The race report is as follows:
I have run about 5 times total in the last month. To say I am concerned about leg pain and running, is to say the least. However, I know my knee hurts at about 30 min and I figured I shouldn't be still running a 5k at the 30 min point.
I arrived at the race to find the parking for this race was about a mile from the start. I was happy I wasn't pushing the time, like usually. I arrived at the race and watched the people all in some kind of a panic about what to do, how to do it, etc.
I was in wave 9 so I watched the first few waves start and then went down right before my start. When you look at buoys out in the water it always looks further than it really is, distance wise. The water was cold and I was immediately thankful for my wetsuit, even thinking I might have benefited from my long-sleeve one. I got up in the front for the start of the swim. I have learned that even though I am not the fastest swimmer, I am not a scared swimmer. Contact doesn't bother me and I prefer having some people pass me than be in the back and have to swim around more people.
I started the swim and quickly realized that this was similar to swimming in a mass wave start. It was a wave start, but the waves in front were about 2min ahead and most were slower swimmers. I came up on people very quickly and was trying to swim around people. Eventually, I had to swim "over" quite a few people that were swimming next to another person. Besides the slower people the annoying problem was that it was kind of wavy. The buoys were also orange on both sides of the rectangle and there were a lot of swim caps that were orange. It made sighting kind of annoying. The best idea is one color buoy out and one in this way there is no mistake. I passed a lot of people on the swim and wasn't sure where I was in my age on the swim, but couldn't see many people in front of me.
I started the bike, my favorite part of racing. Sadly, it was only 10 miles which doesn't allow me too much of an advantange. It was rolling hills and again in races it is difficult when you are passing many people and nobody is passing you. You are not sure if you need to push more or if you are going fast. I tried to go as fast as I could. I have no idea what my time was for the bike because my race split is missing from the results.
I changed into run shoes, without socks (trying to make transition faster for a sprint) and ran. At about 1.5 miles I was passed by a girl in my age group. I tried to keep her in my sights to push past her at the end. Sadly, the push was not there. Probably the lack of time running, but it was annoying.
In the end I took first in my age and 5th overall if you take out the relay's (otherwise 9th). It was just another "practice" race day. Now I am just wishing my ITband would stop hurting so I can train.
If it doesn't stop hurting soon I may have to take some time off of running (even the one run a week) and see if it gets better. If not then I will have to do the boulder half just swimming and biking and skip out on the run. Which is killer to me, but a smarter decision than to be injured and not be able to train for my big race in Nov.
Here is a pict of me with my trophy after the race:
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