Race Coverage

"I Kept Going"....

Tuesday, 05 May 2015 06:10

By Ruth Brennan Morrey (ruthbrennanmorrey.com)

IM 70.3 St. George -  So…I raced yesterday. It hurt. That’s ok. Everyone was hurting. Ninety six degrees on one of the most difficult bike/run courses in the world, with Olympians, World Champions, Triple Crown winner, champs, champs, more champs at the North American Pro Championship race, in St. George, UT. ....

Swim: Fine. Actually the start was better than fine. It was probably the best start I have ever had in my triathlon career. Hung with a large crowd for a good 500m until the first buoy turn. I was smack in the middle of everyone. My thought, “I’m doing this! Keep strong.”  After poor focus for a moment after being hit in the head and goggles knocked crooked….I was on my own. Lesson learned, but confidence gained!

Bike: My bike was in meticulous shape going into the race. Both Rochester Cycling and Cervelo looked it over before the race and there were no issues. Exit the swim, hop on the bike, pass two women fairly easily within 2 miles, then they re-pass me within 1 mile…easily. I couldn’t hold on to them without cooking my legs so let them kill themselves (or so I thought) while I stayed patient. I wasn’t catching anyone and this was rare, as my watts were pretty well on target. At mile 20, 40 year old AG men started to catch me. WHAT?! Was I just a bad climber? Slow leak in tires? I couldn’t make sense out of it. I dismounted at mile 25/26 to check out my tire pressure. Air pressure was fine—however, my bike’s back tire was jammed up against the brake. Like every triathlete, I’ve had nightmares about this! I’m certain that the poor road surface in the first few miles of the ride jostled my wheel/brakes enough to send it out of whack. I couldn’t manually adjust the rear brakes, so I disengaged the entire brake and continued on. I had the worst bike split of the day—I can’t even type out my bike split, its that painful to think about J . How much did this cost me? My recorded watts last year, in same weather conditions, on the same course were almost the exact same as this year. So I can approximate that this cost me 25 minutes. One might also ask (as I have asked myself), how could I not notice? The descents were SO fast even with the brake rubbing, and the long steep climbs were going to be slow anyway. The 40-45 AG’er catch up and lack of pro female ‘catching’ were my clues that poor luck had me. READ MORE