Alligator Creek Triathlon
Pretty good race if I may say so myself... I woke up pretty early and made the drive from Columbia to O'Fallon. I set my alarm for PM instead of AM so I woke up a little late but only by 8 minutes. Somehow I woke up on my own.
After a little over an hour of driving we got to O'Fallon. The race site was easy to find and down came the bike as I did the routine checkover. Okay, basically I just wanted to put air in my tires and make sure that it rolled. Transition was decent. The bike out was going to be downhill so that was nice. The only bad thing was that the dismount lines were pretty far away from the racks on both ends. I had ever done this race before so I was racing blind in terms of the course. Here goes nothing....
I have the worst luck with swims these days. I actually felt really good in the water... which is probably why I caught the guy in front of me (15 second intervals mind you) by the time I did the first 25. On the way to the 50 yard mark, I tapped his feet a couple of times but to no avail. And he proceeded to swim down the middle of the lane. Well since it was a serpentine swim, I couldn't just pass him as I might take out someone swimming in the other direction. At one of the walls, we touched at the same time and I pushed off first only to to discover that the idiot had pushed off on top of me... are you kidding? So this continued pretty much up until the 200 yard mark when I finally passed him and took off...
Running to transition was almost brutal as we climbed a mountain of stairs and then still had some running uphill to do after that. Wasn't the quickest transition but it was okay. Once on the bike, I powered up the first set of hills before settling down into a more relaxed rhythm on much flatter roads. Upon looking down to see what my average pace was, I noticed that I was going 0 mph. Thinking to myself, the computer must just be wet, it'll kick in soon... wrong. I had left my magnet on my training wheels back in Columbia. Damn. I have never ridden a race without my computer. The only thing I had was the clock on the computer which had my accurate biking time. Some quick math told me that I'd have to do the 18 mile course in about 54 minutes to average 20 mph. I didn't have any problems out on the bike, and actually felt better than I have in a very long time. It might have had something to do with the fact that I returned to racing with my old Spinergy Rev-Xs but at least the rims are solid and I'm not afraid to brake with them. Rolled into transition at 54 minutes and some change.
Transition to the run was really slow. I need to get some new shoes as the heels of my current shoes are broken down really badly and aren't as easy to slip on as they used to be. Got a little disoriented leaving transition and had to ask people which way to go but nothing too bad. Once out on the run, I was really worried because everyone said that the hills were horrible. Great... my weakness. I have been trying to avoid the MKT trail lately and do some hillwork throughout the week and I think that it paid off. The course was definitely the second hilliest of my season but I didn't feel very bad. I kept a pretty consistent pace and didn't fall apart. I averaged 7:49 which doesn't seem all that fast but considering the hills, I'll take it. Especially with averaging something like 11:00 minute miles at Quartermax.
I finished with a time of 1:26:17. Good enough for 4th (or should I say just shy of placing... bah humbug). So this would be my second time this season that I've missed the podium by a hair. Some cyclist named Sara Nelson came out of nowhere and beat me by 29 seconds. Hmmm... the regulars aka Jennifer Meyer and Helen Alexander-Kratz beat me but I was expecting that.
Great race... I liked the course enough to make a return trip next year. Hopefully I'll have a better result as well...
After a little over an hour of driving we got to O'Fallon. The race site was easy to find and down came the bike as I did the routine checkover. Okay, basically I just wanted to put air in my tires and make sure that it rolled. Transition was decent. The bike out was going to be downhill so that was nice. The only bad thing was that the dismount lines were pretty far away from the racks on both ends. I had ever done this race before so I was racing blind in terms of the course. Here goes nothing....
I have the worst luck with swims these days. I actually felt really good in the water... which is probably why I caught the guy in front of me (15 second intervals mind you) by the time I did the first 25. On the way to the 50 yard mark, I tapped his feet a couple of times but to no avail. And he proceeded to swim down the middle of the lane. Well since it was a serpentine swim, I couldn't just pass him as I might take out someone swimming in the other direction. At one of the walls, we touched at the same time and I pushed off first only to to discover that the idiot had pushed off on top of me... are you kidding? So this continued pretty much up until the 200 yard mark when I finally passed him and took off...
Running to transition was almost brutal as we climbed a mountain of stairs and then still had some running uphill to do after that. Wasn't the quickest transition but it was okay. Once on the bike, I powered up the first set of hills before settling down into a more relaxed rhythm on much flatter roads. Upon looking down to see what my average pace was, I noticed that I was going 0 mph. Thinking to myself, the computer must just be wet, it'll kick in soon... wrong. I had left my magnet on my training wheels back in Columbia. Damn. I have never ridden a race without my computer. The only thing I had was the clock on the computer which had my accurate biking time. Some quick math told me that I'd have to do the 18 mile course in about 54 minutes to average 20 mph. I didn't have any problems out on the bike, and actually felt better than I have in a very long time. It might have had something to do with the fact that I returned to racing with my old Spinergy Rev-Xs but at least the rims are solid and I'm not afraid to brake with them. Rolled into transition at 54 minutes and some change.
Transition to the run was really slow. I need to get some new shoes as the heels of my current shoes are broken down really badly and aren't as easy to slip on as they used to be. Got a little disoriented leaving transition and had to ask people which way to go but nothing too bad. Once out on the run, I was really worried because everyone said that the hills were horrible. Great... my weakness. I have been trying to avoid the MKT trail lately and do some hillwork throughout the week and I think that it paid off. The course was definitely the second hilliest of my season but I didn't feel very bad. I kept a pretty consistent pace and didn't fall apart. I averaged 7:49 which doesn't seem all that fast but considering the hills, I'll take it. Especially with averaging something like 11:00 minute miles at Quartermax.
I finished with a time of 1:26:17. Good enough for 4th (or should I say just shy of placing... bah humbug). So this would be my second time this season that I've missed the podium by a hair. Some cyclist named Sara Nelson came out of nowhere and beat me by 29 seconds. Hmmm... the regulars aka Jennifer Meyer and Helen Alexander-Kratz beat me but I was expecting that.
Great race... I liked the course enough to make a return trip next year. Hopefully I'll have a better result as well...
posted by Nikki Reed Difani at 7:43 PM
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