Veni, vidi, vici as they say. And then they ought to follow it up with 'I drank vino rosso'
Here are the main bits that spring to mind from the race - the second running of this event, which takes place in Pescara, on the Adriatic Coast of Italy. I flew to Rome and it is a 2 hour 30 drive across the country on one of the smoothest, most beautiful roads I've ever had the pleasure to drive. Only a shame not to have been able to do it in a sports car (the day someone designs a sports car that bike boxes will go in, I'll love them!)
The race result was that I came 1st in age, and first amateur in 5:13, which would have placed me 6th in the pros. I'm extremely proud of it, and its a good consolidation of the hard work that Tom at T2Coaching has put in with me this year, although of course he says there's lots more to work on!
Buildup
I would say that the prep for the race was physiologically very sound, but logistically rather lacking.... My body felt great going into it, the 2 week taper worked out perfectly, and I was feeling healthy, rested and raring to go. The decision not to race last Monday in the rain was also justified.
Logistically, you've got to remember the race is run by Italians. Wonderful chefs, poor organisers. Everything was late, unsigned, unexplained and rules changed at the drop of a hat, e.g. you had to bring your number belt to transition to rack your bike. Eating gluten-free in Italy also proved to be more of a challenge than I expected as the day before the race I nearly had a sense of humour failure when I couldn't get any food as all the restaurants shut from 2:30 -8pm and I'd missed lunch due to an hour long queue for the bike service, and another long queue for check in. Everything took forever. Even removing my bike from transition after the race took a full hour. Still, it all worked out in the end....
Race Start.
I felt very very good on race day. I knew that the sunny and dry conditions would suit me, and I was prepared to leave it all out there on the course to get the result I had worked for.
Swim
The men in my wave would not let me go to the front (that was an offense to the Italian machismo - more on this later) so I just had to run in from the beach behind them, and then overtake by dolphining in the water. It was too shallow to swim for a long way out but I'd practiced this the day before, and I was confident of the amount of energy that it would take, and knew I would still have a strong start.
So I set off in the front group, and before I knew it, there was just myself and one other girl, we swam stroke for stroke the whole way - with all the men strung out in a long line on our feet! Then into the shallows and she got up and walked, which it turned out was faster than my chosen route of swimming to the exit. So we ran through the 1km- long transition together, with 2 other girls who'd gone for the walking exit route! I was very pleased wtih this swim, and felt -despite the time being 35mins - it was logged as 2.5km on the Garmin- that I'd used just the right amount of energy and felt pretty relaxed.
Bike
I did a no- nonsense transition despite it being about a 1km long run, and headed out before the girls I'd come in with, mounting safely out of the way of the rather erratic Italian men. I then proceeded to get all the way out of Pescara on the smooth tarmac of the highway, overtaking a man about every 10m or so, and warning them to 'Occio' - I think it means 'look out' - which turned out to be the best word I'd learned all weekend.
So it was that I arrived at the hilly section in full sunshine, about 35 degrees and feeling pretty good, keeping my HR below 160.
I held back so that I didn't completely fry my legs, but all the time I'd been told there was one girl out on the course ahead of me (she swam 33 mins) so I reeled her in at last at the end of the first lap of the two lap bike. I was feeling very positive at that point, going out into to the lead for the first time, knowing I had good nutrition and was keeping my pace suitably controlled for the conditions. I won't lie that the Baby Blue worked really hard on the downhills though, making the most of her aerodynamics, I was passing big Italian guys the whole way, even the ones with disc wheels and aero helmets. That was great fun. I'm sure they will get over it, eventually.
Anyway, it wasn't to last that I stayed in the lead, as 2 girls then caught me on the second lap. I decided to let them work hard enough to ruin their own legs, while I concentrated on drinking and eating plenty for the hot run ahead. By the time we'd reached the fast downhill and the highway back home again, they were both there again, and letting me do all the work on the front of a pace line. This worked very well, we were mature about it, while putting off the annoying men who didn't understand that being overtaken didn't mean you were then supposed to sit on the ladies' wheel for a bit for a nice rest, before overtaking on the inside again.... I tried in my best English to educate a few, but soon gave up!
So I cruised into transition having drunk 400ml of caffeinated Hi-5, 1500ml of Powerbar isotonic, and eaten 3 powerbar gels, all caffeinated, plus one powerbar.
Run.
I went out at a pretty good pace, the pace I'd trained at, but I knew was too fast to hold for the whole 13 miles. I guessed I was in the lead, as I knew the two girls on the bike were still in transition, and this was confirmed by the nice lady who put the band on my wrist for lap 1, and I could see no women at all on this lap. I did, however, know that there was the second female running about 1 minute behind and she was constantly there, playing on my mind the whole way. I was so determined that I wanted my Las Vegas slot, and I was leading my first ever half ironman, and didn't want to see that lead getting eroded. At about 4.5 km, I started to get a sharp pain I've had in my abdominals from breathing in training, and at the race in Dorney. I calmly ignored it, relaxed, and it went away within about 5-10 mins, so I am really pleased about that. This was a big victory for me over my body. Unfortunately, my mind didn't want to stay as strong. Not sure why, but I really had some low points from about 7-12km on the run. The final 12-21km actually got better. The thing that picked me up in the end was drinking coke which I would not normally do until the very end of a race, but it semeed to give me the instant boost I needed. A shout from an English supporter also helped, as the local supporters only really shouted for the Italians and were not really that into me, as a woman, beating the men. The racers themselves actually threw water bottles under my feet at couple of times (I said 'grazie' nicely rather than get in a fight!). I suppose for a nation of soccer and F1 fans, women's sport isn't that popular.... even though they did have Sara Errani in the French Open final the day before.
I crossed the line in first, although no one said anything. They didn't seem to know, or care that I was female and had won. So I just went to grab a shower, and eat in the athlete area waiting for Brent, my support crew, who was having a rather more value-for-money approach to Half ironman, having failed to negotiate one of the tight turns on the bike course.
I got some sparkling wine in to celebrate, and when Brent finished, we collected our gear and tried to get home to get the money for the World 70.3 Championships Slot allocation. Which is when I found my car blocked in, presumably by some nice Italians! So I did a nice hard recovery ride of 15km to get back to the hotel and pick up the money and passport that you need to accept your place, and back to the presentation in time. Of course, it started an hour 15 late!
Anyway, the job is done. my place is secured at Las Vegas on 8th September. So now I've just got to get there in the shape of my life.... speaking of which its off for a massage now with Jennie @jwsportstherapy.
Back to training in the rain now....
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