When we arrived I took a look at the water and saw that it must not have been a tough decision to cancel the swim. It looked like mud from the recent hurricane. We set up transition and did a bit of a ride then run on the course. The event was very well organized, the RD had a great sense of humor and was nice and bossy and straightforward during the mandatory meeting. Just the way I like 'em.
I was in the 4th wave with Sarah Leshner and was happy to have another girl I knew to hang with before the start. John, Steve, and Rooney all started in the waves ahead of us. Our wave went off and Sarah and I took off in the front to start the 2 mile run. Soon, 2 women passed us. I considered staying with them, but checked in with my steady breathing, thought of Savageman and the miles of riding and running still ahead of me, and I decided to let them go. Otherwise I would burn myself out too early, especially with such heavy legs. By the end of the run, I had caught a lot of the guys who started 2 waves ahead of me and I ran into T1 with Rooney, in our matching kits, like a collective BOSS.
I RACED the bike. I really pushed. The course was flat but I was feeling pretty confident because I had recently learned how to do a bit of bike maintenance and that had somehow also made me feel like a BOSS. I was flying. People kept yelling to me "I think you're the first female!" I thought they were wrong. They were, but that's cool. One guy was hanging onto my wheel and was drafting. We came to a corner and I, thanks to my killer bike handling skills, gracefully and swiftly made the corner. The silly man tried to pass me and wiped out. I thought "Oh no. My powers!" I asked of he was okay and then continued along. Soon after that, a group of guys who were riding in a pace line surrounded me. I was all "where'd you guys come from?" Then Rooney, the superhero, came swooping in out of nowhere and gave them heck and shot lasers through them for being dirty cheaters. Rooney said something like "go get 'em, finish strong". And I tore outta there into t2, feeling thankful for my homies.
I started the 5k run having no clue if I was really in first or second. I wanted to run hard but was a bit conservative because I expected to drop dead from "The Savage" at any moment. I kept my breathing pretty steady and started to pick people off, one by one. After about a mile I was on my own, for the most part. I hadn't seen another woman since the very beginning of the bike. It was then that I thought to myself "I'm kicking ass whether I run hard or not today". I knew that by telling myself the other women were too far back, I was risking learning a lesson the hard way... But I put it on cruise anyway. I was knackered. I had just done one of the HARDEST races of my life less than a week prior, so I relaxed the pace a bit to the finish. It turns out I was second woman overall! My first run split was really fast and my bike split was on FIYAH. That bought me some time for my slight laziness on the second run. I finished several minutes behind the first woman. There was no way I was catching her.
It felt good to be 2nd overall woman. I'm super happy with the result! And I'd definitely race at Hightstown again!
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