A Rehearsal Dinner, Birthday Celebration, Two Weddings and a Race!

To say I had a jammed packed weekend was an understatement.  

It started out Friday evening with a rehearsal dinner in Lafayette, Colorado which lasted until 8:00pm. Then the wedding party wanted to celebrate on Pearl Street afterwards. At about 9:00pm, Jeff Mack, my boyfriend and I had to rush to Denver to celebrate his sisters 23^rd Birthday on the 16^th Street Mall at an adorable Bar and Restaurant called Katie Mullens. It was super fun because they had a live band playing songs from the 80’s and it was more of a massive dance party. The band was called The Six Million Dollar Band. We did not get home until 11:30pm. When you normally go to bed at 7:30-8:00pm it felt like I had pulled an all-nighter. :)

Saturday: I got up early to get my swim practice in, pick up my packet for the 5150 Boulder Peak Triathlon in Boulder and get ready for the wedding. Chris Messaros, Jeff’s best friend and my friend from High School was getting married to Karen Cox. They had an absolutely lovely ceremony with endless dancing. Jeff and I wanted to stay the entire time but we knew we would be suffering tremendously if we didn’t get some sleep before our race the next day. 


To read about the actual Boulder Peak Race, please see below...

5150 Boulder Peak Triathlon Race Day

I absolutely love to RACE! I was so excited to compete in the Boulder Peak Triathlon. I have done this race several times and just love the course. Especially the bike course which is challenging because you have to climb Old Stage Rd. which is an elevation gain of 1,161 ft. in the first 7 miles.

Last year, I had a 12 hour adventure race the day prior to competing in the Boulder Peak Triathlon. I finished the Peak triathlon 16^th overall (including the professionals) with a time of 2:22:35.

This year my coach Lee Gardner and I wanted to crush last year’s time. He provided me with some goal times to hit which were the following:

Swim: 0:25:00

T1: 0:01:15

Bike: 1:05:00

T2: 0:00:50

Run: 0:41:00

We knew the most important part of the race for me was to have a good swim. I ended up swimming a 25:50, 50 sec. slower then what he wanted, but, 1 min. and 21 sec. faster than last year’s time, so I was still happy.

T1: I got a horrible transition spot because I had hit the snooze button in the morning and showed up later then I had hoped. I was so tried that getting up for a good transition spot wasn’t crossing my mind, 10 more minutes of sleep sounded too glorious to pass up. However, once I arrived to transition all the good spots were taken and when I tried to squeeze my bike in a decent spot several of the girls in my age group were very upset, rightfully so. I decided to move to the very end of the rack and use it as a challenge to see how quickly I could transition with a undesirable spot. T1 was not 1:15 (what Lee wanted) but a 1:57, significantly slower.

Finally, to the bike portion which is my favorite part of the race. Lee had an extremely high goal for me 1:05:00, this would be a course record by over a minute! When racing the same course as Laura Bennett (2008 & 2012 Olympian) and Melisa Rollison (70.3 World Champion) that is a goal I would love to achieve in the years to come. I was over three minutes off the course record with my time of 1:09:20 yet still had the fastest amateur bike split. Again, thank you to CafeVelo my bike was riding like a dream machine, shifting super smoothly. Exustar's pedals are so light it brings a whole new meaning to dancing on the pedals, what an incredible feeling! SRM Power Meter, I really have no idea how I ever raced without a power meter before... It provides me with absolutely invaluable information racing and training. I know that it is because of my phenomenal  SRM power meter I am improving very quickly on the bike! I LOVE IT!!!

T2 was decent, Lee predicted a 50 sec. transition and I did a 57 sec. so finally I was close to something. J

Thanks to my phenomenal shoes I got at Colorado Running Company,  I felt fantastic on the run!  I got into a comfortable pace and tried to negative split my run time. I was almost 2 minutes faster than last year’s time and averaged the same pace I did for the sprint this year.  Lee, wanted a 41 min. 10k and I achieved a 40 min. 21 sec. run split. This still needs a ton of work but at least it is evident that the training Lee and I are doing is clearly in the right direction. 

