Beth Hornak - One Injury After Another Type of Season, but Nailed One Sprint
Prologue - I've been injured since January. I've had plantar fasciitis, shoulder impingement and a tweaked meniscus. To be able to be on the start line for this race was huge. It wasn't what I wanted for execution or results, but is any race ever perfect? I creamed this course last year, and had hoped to do so again this year.
The swim, was, in a word, weird. I made a split second decision not to swim with a wetsuit due to lake temp sitting at 72, and the morning was warming up fast. The swim was to be .47 miles, but my garmin clocked it at .93 miles, and my time would be more indicative of what my mile swim would look like vs a .5 mile swim. In fact, I swam in the lake on Thursday on the approximate course and the times were within 4 seconds of each other. There was traffic in the beginning as they swam both M/F 45-49 together, for a total of 60 athletes in the wave, at 7min intervals between each wave. I felt that I overcame that well, and settled into my own zone of water as best as possible. "official time;" 19:18 including the trip down the gravel road. Garmin time: 17:02 / .93 miles (last year I was 13:36 for .83 miles)
The transition from the swim exit to T1 was evil for my foot, and was nearly .25 miles! ZIKES! I stayed on the grass, avoided the gravel as much as possible, gritted my teeth and survived.
T1 - I sat down (and tried to pee to no avail!), put my helmet, sunglasses, socks and shoes and headed out the door. This was another looooong run-ish to the bike mount line.
Bike: Hopped on, followed my cue sheet, watched my gearing, pacing, eating, drinking and felt I executed an excellent bike. I forgot to hit lap on the garmin, but could see that I was at 3.33 to 3.35 per mile, which is where I wanted to be. I paid attention to cadence and felt I kept that where it should be. At the bike dismount line, it was another looong slog to the timing mat, which is where I think I lost time, because I swear I did not feel I was doing 15.36MPH. When I did my RR on the course, I was at 16.6 and last year, I hit 17.3, so I have no clue what went wrong. Official time: 50.46 for 13.7-ish miles.
T2 - Sat down again, dropped bike shoes, put on running shoes, dropped helmet, tried to pee and headed out the door. I knew this was going to be difficult for me as I have been injured since January and have kept mileage low and doing lots more volume on bike and swim, including pool running. No speed work for me this season. So, my garmin showed my time at 30.20, with a pace at 9.12 for 3.30 miles, while final results showed 30.16 for the 5K at 9.46's. Last year I was at 8.11's so I really tried to let that pace go. My official finish time is close to my garmin time, so I think this is a write off to timing mat hell.
Overall, given the circumtances, I think I did okay. I netted 5th in my new AG, which with my finish time, would usually be top 20, so all the zippy women must have been elsewhere.
There is a friend who I know has stalked my results and wants to beat me, so I can chalk this one up to keeping her in the dark and hope to hell I get healthy for next season so that she has no chance to beat me. 
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Comments
Nice job! I'm happy for you!
I would've liked the timing mats to be placed a little differently to more accurately reflect your actual performance in the swim/bike/run/transition. Maybe it was logistically challenging though? Anyways, way to get it done on a great day for racing!