Hello from Tampa airport,
This week I have had an interesting week of travel. I left NZ on Tuesday last week flying from Auckland to Tampa bay in Florida... 26hrs and a few flights later I arrived at my new home for the next few days – at 2am on Wednesday! (don't you love getting an extra day up your sleeve). After a bit of a brief night's sleep I got into the swing of American hours, settled into my homestay and got a bit of training in for the first round of the WTC 5150 series (which is a flash name for non-drafting Olympic distance – the total distance is actually 51.50 miles) St Anthony's 5150 which was yesterday in Florida, USA.
This being one of my first non-drafting races I went into this race not knowing what to expect from the amazing field that was racing – there were the top IM girls there, the top 70.3, the top Olympic distance non drafting athletes, and to top it off there were 10 of the top WTS athletes (Haug, Norden, Harrison, Moffat, Riveros to name a few)- so there was a real mix and I knew all these athletes depending on any given day could take the top honours – I think I counted 17 people who I thought could win it. The race really was open and kind of exciting racing against all these different classes of triathlete – a great field of just under 40 pro women for the 30th anniversary of the St Anthony's triathlon. And what a race it was! The organisation is first class – from airport transfers, to home stays, to the spectacular course -all was amazing. I mean it's not often you get, a pasta party with the local mad dog triathlon club, food at a lunch time race briefing, post-race celebrations and much more – they really know how to look after their pro's here!
Race morning was surprisingly very windy; I was up at 4am to get my food and nutrition in for the 6.50am start! We had a moment of silence for the Boston bombing tragedy, our names read out and checked off, the US National anthem sung by an age group competitor, and then it was all go.
The start caught most of us by surprise and some athletes were well in front of the start line, creeping forward in the choppy conditions. We swam along parallel to the shore and then turned left and headed straight into the chop. It was amazing! It was actually like a surf beach all of a sudden and I was loving it! I originally thought it was going to be a great flat swim and we could push the pace with the WTS girls to get in front of the slower swimmers as I thought some of the distance trained girls would be stronger than us on the bike. I was swimming along picking off people until I reached Sarah Mclarty and Emma Moffat. It was hard to see where to go so I just tucked in behind and followed their feet.
I knew I can usually hold my own as a cyclist but hadn't been on my TT bike much so wasn't 100% certain things would go smoothly. I jumped on and went to the lead straight away pushing the pace and seeing if I could string out a few of the others hanging on but at max out of the water, when I got to the first turnaround I was surprised to see there was no one behind me! I thought wow that's cool, got my head down and kept on trucking. About ½ way through the ride Alicia Kaye (American non drafting athlete) caught up from behind and we stayed together until the transition. By T2 Alicia and I had opened up a 2min 30 lead as we ran out together, it stayed that way the first couple of KMs and then she slowly applied the pressure and pulled ahead of me. I hadn't run off my TT bike yet so didn't really know how it was going to go, but despite it being a non-drafting bike and heat of the sun really starting to radiate down I still managed to hold on and run a 36.10 split and finished in second place behind Alicia. All in all a great fun race and a solid performance I was happy, and even though I didn't feel brilliant in any one discipline I definitely strong – which is great for this time of the year. It was a fun day out and I have definitely some areas I can see to improve on – I made a few rookie mistakes out there too like wearing dark goggles, when the sun hadn't even risen yet! Trying to get onto my TT bike with bottles on the back like it was a World Series Race (bit hard to get your leg over that one!!)
I am now awaiting my very delayed flight to Rochester NY. I have been looking forward to staying with some friends there for some time now so pretty exciting that it's now time. I will be spending some time at Honeoye Falls school too so look forward to meeting all those future athletes there and helping out with their track meets! I have also been invited to do a talk for the local athletes and triathlon club while I am there, so am looking forward to sharing a few of my triathlon experiences with them too.
From Rochester, my next race is the second race of the 5150 series being held in Columbia (Maryland, USA not Canada) before heading over to Europe to get into some WTS racing and the French Grand Prix.
Thanks again to all my sponsors, hope you guys got lots of great coverage out there racing from the front last weekend in St Anthony's –you are all amazing and I really appreciate your support!
Time to get into some more training – let the next block begin!
Nicky
