Hi there!
I just wanted to give a quick update after my weekend at the St. George 70.3 event.
I was really looking forward to testing my fitness at this race over the weekend. Things have been coming together nicely in training and I was eager to see how my day was going to shape up against a stellar field on (in my opinion) the hardest 70.3 course on the circuit.
Unfortunately, mother nature & a bike mechanical had other things in mind. I can count on 3 fingers the number of times I have had to pull the plug and not finish from a race and this weekend is one of them.
My day started out with a solid swim (in the new Roka Maverick X). Things were rolling along nicely the first part of the bike until about half-way through when my aerobars came loose. The first part of the course is on a super bumpy road and all I can figure is that the jarring of my bike caused one of the screws to come loose. This is a bit of mechanical misfortune, as I checked my bolts before starting the race and even went as far as to ask Dan from SRAM to double check them, something I never do! The bolt that came loose was from below where my water bottle cage sits. Lesson learned - check ALL of the bolts.
Despite this setback, I carried on maintaining an attitude of: give your best + get a good workout out of the day. Then it started to rain and the temps dropped. With my lean body composition this was not a good combo for me. By the time I finished the bike portion of the race I was freezing cold, shivering, not able to tie my shoes, low on calories, my breathing wasn't right, and not quite thinking (or running!) too straight.
I made the tough (but right) call to pull the plug on the day and warm-up.
The good news is I have pulled up quickly from Saturday and it's back to work. I am healthy, happy, and training plans are on the right trajectory as my eyes are towards my next race: Ironman Cairns on June 12th.
In case you didn't have the race you had hoped for over the weekend, my best advice is to keep on trucking. Bad races come and go. Get the pity party over with and maintain an attitude of "onto the next!" There's not much you can do about what has past, it's all about looking ahead, learning from mistakes, and getting excited for the next challenge.
I am sorry I wasn't able to do a better job of showcasing my fitness over the weekend, but I am maintaining a level-head about it all. This is just a small blip in the radar. Onward we march :)
We did have some great media around the event. You can read a nice interview I did with Triathlete Magazine here.
Until next time -
linsey