Alrighty, well...its been a week since the race and I finally settled in back home and I am left disgruntled and baffled. The drive to Richmond and the weather turned out to be perfect, we started out on the swim and I sprinted to the first buoy which is something I usually don't do. Needless to say I think it helped get away from the crowd. I ended up swimming a 21:26 1200 meter. Then it was on to the bike.
This course is technical and unforgiving. Almost immediately you have to lay the smack down or these faster riders will catch you. There is a long straightaway for about 2 miles before heading into the single track. For some reason this just wears me down. I had a somewhat crappy performance on the bike, probably from too many road miles during the week. My bike split for 18 something miles was 1:34 which is actually about 6 minutes faster than the last time I raced Richmond but I am still not happy with how I felt. Finally the run...out of no where I had a burst of energy, possibly the fact I knew I had to pick it up or I would not place where I needed to be. I felt extremely fast and was probably running a 6:30 pace...at least. Then with about 2 miles left I was headed down some single track and there was a split in the trail with no arrow...yup, that sucks... fortunately or so I thought, there was another racer just within sight at the bottom of the hill. By the time I caught up with him he was heading towards me saying this must be the wrong direction...POOP! So we headed back up the hill and down the other path and back down the hill...needless to say, this was the wrong way AGAIN. So we ended up coming all the way up and then back down the hill . By the time we got back to the intersection a course martial was there to show us which way to go...AWSOME...but too freaking late...So in my estimation we ran an extra ten minutes and possibly over a mile more trying to figure where the hell we where. My "6.8 mile run" or 7.8 was 52 minutes and I am almost positive I lost at least 2 spots and a crap load of points because of this...My next race will be EX2 in Maryland to try and redeem myself. For now I have to keep my head high and get through the rest of the season...PEACE!!!
The look of dissapointment... 2:48 finish... WTF!!!
