Syracuse 70.3 Race Report 2010

The race is done and in the books and now there’s just a marathon standing in my way of the complete off season! Here’s the race report…

Justin and I drove up to Syracuse Saturday morning. We headed straight to registration to get all the hassle out of the way. This was the races inaugural year so I was a bit concerned about how smoothly things would go. To my surprise, I was in and out, back in the car within 15 minutes. From there we were off to rack the bike which was about an 18 minute drive away. I did a quick ride; made sure everything was ready and racked my bike. I headed down to the water where Justin went for a swim to feel the water and oh good lord, the water was frigid. I didn’t even get knee deep before I decided I’d skip my short swim for the day. After that, we checked-in to our hotel and met up with Hirsch and CREW for dinner at pastabilities (yum). I was in bed at 8pm.

Race Morning
I was up at 4:30am, plans to leave at 5am. Walking out to the car, I was (twice now) pleasantly surprised that our hotel had breakfast out for the taking (I was not expecting this as it was the races inaugural year). We grabbed a (small) cup of coffee and left. Expecting temps in the 40’s, I was again (third time now) pleasantly surprised that it was in the low 60’s at 5am – SWEET! Though, there was on and off mist/light rain. 18 minutes later we pulled into the enormous grass parking lot (holds 4,000 cars) without any traffic backups. The morning was going smoothly. With plenty of time before race start, Justin and I found a spot under a tree (to stay dry) near the water, sipped on more coffee that we got at the race site and just waited. I guess everyone wanted to show up later rather than early because they ended up delaying the start by 15 minutes due to heavy traffic of athletes trying to make their way to the race.

                       

Swim [39:02]
Since there was a delay in the start, they condensed the time lapse between each wave group. The start seemed rush but I didn’t mind, I always find it annoying when I start an hour+ after the first wave. I was nervous about how cold the water was so I didn’t even feel it that morning until my swim start. Again, (fourth time now) pleasantly surprised that the water didn’t feel as cold as the day before. Maybe because I had a wetsuit on but the temp was def. doable, actually comfortable with a wetsuit on, at 62 degrees. I kept a groove in the water the entire time. The water was a bit cloudy but I could see the space around me which is all I need to feel alright. Buoys were easy to spot, too.

T1 [3:24]
                           

Bike [2:57:18, 19mph]
The day before, Jus and I drove the first 10ish miles of the bike course. It was nothing but one hill after another. Sweet Road ain’t so sweet (pictured above). I figured from the elevation chart, the course should be semi-flat after 15 miles or so. I decided not to kill it until I was through with the early hills. After which I got going with some consistent, fast speeds. There were a good number of rolling hills throughout so by no means was the bike “easy”. It was not at all what I was expecting it to be going in. I decided not to wear arm warmers or glasses which was a smart move. There was a mist the entire bike so you were never dry and my helmet dripped water throughout. The fog was crazy at certain points (pictured below – not me in the pic). Roads were in good condition, farms all around, not much to complain about here. 1 loop course – gotta love that!

                        

T2 [2:01]

Run [1:48:03, 8:15 min/mile]
My feet were super numb coming off the bike. I think this is due to shoe fit (need to buy some new, wider shoes for next season). It takes about 4 miles until my feet feel normal. The run course was a point to point run which I'm not a fan of. Because of this, you had

to drive to transition once done to collect all your things – annoying. By the time I started running, the mist/rain had stopped and it was just overcast. For the most part, the run was flat but it did have a couple small hills and false flats. But overall, I’d say the run course was easy. A bit boring as you run on one long, straight, 4 lane, divided road for most of the time. By mile 6 I was ready to stop. I didn’t want to race anymore. I was tired, my legs hurt, and I still had 7 miles to go. Ugh. Working through my negative thoughts, I stopped looking at my watch and just kept putting one foot in front of the other, counting down the miles at every mile marker. Coming down to the final stretch everyone was screaming “just around the corner and you’re done!” Well, where was this corner?!?! It felt like FOREVER to get to THE corner but they were all right, you turn it and there’s the finish – LOVELY! I checked the watch and it said 5:29 and change… holy cow, another PR (by 10 minutes) and sub 5:30 ;) !! I was close to running my fastest half marathon in this race – which right now is a 1:46. I was ecstatic.

                      

Total Time: 5:29:45
AG Standing: 16th/68 (Only one girl came in sub 5 in my AG so that is promising, ha)

I personally really enjoyed this race. There were a lot of things that made it nice. Well organized, small town feeling, great volunteer support (including the police and army/navy guys), normal, calm, friendly participating athletes (not like the tool bags that flocked to Timberman), the surrounding towns totally embraced the race and athletes, even the cows and horses that stood at the farm fences to watch us (it was really cute!). The only thing I would change is to have the run end at transition (I know this defeats the SYRACUSE part but whatever, it’s close enough). HUGE thanks to Justin for all his help and crazy ability to show up in about 50 different spots of the race to cheer for me :) And, love and thanks goes to my family of course for tracking me and sending their positive vibes!

And with that, my tri season is now complete. Until next year…