Grand Rapids Triathlon
Another weekend and another race! This weekend my husband and I traveled to the west side of the state once more to compete in the Grand Rapids Triathlon. This event is pretty unique to Michigan because there are three distances offered on one day: sprint, Olympic and half Ironman. I have to say, all those distances must be pretty difficult to coordinate, but the event organizers do a pretty good job! They have a huge team of volunteers, which is so awesome! Besides the unique combination of distances, my favorite part of the race is seeing so many friends!
The downside of so many distances in one day is that the transition area closes at 6:45am. Although this does present a bit of a challenge, I look at it as an opportunity to prepare for Age Group Nationals. When my husband, my dad and I race Age Group Nationals last year, I was out of transition for at least an hour and a half before my race time. It also gives me a chance to catch up with friends! Some of my very best training partners were racing this weekend; Brian Bess, who is from my hometown, and Jef Mallett, the author of Frazz which is an awesome comic strip about a triathlete! I also met up with my Playmakers teammate Marcia Backstrom who was competing in just her second Olympic triathlon to help prepare her for her second half Ironman, yes, she is an over achiever! I also saw a number of people from the Michigan State University triathlon team, including my favorite racing partner Kate Vann. Unfortunately, Kate was racing the sprint so I couldn’t hold on to her feet for the swim.
After transition closed, I grabbed my biggest fans, my dad and my mom, to find some shade and a calm place to sit and wait for our wave that was away from the frenzy of the half Ironman start. When I have a long wait before my wave starts, like at Age Group Nationals last year and Collegiate Nationals back in April, I like to grab my iPhone and plug in to my favorite tunes. About half an hour before my wave, I like to do another run warm up just to help get my heart rate up. In addition, if I can’t get into the water for a warm up, which is pretty typical for big races, I bring my swim cords along and do about 10 minutes of dry land warm up. Then it is time to shimmy into my wetsuit! I was excited to see what my Xterra Vendetta sleeveless could do in an Olympic distance swim.
Finally it was time to head to the water! I headed into the corral with my dad, Brian, Jef and Marcia. Shortly after the first wave started, I realized that I had forgotten my GU! I always take a GU about 10 minutes before the race and in my rush to get to the starting area, I had forgotten to grab my GU. Lucky for me, my dad came better prepared than I did! He had a GU in his tri suit that was extra and gave it to me. Ok, now I was ready to race! There were only two waves for the Olympic, which meant that my wave was pretty big and included men over 50 years. As soon as the gun went off, it was fast. The faster men definitely took off and the fast women followed suit. I pushed hard to stay with the front women. I knew it would be important to sight properly if I wanted to get out of the water near the front, so I quickly fell into a rhythm. My favorite rhythm is 3 strokes, sight, 3 strokes, breath, 3 strokes, sight. I think it is easy to fall into a lull during a 1500m swim, which I started to notice that I was doing on the way back to shore. I remembered a tip my coach, Barb Lindquist, had given me. She told me to increase my stroke rate and just think that each stroke was one second over the fast runners. Funny how true this would turn out to be!
I came out of the water uncertain where I was in the pack. It was so hard to tell because there were women coming out from the half Ironman and men coming out from my wave. I didn’t want to swell on position, so I just took off at a run to the transition area. Transitions have been a point of weakness for me, and I would definitely recommend that athletes practice their transitions because I need to practice mine more! I ran past my rack and then fumbled with my sunglasses for too long, but eventually I got everything squared away and I was on my bike. I knew from my bike warm up that the way out would be into the wind, but I wanted to push the pace. I kept a close eye on my heart rate and my speed. Even though I don’t like to think about my position too much, I couldn’t help but look at every face as I drew near to the turn around. I hit the turnaround without seeing a woman, took a deep breath, checked my watch for time and started the trek back to transition. I saw some women not too far behind me and kept pushing my pace back to transition. Thankfully my second transition was much smoother than my first one, even though I missed my rack again!! At least this time I caught it right away!
On to the run! I’m always a little nervous at the start of the run because I’m never certain how my legs will react, especially after Collegiate Nationals when my legs seized up on me. Right from the start I had a cramp in my side, which is always tough to deal with. My technique for dealing with cramps is to keep calm. I caught myself grimacing and the first step is to smooth my face and relax. First I relax my face and then let that relaxation move down into my arms and torso. Focus on deep breathing, all the while keeping my legs moving at a quick cadence. After about a mile the cramp started to loosen up and by mile two I felt much better. It definitely got hotter than it was supposed to and I was very thankful for all the aid stations! At the turnaround I checked my watch again so I could get an idea of how far back the next woman was. It wasn’t long before I saw the next woman and she looked like she was moving fast! I held onto my confidence and moved quickly up the one big hill on the run. Before I knew it, I could see the finishing chute! I crossed the finish line with a big smile on my face and started to hear some confused yells about the first female crossing the line. Turns out they missed my finish, so the announcer asked me to finish again so I could grab the banner for the pictures and I was more than happy to oblige!
Overall, it was a pretty great day! I finished 1st overall and re-claimed my title from Lisa Mueller, a professional triathlete from South Bend who won last year and finished 2nd this year. My training partners also had good days! My dad successfully completed his first Olympic triathlon of the year standing up, but with some improvement ideas for the next race. Jef Mallett finished 3rd in his age group and Brian Bess finished 2nd in his age group. Marcia also had a great race and finished 3rd in her age group. CMU triathlete Eric Abbott finished 1st in his age group, which is pretty impressive consider how many races he has done lately! MSU triathlete Jamie Endicott finished 2nd in her age group and another MSU athlete, Zach Church, finished 3rd in his age group. Over to the sprint triathlon, my husband Todd Kennedy finished 3rd Overall, despite his front brake rubbing the entire bike! My friend and professional triathlete Abby Guerink finished 1st Overall and Kate Vann finished 3rd Overall. Another good friend of mine, Kattie Carpenter-Rosa finished 1st in her age group. And on to the half ironman, former Lansing Triathlon Team teammate Kim Albin finished 3rd in her Age Group. Former MSU teammate Anthony Klingler finished 1st in his age group. It was so great to see everyone, especially my LTT friends Jason and Bethany Hartzell who were there to cheer everyone to the finish. Well, it is back to training for me as I look forward to my next race, the USAT Mideast Regional Championship!
