Tuesday, August 12, 2014

USAT Nationals Report!!!

Reporting in my the land of the frozen tundra with another great race report from one of the Black and Orange crew... Cheryl "Rockstar" Alden...

Hi all, 
What a great race venue!  Milwaukee did not disappoint.  The swim was in calm water, bike was flat and fast and the run, other than going by a very full port o potty station, was awesome near the water.

Race morning came quickly.  The first wave headed out at 7:30a but I didn’t hit the water until 8:55.  My goal for nationals was to PR for the distance.  Competition was fierce and there were many fast women in it to win it!  I got hung up at the beginning of the swim trying to get a good position.  I am not very aggressive in the water so hung back and tried to find a bit of open water.  Once I did, I had a very solid swim.  The run to T1 was a bit long on pavement but was well swept so no random pebbles.  I had a sweet spot on the rack 4 bikes in from the end of the row.  My bike was also easy to find as most of the bikes in the area were already gone:-/. My bike went well.  It was flat so I was able to pull off just over a 20 MPH average!  Not too shabby for me and my little P2C.  Headed out on the run feeling good and nailed a 7:15 pace on the run.  Looking at my stats, I gradually moved up in the rank from swim, bike and run passing a half dozen or so women in my age group on the run.  Overall, I had a great race and got my PR by 11 minutes from nationals in Burlington in 2012 which was then my fastest time at Olympic distance.  I finished in 2:33and change and was 90th overall out of about 200 women in my age group.  B- average for the nations best.  I’ll take it!
Headed out for a celebratory beer that night and ran into Matt Garceau.


Pic of my friend Karin, far left, (2nd 40-44 women finisher), Johanna, middle, (7th 50-54 age group finisher), and me in front a sign that summed up race day.  



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