Heart of the Rockies OD Tri...

I raced Heart of the Rockies OD triathlon on Sunday. I have had a string of very good races lately, and am thankful for that. This day was not a "Zen" race for me which is what I would call GWN. It doesn't get any better than my GWN day from an execution perspective. This race though my head was not fully in the game. I had a very average swim. I got on the heels of an older fellow and he wasn't fast enough. I'd make a move to get in front, and end up swimming beside him, so I settled in and made a decision to conserve energy. It was an OK swim, but not great. (There wasn't anybody else around to draft off of.) The bike was tail wind out and headwind back with relentless hills. I forgot how tough this course was. My watts were lower than I expected them to be on the way out, then they took a nose dive on the way back. I'm not sure it if was fatigue from GWN lingering around in those leg muscles, or my head giving in to the discomfort in my quads. Either way, I lost my mojo to push and watts suffered. This is my biggest disappointment with how I executed. The run... it was SO hard. Oh my!!! We left Invermere and meandered our way all the way up to the top of the hill on HW 93. Up a steep wall, down or flat... repeat! Only one fellow broke 40 min and he ran a 2:55 off the bike at Kona last year, so that gives you an idea of how hard it was. I'm going to admit this... it's a bit like AA... I walked a few times on the run. I just wanted too. Oddly, I don't feel as bad about that as I do about the lack of effort on the second half of the bike. On the plus side, the run course was beautiful and once I thought about it I enjoyed the challenge. The last kilometer was downhill which was nice as well. How did things turn out? After all my whining I think you'll roll your eyes at the end result. I won the race overall for women and got a great glass trophy that is proudly displayed in our condo in Panorama. The best part of the day was getting to the finish line to quite a large group of cheerers and hearing "Here is Angie Anderson, our first place female"... and getting lots of support. That was REALLY cool. I've never won a race that wasn't heats. This was the first one where we started together and they knew I was the winner at the finish line. I liked that part:) So... for me... it still comes down to execution. I enjoyed the win, but what I really value is a well executed race. At Oceanside I was 10th in my Age Group... a big pond of fast fish for sure, but I was really happy with that day as I raced as hard as I could. At the Turner Valley Sprint on July 1, I raced my little heart out. That win felt better than this one, just because I know I really worked for it. GWN... you know that story. So... onto the next event. I'm racing the Delta Half Marathon on Aug. 9th in Vancouver. It's flat and fast and at sea level. I'm very much hoping to get my head into the game there better than I did this weekend.