I picked Ironman race in New York for my A race at the beginning of the year for several reasons:
1. Swim with a current, I am not a fastest swimmer :-)
2. High points for Hawaii qualification
3. I've train in the area before and thought it is going to be a fast race....,
But my expectations were destroyed when I saw the run course, even though marathon is a favorite part of Ironman race for me. I was double worried about my run because I wasn't running for 3 weeks before the race. It started with unpleasant pain in my gluteus muscle after one of the best long runs I've had. Why something like that always happened when you feel great? Of course the stubborn me would continue to run, but thanks to my boyfriend ( he proved his point), I decided that it better to take at least one week off of running :-(. During that period of time aqua jogging and elliptical were good substitutes. But one week wasn't enough to recover and I added another couple days with no running to my schedule. I basicly started to run one week before the race, when I was supposed to start tapering. And it felt like the pain wasn't there anymore, but I was still worry, this is a marathon and not just 40 min jogging on the grass.
Race day.
The swim: we had to go on a ferry to get to the "point to point" swim start and it was taking forever to get there, at least that how I felt. But the swim itself was fast and without any problems.
The bike: since I lost "some" time on the swim I started to chase girls on the bike and I did caught a few girls, so I got to the T2 in 10th position.
The run: I felt relatively good at the first half of the run and slowly, but surely continued caughting the girls in front of me. On the last long hill before Washington bridge in the distance I already saw a leading bike of the fifth girl. Running on the bridge was hard yet exciting part of the run: all by yourself on the Washington bridge ....., without water :-(. Somehow the last, flat part of the run was much harder then the hilly one, possibly fatigue accumulation or just the sun or maybe lack of running last few weeks and my goal for the last couple miles was just to stay in my 5th position and cross the fininshline. And I did, absolutely dehydrated yet happy.
I also wanted to say huge thanks for all the support I've had during the race: to my teammates, team managers and friends. Thanks to my sponsors: QuintanaRoo, BlueSeventy, Shimano, Champion System, Xpedo, EpicCycles, Rudy Project for making my race comfortable.
1. Swim with a current, I am not a fastest swimmer :-)
2. High points for Hawaii qualification
3. I've train in the area before and thought it is going to be a fast race....,
But my expectations were destroyed when I saw the run course, even though marathon is a favorite part of Ironman race for me. I was double worried about my run because I wasn't running for 3 weeks before the race. It started with unpleasant pain in my gluteus muscle after one of the best long runs I've had. Why something like that always happened when you feel great? Of course the stubborn me would continue to run, but thanks to my boyfriend ( he proved his point), I decided that it better to take at least one week off of running :-(. During that period of time aqua jogging and elliptical were good substitutes. But one week wasn't enough to recover and I added another couple days with no running to my schedule. I basicly started to run one week before the race, when I was supposed to start tapering. And it felt like the pain wasn't there anymore, but I was still worry, this is a marathon and not just 40 min jogging on the grass.
Race day.
The swim: we had to go on a ferry to get to the "point to point" swim start and it was taking forever to get there, at least that how I felt. But the swim itself was fast and without any problems.
The run: I felt relatively good at the first half of the run and slowly, but surely continued caughting the girls in front of me. On the last long hill before Washington bridge in the distance I already saw a leading bike of the fifth girl. Running on the bridge was hard yet exciting part of the run: all by yourself on the Washington bridge ....., without water :-(. Somehow the last, flat part of the run was much harder then the hilly one, possibly fatigue accumulation or just the sun or maybe lack of running last few weeks and my goal for the last couple miles was just to stay in my 5th position and cross the fininshline. And I did, absolutely dehydrated yet happy.
I also wanted to say huge thanks for all the support I've had during the race: to my teammates, team managers and friends. Thanks to my sponsors: QuintanaRoo, BlueSeventy, Shimano, Champion System, Xpedo, EpicCycles, Rudy Project for making my race comfortable.
