annett kamenz - triathlete

Race report - Longhorn 70.3 Texas

The last two weeks leading up to this race had been really, really busy with moving out of the house, buying a new place, getting some hours in at work, applying for a new job, and of course with training. I made sure that I didn’t skip any of the latter, even when it meant a couple short nights. But on Sunday at the Longhorn, 70.3 Austin all the work paid off. I placed 8^th in the women’s field. 

After two days of acclimatizing to the “heat” (ok, no Texan would consider this weather warm right now, but any Edmontonian will J), spending some time with Mike and Steph (my great homestay) and their triathlon friends, taking a look at the course (during which I fell asleep in the car…oops) and getting everything ready, it was time to race. Race morning was a beautiful, calm morning, with a bit of overcast (meaning it wouldn’t be that hot – am I ever lucky with the weather ;-)!). Mike, who was also racing, drove me out there at 5am, so I had plenty of time to set everything up. With ten minutes to my wave start at 7.30 am, it was still pitch dark, and I started to wonder how anybody will be able to see the buoys. Literally five minutes later the sun rose up, just in time for us to find our way in the swim. 

The swim start was fast as usual, but not very aggressive. There was enough space for everybody. My goal was to go out as hard as I can to get onto some feet and not swim all by myself, again. It kind of worked for the first 200m, then the guy I was trying to hang onto was getting too fast for me. I re-oriented myself and started to swim next to another female athlete. All I can say is that it seemed to me like two “troubled” swimmers found each other….I kept bumping into her, or she into me, who knows. So, I went behind her, thinking that maybe drafting in her feet would be easier (easier to do, and easier feeling-wise). Didn’t work out that well. She was swimming off the course, so here I go again…taking my own line. The whole way back we swam quasi parallel to each other, me along the buoys and her a bit (10-15m) out to the side. However, I could still see a bunch of arms swinging out of the water not too far ahead of me, so I knew it is not as bad as in Coeur d’Alene, where I saw nobody anymore. Overall, I guess my swim was as good as it is these days. So, after fighting with some green in the last 50min, I exited the water, got stripped from my wetsuit, shoved all my swim stuff into my bag (everybody had to), ran to the mounting line, and hopped onto my bike, happily passing one girl right there already. 

After about 10min of finding my rhythm on the bike, and noticing that my power meter didn’t stay upright (so that one can actually read it), I started to feel great on the bike. Within the first 15miles I passed a couple more girls, but also got passed myself by some super fast chick, just flying by. Wow….I am pretty sure that she was the one with the phenomenal bike time of 2hr16, coming in 2^nd place at the end. When the next girl passed, I decided to go with her (leaving the required distance of course J)…it was just great to see somebody of equal speed ahead. That way you cannot slack off, even if the wind is blowing, or the road gets rough. It was also good for me to see how she is taking the corners (I was not losing in the corners…good to know). Also, for the first time I experienced some more tactical riding decisions, where nobody wants to give up there spot. So, when the girl ahead of me rode by one other athlete, she decided to follow her, and moved in between her and me…Ergo, I had to let myself fall back to get out of her draft zone. Once I did that though, I could see that she lost ground on the first girl. As I didn’t want to lose her, I overtook the second girl again. Soon thereafter we passed an aid station, where the girl ahead of me and I both slowed down to get a new bottle. The third girl didn’t and just blew by us. The girl ahead of me didn’t seem impressed with that, and put the hammer down to pass her back. This time she biked by so fast that the other one couldn’t follow. So, there we went. We passed two more girls, and even a guy (must have had a bad day).

Coming into T2 I increased my cadence a bit to loosen up as much as possible for the run. Hopping off my bike I surprisingly didn’t feel terribly stiff. (I will never forget the feeling I had when doing so in California in April last year…Simply NOT a good idea to try running upright after 90km of hard riding in Aero position, when you trained indoors all winter). I lost one spot in transition, because I put socks on, the other girl didn’t. (Again, after my experience in Cali, where I didn’t put socks on and then had infected blisters for weeks…I now do for the longer races). Running out of T2 already felt way better than running the little bit from the dismount line to my bike. After leaving the bike area you had to run through the “Arena”, a stadium, where you would finish as well, and were all the people could hang out. That was pretty cool. Then I was on loop #1 of 3 and tried to relax and do what Kevin told me - take the first mile to find my rhythm. I felt good and could pass that fast transition-lady right back. I was looking forward to this three-loop course, as there were lots of bands promised and lots of aid stations. Some of the music selection was not really something that I would pick to make me move faster, but hey it was music. Anything helps in a race. And I have never seen so many aid stations in a race before. Every km there was something. Even though I didn’t really feel like taking a lot in during the first 1.5 loops (so 11km), it helped breaking the course up in little segments to focus on. I managed to pass two more women, but I also saw at every turn-around, that there were 2 ladies behind me doing the very same thing…moving up the field. It was all relatively close, for a half-ironman race. The last loop I could see Christine Fletcher about 20m ahead of me the whole time. I didn’t really get any closer, until the last little hill about 1km from the finish. I then run about 3m behind her for the next 700m, and with about 300m to go overtook her, hoping she couldn’t follow me (as I am such a great sprinter, haha). Huffing and puffing like a horse on the final meters through the now more crowed Arena I made it to the finish line 5sec ahead of her. I also ran a Half-Marathon PB with 1hr26min42sec, on a not flat course. So I am really happy with my result.

What have I learned from this race? Well every second in transition matters…just looking at the results now makes me realize that #7 was only 10sec ahead of me at the finish, but overall more than 20sec faster than me in transition. No more comment on that I guess…Also, the obvious again is that I need to improve my swim. I was 15^th out of the water, but had the 5^th best bike and 5^th best run time…So, starting, Monday, November 2^nd , I will focus on my swimming in the four weeks remaining till Ironman Cozumel. (When I say that, it doesn’t mean I will focus any less on my bike and run…haha).

This week I am lucky to have Mike and Steph letting me stay with them, so that I can get some outside km on the bike in, while I still can. And I will sure enjoy every moment of training here, as I have to expect cold riding conditions once back in Edmonton....if not snow (i.e. indoor riding).

Also, I got to meet and talk to some great athletes, Brian Fleischmann, Victor Zyemtev, and Heidi Jesberger…people I only knew from the magazine ;-)! Something very fun and inspiring.

See some photos here: http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=45831&BIB=42.