The Giant Eagle Triathlon

My first olympic distance pro race back since my injury! I was very excited and nervous to be racing again. It was a little nerve racking as I had no idea how I would feel in my first longer race back. Anyway, leading up to the race I had a nice and relaxing taper week up north in Cheboygan, MI enjoying beautiful Mullet Lake with my family. I had a chance to bike some very hilly routes and train in a clear and wonderful lake with either Ross or my dad kyaking next to me to guide me through my swim workouts. It is fun to switch the training up like that sometimes! Soon, it came time to unpack from vacation to quickly pack up for the trip to Ohio. Ross and I headed down to Columbus for the Giant Eagle Triathlon (a point to point race where we ended up running down town Columbus). We were both so excited to be on the road traveling to a race again. It had been awhile! I felt ready to go as I knew I had prepared well through training, despite my limited run training as I am still in the process of building back to full strength. As race morning came, I was calm and had a quiet mind. I knew my race targets and that was what I needed to focus on. For the swim, it was a really tight beach start (not much room to spread out) so there were a couple of rows of girls, which made it challenging at first to spread out in the swim. I didn't get a great start spot, which I believe slowed me down a bit at the start as I was caught in a mob of girls making it hard to get my stroke settled in. I got kicked in the face pretty hard twice...oops! That hurt! But, I ended up settling in about :10 back from the leaders and worked my way to close the gap as best as I could. I was happy to be within in seconds from the leaders! Getting on the bike, I stuck to my plan of going out conservatively for the first 10-15 minutes (not my usual plan). I surged where I could to see if I could settle at a new pace. I could tell my biking was a tad off yet as I have had to rebuild intensity here in my training as well. I ended up getting passed by 3 girls, but kept one in sight and didn't loose too much ground on her coming into the run. I continued to remain calm and took off on the run. Again, I stuck to my race targets and settled in finding my run form and cadence and then remained steady. I passed a girl on the run and continued to test the limit a little bit by putting in a couple more surges to see if I could setting at a new pace. I wasn't sure what I would have on the run, but felt solid. I ended up having my best 10K time by a minute, which was so cool as I have done very little speed work. I knew I wanted to surge into the finish line and I ended up 6th! I was very happy with this and with how I stuck to my race plan. Again, it felt like such a gift to be racing and running without pain. I enjoyed the Giant Eagle Triathlon and thought the point to point bike made it in an interesting experience with having 2 separate transition areas. Now I am looking forward to my next race, a local sprint race, and then traveling to the Chicago Triathlon at the end of August. I have a lot of work to do in the meantime, but I look forward to being a part of the racing world again!