Reflecting on my season so far. Part 3

The Tuesday after NYC Tri I did a recon ride with one of my teammates. We were scoping out the course for the road race in the Empire State Games Masters cycling events which we'll be doing in a few weeks. She works with a CTS coach and her schedule called for hill repeats on that day. This is a hilly course so she figured she could get her hill repeats in by doing each of the hills at AT. Your's truly "Ms. Train By the Seat of Her Pants Tri-Geek" figured she'd could play that game too. When Nancy and I ride together we tend to push each other. As the song from Oklahoma goes....."Anything you can do, I can do better." So there we are pushing each other up those hills. I was venting my frustration over the crappy recovery I was experiencing on the Henry Hudson hills the weekend before. "Take that!" I trashed Nancy on the last long climb on our 2nd loop.

SOBE Mossman July 17th

I guess I was really bored on Saturday because I ended out really scoping out my competition. Normally I look at the entry list, see who's in my AG, and see if I recognize any names from previous races or years, and that's it. I guess I was getting frustrated with my two 2nd places that were caused by getting smoked on the run. I knew Mary Dunn wouldn't be there. I've raced against her a number of times over the years, and she totally dominates in the age group. She is a major shark in the big ocean. Totally eats this BFITLP alive. Knowing she wouldn't be there I thought I had a decent chance to win this year.

Knowing Mary wouldn't be there I did serious scouting. I actually looked at their results from last year, and found that this woman who just aged up this year kicked my ass on the run last year. Not only that but her overall time was 2 minutes faster then mine. So she became my motivation for Sunday. I had two challenges for this race. 1) Could I reduce my course time by over 2 minutes? 2) Could I hold off a woman who ran a sub 20 5K last year?

I felt like this was "Mission Impossible", but I was going to give it a go. To make a long story short, I actually succeeded on both counts. For my "Mission Impossible" race report with all the details check out: http://www.trinewbies.com/phorum2/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=44617&posts=8 I cut 2 minutes off my time from last year, despite a slower bike and run. Okay the bike was only 5 seconds slower! My swim and transitions were faster. When I came back for T2 and saw she was nowhere in sight, I was determined to hold on for dear life. As it turned out I totally kicked her butt on the swim and bike so her 5 minute faster run wasn't enough. Score one for the not so fleet footed.

In the grand scheme of impressive race results this really was not much. There were only 4 women in the age group. My 3rd place at Saint Anthony's was far more impressive. However this was a great mental exercise in staying focused and not getting psyched out by past results. This is the type of focus I'm going to need for the next few weeks. Where this all leads to is to be determined.

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of BFITLP.