Race Coverage

"I am not good at quitting"....

Saturday, 02 June 2018 23:10

By Erin Ladendorf (bikesandcatsrightmeow.blogspot.com)

When I woke up last Saturday morning, I was the normal mix of both excitement and nerves. I had been counting the days down to the first race of my season, and on the morning of May 26th it was finally upon me. 

I had dialed the taper week in, and did everything I normally do leading up to a race. 

But with my focus being short course and speed this year, I was finding that my body was reacting in ways I hadn’t felt before. When I did my pre race run Friday, I felt a pain in my ankle that I hadn’t noticed before. I shook it off as a pre race phantom injury and nothing more. 

When I got to the race site Saturday morning, I felt great. I got warmed up and meandered up to the start line. I had some really awesome ladies toeing the line with me, so I was beyond stoked to get out there and race.

The countdown started, and as the group shuffled forward, I was out of the gate like a bat out of hell. I was determined to win overall AG today and my run was where I was going to achieve that. ...

As I made my way up the first hill out of transition, I was sitting pretty with a significant space between myself and the rest of the ladies. I had no idea what my pace was at, since Mike was challenging me to race without a Garmin this day. That was a whole different feeling in itself, but I must say I eventually enjoyed it! I was listening to my body and pushing it to its actual limits, not following pre conceived notions of what it could do. 

But at the last aid station, I grabbed a cup of water to douse myself with since the temps were already at about 90 degrees. And in that moment I stepped, and felt the most unfortunate “ping”. I hobbled the last half mile to T1 to get to my bike, determined to hold my lead.  READ MORE