Surprise! The Augusta Candy Race!

SO WHERE WAS I???

The build to Clearwater…Day 14??

I will explain, but first, I really want to say...

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR GREAT MUSIC SUGGESTIONS, I was so amazed with all of your ideas and there were some great new songs in there. I have selected many and loaded them onto my Ipod that I took...on the road to the AUGUSTA 70.3.

What race? That wasn’t on the plan!

Well, let’s just say that at day 1, 2, 3 of training after Muskoka, I realized that I felt particularly good. With the last disappointing race in the back of my mind and good legs, it was going to get dangerous...

And, long story short...I GOT CARRIED AWAY..happens to me sometimes! I did my run practices a bit over pace last week and after I crossed the fictive finish line of my 2 hour run, I thought to myself how nice a real one would feel.

I was thinking: -No pressure, no matter what the outcome, I just REALLY WANT to race, I LOVE IT and I AM HUNGRY- Part of me knew I was not in the best shape ever YET and another part of me thought, that the feeling I had could make anything happen. So I gave it a shot.

On Wednesday, mom and I packed the tri-stuff and, of course, the weiner dogs and migrated south! I was a happy girl. It was the first time in my life, really, that I felt so free about going to a race. I just wanted to go down there, rip my legs and heart out no matter what.

Yes, we DROVE a LONG WAY . The plane tickets were crazy expensive at that point in time and we just figured we would drive and stop on the way to train. We turned it into a road trip and I got to study too! We had fun. Lance had me promise I wouldn’t drive that far to a race again....(I told him a bit late)

Mom is my hero, she didn’t want to let me drive! I really tried, I promise. I had it easy and we arrived in Georgia really relaxed. It actually felt much better than it would have felt getting off a plane. No kidding. It must have been our stop in Christiansburg on the first night. (Pretty funny considering my mom’s name is Christiane!).

THE RACE:

Time flew by and soon, I was standing at the start line. DIVE START! NO WETSUIT!!

Exciting! But not familiar at all! (Laura Bennett on the start line, one point for her? No, I had to fight that! I just had to concentrate and stay RELAXED! Just because I am the one who can dive and immerge without goggles with a silly grin after 20m of the 100m dive sprint sometimes, I had to prove to myself that I could do a good job!)

I am so proud of my race start (so funny, there is a picture of it in the paper and I got to check out my technique!). I knew my main problem was that I always go out too fast and tensed on the swim, and I never swim times like I can do in the pool. So the golden rule for me this time was to just relax and go for long strokes. And I did! It felt so good, almost too safe, but everything was lined up fine! Oh and my time is fast BUT...we were with the current, that helps you know??!!! AMAZING FEELING, try racing that one, one day, YOU WILL LOVE IT!

On to the bike, I still had to catch up with Pip Taylor and Laura Bennett and they had a head start. I got a visual very fast (I went out much too fast) and almost reached Pip when I started to fade. I came off the bike second, maybe one minute or so off Pip. During the bike ride, I thought it would be she, Laura and I for the win. But when I hopped off my bike, I had a bad surprise. All my magical feeling started drifting away slowly as I realized I didn’t have my legs, I thought they may come back and tried ...and got passed... and tried but the legs were gone....I felt like I was in one of those dreams where you run like crazy but go no where!

It was not easy getting passed like that after having been so certain that I was having a good race. I held on the run and ended up 5^th, I think five minutes or so down from the lead. A deception because my best training these days have been on the run and I was about 8 minutes off my goal time for that one.

THE WRAP-UP:

I left Georgia satisfied, in a way....This race is the key to the rest of the build up. First it allowed me to see that my harder last two races were not a result of being tired from the season. It is more that I need to bring my watts back up on the bike and get some fitness back from all those tapers I have been doing lately. I figure once my watts are up on the bike, I will get off a good bike split with legs left for the run. There is a week link I need to get rid of!

SO this is what I have to do. Now there will be no more races before the big one and that is a promise.

It was a nice day out there, a day I got to re-live some nice feelings of fast racing (well, until I started running that is!), and where I got to race along side people that put some sunshine in my day: My team mate and –big brother- Justin Parks was there ( no, he was far ahead, don't get me wrong!) Sara Gross, from Victoria was lots of fun to be around. I also really like Desiree Ficker, it seems like she is a great gal! I saw her cheering for a friend after the race, she has a great energy about her. And how can I forget the magic man, Travis (the one who helped me get all my sponsors!), who was there to support me before the race, it really felt great to have him there. He helped me feel reassured and confident just before the start.

SO WHAT'S NEXT???

Next week, I head out to Victoria to settle there for good!!!! Lance and I figured I should make my move now, so I can get the optimal training environment before Clearwater. I will be moving into my new place there on Monday! (I will be living on the beach! I really think I will like that!). More news about that plan a little later.

Once again, thank you to all for following and posting your comments. Your support has been so helpful...

CHeers guys!

Magali.