do It For Yourself
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