Rev3 FL:Going Out with a Bang

Although I had a break hrough with my Olympic distance PR, 2013 has been a wash overall for high quality racing. From the start of the year I was plagued with sickness, job hunting, moving several times, and then finally starting a new job in a new city and being vacation-less again. I put the icing on the cake with a grade II calf tear :)

Sounds like a lot of whining right? I guess I can just call it a growing year? Either way the ups and downs reminded me once again that there is far more to life than just triathlon.  And more importantly, you can't base your happiness on racing or doing well at racing.

With all that said I went into Rev3FL with a healthier attitude, a new found perspective, and excited simply just to be racing!

The swim was a pretty straight forward tear drop-rectangular course mostly parallel to the beach. I went out hard, reminding myself that it was only an olympic distance race and there wouldn't be a lot of room for error. Chloe and I went out together and then she definitely dropped me maybe halfway through. I just tried to stay focused but knew that I had been already passed by a lot of purple caps from my wave.

Going onto the bike, I caught Chloe as she mounted her Duchess and I mounted my Señorita :) (our QR names). The bike overall was pretty uneventful. I focused on strictly keeping up my power numbers and riding a clean race. There were lots and lots of turns so it was somewhat hard to ride as steady as I would have liked. On the bike, I passed a few women but had no idea where I stood in the overall standings. As I headed into T2, I was probably 5 minutes behind where I wanted to be but was pleased and ready to finish hard with the run.

After exiting T2, the sun started to beam down and make it's presence known on the unshaded course.  And simultaneously my Garmin 310xt decided to blow up both physically and electronically. According to garmin, I was rocking some 5:30 miles and all of the metal components that hold the watch in place are still somewhere around water stop #1 :) I felt pretty awesome but not quite 5:30 awesome. As I neared mile 1, I finally learned that I was in 3rd place overall. And lucky for me, I was quickly closing on #2. As the miles seemed to drop quickly, I just kept praying that my calf wouldn't act up. Thankfully it never did :) Yay compression! With the out and back course I finally saw #1 about a good 600 meters in front of me. She looked strong as well. I tried to focus on my race and just finishing strong. I never did catch her but was very pleased with ending with a 2nd OA performance and a solid race to finish the year. I also had not 1 but 2 guys compliment me on my bike pacing post race. I'm not sure if they were thanking me for the draft or if the power is actually paying off? Either way I will take it as a cycling compliment this time around :)

I loved ever minute of Venice, Fl and would go back in a heart beat. The volunteers were an amazing group of high energy snowbirds. Loved it!! I highly recommend this to anybody looking for a fun one to end the season on. It was such a fun weekend with all of my teammates and again another job well done by rev3!

Cheers to 2014 :)