Under-23 World Championships Race Report ~ Sept. 3, 2006 ~ Lausanne, Switzerland
Arriving in Lausanne the week before the race was nice – I didn’t have to deal with travel stress only a few days before race weekend. Even though the weather sucked for a while, I spent the week relaxing and preparing for the race, practicing the swim course and the challenging bike course. I had come down with a cold the Thursday before World University Championships and although the worst of it was over by Tuesday, I still was congested and coughing up stuff. I tried not to think about how a lingering illness could affect my performance and focused on preparing for the best race of my life.
The course
The swim was in Lake Geneva, a counter-clockwise out-and-back 2-lap course with getting out and diving back in between laps. The water was pretty cold – under 19 degrees – which called for a wetsuit swim.
The 7-lap bike course had a bit of everything: climbing, flat, technical descents, and tight corners. The first climb averaged 12.5% and took about a minute to climb. That climb was followed by a steep, fast descent before the 2nd climb, a longer more gradual (but still painful) one that was followed by a long descent and flat section through the transition area.
The 4-lap run course was very flat and fast and was lined with fans (not as much as in the elite races though... that’s what you get for racing at 7:30am).
Although I did my normal race prep routine the days before the race, my legs felt pretty tired/sore on Saturday. That was kind of bothering me, also I was a bit worried about having to race early (7:30am) – I haven’t raced that early in a long time so I was concerned about how my body would handle that.
The race
I was ranked 14th out of the 45 women racing so I had a pretty good choice of where to line up. I preferred to line up more on the inside rather than on the outside edge, but after talking to girls after the race I decided it might’ve been better to take an outside line.
SWIM
I went out hard. The girls on both sides of me didn’t go out as hard and for the first time ever I found myself breaking clear water for more than a 200m. And then either I started slowing down or the other girls on either side of me picked it up, but I then found myself in line with them and getting elbowed in the face. As we approached the buoy I realized I was gonna be right up against it. I tried to hold my position and it got really tight. I had no room and stopped to do a breaststroke kick to get through. OUCH!! My big toe hit something sharp and rough. I saw a large concrete block tied to the buoy, which apparently was what I had kicked. The pain in my foot was stinging but I couldn’t afford to sit around while other girls swam by me. I grabbed on a girl’s shoulder and finally got back in the mix. I pushed it hard around the next buoy, knowing that the group would spread out as we made the first turn for home. I had a good exit/reentry for the 2nd lap and the rest of the swim was much less crowded as it had spread out a lot.
I ran up the ramp while I stripped the arms of my wetsuit, knowing that I was on the back of a group and I’d have to have a good transition to stay with them. I ran hard as I wiggled my wetsuit over my hips. I found my spot and stripped off the rest of my wetsuit, listening to Charlie tell me that the lead group was 90 seconds ahead. I was a little discouraged by that but didn’t waste any time worrying about it. I clipped my helmet on and took off with my bike, running past the mount line and leaping on my bike and hammered out.
BIKE
We all got out together, a group of 5 or 6, including a couple girls who usually swim a bit faster than me. I had no issues with my shoes this time. I hit the first hill, actually a little scared that it’d be too fast for me and I’d get dropped, but I made it up just fine. I got in front on the top of the hill so I could go down the descent first in case there were crashes. The 2nd hill also wasn’t as painful that first lap than I thought it’d be. I was trying to encourage the group to work together as we went down the long descent and flat section. We caught a few girls every lap but most of them didn’t stay with us. We were making up some time on the 2nd group – as we came up the first hill the 2nd and 3rd laps we could see how close we were. We were like 20 seconds down at one point, but when we caught other girls they just messed up our rhythm on the flat section so it was really tough to keep gaining on the groups ahead. Plus Alicia said they knew how close we were and didn’t want to get caught. It was pretty frustrating.
The last two laps I was pretty tired and I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I couldn’t look up to the top of the hill, I had to just focus on just a couple inches of pavement in front of me. We seemed to slow down a lot on the last lap because no one wanted to go really hard right before the run I guess. So I was leading up both the hills. As we came into transition, there was a lot of room so I dismounted and hit the ground running alongside everyone else. I ran as fast as I could with my bike but my legs felt pretty crappy. I racked my bike with one handlebar and it fell down as I was getting my shoes on. I left it there like that, ripped my sunglasses off and took off behind everyone else. My T2 time was about 2-3 seconds slower than the rest of the girls in my pack… so I was one of the last out of transition.
RUN
It went out pretty fast for the first 400m but I forced myself to keep sorta close to them. By the end of the first lap I had passed all of the girls from my bike group and I was feeling pretty strong. But by the turnaround of the 2nd lap I was getting a pretty bad side stitch and I tried to get rid of it by adjusting my breathing. I was in the lead of my group but Charlie warned me as I went by that one of the girls looked like she was getting close. We passed a few more girls on this lap who had been in the group ahead of us. I wanted to dig under my rib to get my stitch out but I didn’t want any of the other girls to know I was hurting.
The 2 French girls passed me about ¾ way through the 3rd lap. I knew I had to stay with them and I knew I could if I stopped thinking about my side stitch… it just felt like someone was digging a fork in my side! I finally was able to get rid of it by the start of the last lap but I missed the German girl’s huge surge and she dropped all of us. Charlie told me when he saw me that if I wanted top 10 I had to beat her. Sure enough, she passed the girl in 10th. I was able to get around the Gigault French girl but not Cierpik. I finished hard and felt exhausted at the finish, coming in 13th place with a 2:13.25.
It was a huge effort. I didn’t run as fast as I know I can… I ran a 37:53. I think the side stitch, any lingering cold left in me, and the challenging bike course took most of it out of me, plus that I gained a bit of weight during my taper and my training in Europe. Oh well – 13th, even though it was only 3 places better than last year, is a much better accomplishment because we had a pretty tough field this year. I am pretty proud of myself for surviving the bike course. And I took off my shoe at the end and looked at my bloody toe – I got a pretty gnarly slice in it and I can’t believe I didn’t feel it while I ran!
