In honor of the ongoing World Cup, I wanted to post the final score from the Clot Buster’s race on Sunday. There were no yellow or red cards on this game just a hard fought battle from the start line all the way to the finish line.
The swim started off really well. It was one of my best swims ever in a triathlon. I surprised myself on how fast I was able to get through the 1.2 Mile course. I posted a time of 33:31.49 which includes a run over a steep hill from the water to the transition area. This swim time was good enough to be the third fastest in my age group and 18th fastest overall.
Unfortunately, after that came the bike and run portion of the race in which my performance was less than stellar. This is where I learned that the city of Morgantown is really beautiful if you come as tourist. The landscape is really amazing when you are watching from a car… let me tell you that on the bike the hills are not all that fun at all. Wow, the bike course had one hill that I could never be prepared for. It was long, steep, long, steep, long, steep... I became very good friends with that hill over our 2 encounters during the race. Here in Columbus, OH we don’t have hills like that and no amount of hill repeat workouts would prepare me to how hard that hill was. So, factoring in the rain, the wet roads, my conservative approach on the down hills, and cramping legs my time of 3:04.36 over 56 Miles at an average of 18.2 mph is not that bad.
But the story does not end there, after the bike came the run and I have to tell you that as soon as I started running I could feel that this was going to be a long half marathon. I think that the bike took the better part of me and left me completely empty for the run. I ran the first 5 miles to the best of my abilities but after that I was reduced to a 5 minute walk, 5 minute jog the rest of the way. I never felt like that before. My legs could not go anymore not matter what I did. I think I was at my limit during the run. I struggled big time all of the 13.1 miles for a total time on the run of 2:40.39 and a total time for the race of 6:24.39.
I had big hopes to finish this race somewhere around the 5:15.00 mark but as you can see I was well off the mark. I am proud about being able to finish the race. I would never be able to describe accurately what I was going through during the 70.3Miles that I raced on Sunday. But no matter what I kept going even when I thought that I could not do it anymore. Just like I have written many times before, the goal is to cross the finish the line and anything else is just bonus.
However, this year there is one more goal and that is to spread the word about NATT and of course get some green backs for this superb organization. I am very excited to let you know that the “Clot Buster” outfit caught the eye of one participant at the race on Sunday (this person kicked my butt when I found her finishing time…) who emailed me today after remembering the jersey. I look forward to write her back to see if she can give me some pointers on how to race half-iron distance races… but most importantly to see if she was able to find NATT’s website.
So, 89.7 Miles down… 165.8 Miles to go!!! How much are you willing to donate for the miles I have covered and I have left to go? If you can please consider helping NATT…!
Thanks for reading,
The Clot Buster
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