Originally I had two races on the schedule this weekend. Saturday was a Sprint Duathlon and Sunday was a 15K hard running race. Early last week following L'Enfer D'Hunterdon I decided that two max effort days back to back would likely not be great for me so I decided that Saturday would be a training ride and Sunday would be the race. There were a couple of factors in making this decision:
1) I have raced two Duathlons this year- so I will get a ranking in the annual USAT ranking system for Du.
2) Sunday was a chance to race with my mom, dad and super awesome Iron Sherpa sister. We have all raced together in the past- but never all 4 of us so this was a race I did not want to miss. Plus my mom is recovering from a Meniscus repair and this was her first race back.
3) Giving up the race on Saturday meant I could do a training ride with one of my Spinervals team members- although it also meant giving up racing with another Spinervals team member.
So Saturday became the training ride and sunday the 100% effort race (all of my races leading to IMLP are part of my training).
The weather planned for Saturday morning was supposed to be warmish (at least for spring)- north of 50. Yeah weatherman suck. When we started the temps were about 35 & when we finished about 2 hours later they were around 40. I however was dressed for closer to 50. My team member, Chrissy Brooks lives on Long Island so not much for hills. She said she wanted to get some practice on hills since we are both racing the 70.3 at Rev3 Quassy and IMLP. Both courses are know to be hilly so I was happy to join her at Harriman State Park north of NYC. If you have ever driven north along the Palisades you will know near Bear Mountain things get very bumpy with lots of ridges and steep climbs. Chrissy and I certainly climbed our share- roughly 1660 ft. Good day to work on spinning up the ramps. Here is a link to my Strava ride profile for the day:
http://app.strava.com/activities/47531552
Sunday dawned a bit windy although slightly warmer for race day. After an easy drive to the Atlantic Highlands, I got to the race site and did the packet pickup. This race is a 700 point race so it attracts folks chasing points in the USATF-NJ long distance running campaign since it counts more. Plus the team I run for- Clifton Road Runners competes in the team portion so definitely a day you want to run hard. However IndianTrails is not flat or easy. The run a couple of hills that make you question why you rolled out of bed- but hills on the bike for Saturday and hills on the run for Sunday- perfect for IMLP. And channeling last week's epic ride- there were several dirt & gravel sections. The gravel sections were heavy gravel- similar to running in sand. During the climbs I reminded myself to bank this for the sucky parts of LP. IM racing is physical and mental. Overall I ran well- the first 5K in 19:56 (which only had one climb) the second 5K was slower - about 21:13- but some significant ramps and loose gravel. The third 5 K was about 20:01- total time was 1:01:12. 4th in my AG and about 610 points for my USATF-NJ LDR campaign.
http://my-finish.com/results.php?timer_id=6&race_id=226201301&bib_number=3297#.UWHO6BmbXzU
As I mentioned my mom, stepdad and sister were also racing. My Sister and stepdad finished within seconds of each other (IM Sherpa has just started her 2013 training for Reach the Beach). And my mom finish 1st in her AG in her first race back from minor knee surgery. And I got to run my mom in from about .3 miles out- very cool.
Lastly I am relaxing on the couch watching Paris Roubaix. I so wish cycling was on TV more than fishing or auto racing or basketball or hockey (and I like hockey) or infomercials or 90% of the news magazines that take up channel space. But the Hell of the North is epic so nice to enjoy a beer or two watching the greatest single day bike race.
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