Overall, I was first amateur with a time of 2:18:26 and eighth place including the professional women who do not have a speed limit on the downhill section of the bike course and a completely different run course so it is really hard to compare apples to apples. Yet, I can compare it directly to my last year’s time which I managed to drop over 4 minutes. I was very pleased with this performance and cannot wait for the 70.3 race in August.

After the race, Lee and his wife, Regina and I rode one loop of the 70.3 Boulder bike course. Right afterwards, I had to get ready for my second wedding of the weekend. Jeff’s cousin was getting married in Denver that evening. Again, we had a fantastic time, visiting family and dancing the night away.

To say I am exhausted after this weekend is truly an understatement!!! Thank goodness, Krista Lewis from Transformation Massage was able to give me a incredible and extremely needed massage on Monday! She is the very best!

Boulder Sprint Triathlon

The Boulder Sprint Triathlon consists of an 800m swim, 17.2 mile bike and a 3.1 mile run.  The year prior, I did a 1:21:50 on this course which placed me 14^th overall in the women’s field including the two professionals that showed up. By no means a fantastic result, however, I had done the Bailey Hundo the day before which is a 100 mile Mountain Bike Race in Bailey Colorado where I had won my age group; after face planting within the first 25 miles of the race. With all things in perspective I was quite pleased with my performance last year.

This year, however, was a completely different story. Now that I am being coached by Lee Gardner on team Trismarter, we are being more selective of my races and aiming for faster results!  I did a 1:18:37, 3 minutes and 13 seconds faster than last year’s time. I placed second overall female behind Lisa Marangon the only professional to show up this year. At first glance it looks amazing, what an improvement! But, when you recall not having just camped up in the Mountains, raced a 100 mile MTB race, and crashing, you think to yourself, "Shoot, I better improve even more!" J

Sprint Triathlons are the most difficult distance for me to do well at. They are just so short that by the time I am getting to the run I would practically be exiting the water of an Ironman; therefore, sprint tri’s are more of a warm up then a race in my opinion, an extremely intense warm up that is! J I know it wasn't the worst race by any means but it wasn't stellar either. I am just trying to figure out why I had the result I did so I can learn and grow from the experience.

I had an uneasy feeling about the swim before the race, I kept telling myself get out of the water quickly and then it is all downhill from there. The swim is by far my weakest portion of the triathlon. Well, I did get out of the water but by no means quickly. I was in 15^th place in my age group and had a lot of time to make up.

My transitions were just off. I just wasn't functioning quickly and I was getting extremely flustered. I know I am quicker than that. I also know my swim split got me upset and then I wasn't focused on the present moment, something I am constantly working on...

I know my bike split could have been so much better. I was really pushing but I just didn't have any speed. I kept looking down at my power meter, saying to myself, something has got to be wrong here. My phenomenal SRM powermeter wasn’t wrong; it was the fact that I had nothing in my legs. I had just completed a fantastic workout 2 days prior to the race giving me all the confidence in the world for the bike course. However, some days you have the mojo, and others you don’t! Today was just one of the days where you struggle to get through. Feeling this way made me appreciate having the lightest pedals on the market, Exustar. Plus, my bike was shifting super smoothly and riding flawlessly thanks to CafeVelo. It was truly the rider struggling today, I cannot blame it on anything else.  

I was ok with the run time but it still needs a ton of improvement. I had the third fastest run split in my age group alone. Wow, I would love to get into the low 19 minutes if not the 18 minutes. These girls are super fast! I can run one speed for a very long time but once I have to sprint, I die-out very quickly. I would definitely say that a 5k is a sprint distance for me. I do know one thing for sure, my shoes from Colorado Running Company made all the difference in the World! 

Overall, on paper it was a great result, however, lots to work on for Kona!