WINTER/SPRING 2014 UPDATE
Where has Kate been??? What has she been up to??? I know, I know…you all are just dying to know!! I will try to condense three races and four and a half months of training into a nice and hopefully brief blog update!
Shortly after the New Year, I started on my attempt to get down to Florida for a winter of training. My original date of arrival was to be February 13th—enough time to witness my cousin, Rachael rock out her first half-marathon (more on that later)…however mother nature had different plans for me. As I drove down to Lorton, Virginia to load onto the auto-train, the East Coast was being slammed by a nasty storm (oh wait- I think that was just winter in general), which left the Carolinas covered in ice and the train tracks inoperable. So I went BACK to Rhode Island and waited out the storm and was on my way to Ft. Lauderdale the following week. My cousins Rachael and Rob had been gracious enough to host me the entire winter last year and while there, I ran the A1A half-marathon. Despite my own slight disappointment in my effort that day and unnecessary pre-race mistakes I made, Rachael, as usual had nothing but praise for me. In fact, at the 2013 race, she declared she would finish the half herself in 2014!! This coming from the girl that although has always been active, certainly was not running the mileage for a half! Sure enough, just like all of us Romer girls, Rachael remained determined, trained hard and finished the 2014 A1A half-marathon TEN MINUTES FASTER than she anticipated!! I am so proud of her still and could not let this blog report post without giving a big shout to her accomplishments!!
After a nice week of some down time with Rachael and Rob in Ft. Lauderdale, I headed up to Clermont, FL to settle in for the rest of winter and some of spring. Clermont happens to be pretty much the only hilly part of Florida and coupled with the warm temps, that suited me just fine. I lived with the hostess with the mostest, Sara McLarty and Jilly P. and I must say, it was an experience for which I am very grateful. There were several other pros down there for the same reason that I had gone down, so we had quite a nice little community and there was ALWAYS someone with whom to ride, swim or run…I even managed to pull Jill into a couple of my core workouts J I got two decent rides with friends Kristin and Brian on the Florida 70.3 course and countless miles of running and swimming outdoors- can’t beat that in the middle of February!! I would like to give a special thanks to Sara McLarty for being so hospitable and easy-going and to Misty Becerra for being the best “on-call” massage therapist/running buddy and listening ear!
I raced the Clermont Tri at the end of March—a nice olympic distance tri that I urge anyone looking to get away from the cold Northeast to come down and check out. There is no prize money involved, but the swag is great, the course is just challenging enough to keep it interesting but not impossible and the race is very well managed. I won the race and as far as my husband can tell, I think I might have broken a bike course record—or at least it was the fastest split for the ladies for as long as they have been keeping record on the web. I went into the race with ZERO expectations and no pressure- it was simply to be a nice training day. It is races that I feel like that where I seem to do the best…and I am working on duplicating that feeling of calm and control for races going forward with various techniques and therapies.
I had a couple weeks post-Clermont tri to recover and race Florida 70.3, which I was expecting to do fairly well in. As race day approached, so did “move-out” day. Foof came down to watch me compete and then help me pack the car to head back to the still chilly northeast. Race morning, I just couldn’t seem to get my head together and had a lot of anxiety. It left me feeling hollow. I just felt like my legs and body were not with me. Regardless, I raced as hard as I could and managed to almost reach top ten in a tough field. I was 11th out of 22, which- racing the way I was feeling, I KNOW I was capable of a much faster race. That being said, I am NOT an excuse maker, it is what it is. The race went on and I just couldn’t pull my head out of my hiney and put it together… Onward and upward!! The day after the race, a bunch of the tri friends I had made and Foof and me decided to head over to Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon to let our hair down and do “post-race recovery” the FUN way!! We had a blast and I hope this will be our yearly tradition!!
Back home, it was back to the cold, which was a hard adjustment. I had about a month of training and then it was out to Knoxville, TN for the final Rev3 PRO series race. I had committed to Rev3 for the season and was just going to use this particular race as a training day, hoping to really nail it at the other Rev3 races I had chosen. However, Rev3 has decided to cancel the pro series for the time being. Although this decision will in no way affect the Rev3 race series in general, it just means that there will no longer be a pro prize purse available. I am of course saddened by this development, as I believe that Rev3 is truly one of the best event management companies in the tri world. Regardless, I plan on continuing to race Rev3 when the schedule will allow for it and urge all to put a couple Rev3 races on their schedule this year.
So I arrived in Knoxville with some heavy legs, just hoping that in some miracle, I would be fresh enough for the “hybrid distance” race to do fairly well…but my nerves and tired legs said otherwise.
I flew home from Tennessee and 12 hours later was in a car to pick up my BRAND NEW bike, a BMC TM01 with electronic shifting and Garmin Vector pedals. Understandably, there is a bit of an adjustment period with a new bike and I am working through that!