This past weekend I raced the junior national champs in Edmonton and watched the World Cup race a few hours later. Our race started at 8:00 AM so it was an early start! (especially because I set my alarm to 4:45 instead of 5:45!). I had a normal warm up and headed down to te beach to do a loop of the course. The water was full of chlorine, leaches and dead snails ... mmmm! The swim warm up closed before I got to do any sprints or test out the start...which I hadn't even done the day before! So I just had to guess when the race started. I took the very left hand side which was the best aongside a new Alberta athlete who swam BESIDE me or on my hip for about the first half of the race! Very frustrating because it slows me down and I was trying to get a lead out of the swim! I came out with a 45 second lead over the pack...about 15 seconds less than last time. I had a great run to transition...smooth transition and headed out onto the bike alone. I had a good ride not great...was holding back a bit so I could run my first half of the run fast. I came off the bike with 1:20 on the pack and ran the fastest time (which was my goal!) and started my first lap fast according to plan and put 30 more seconds on the group but then I relaxed a bit on the second lap. This was practice for worlds but in worlds the second lap will have to be just as fast!! All in all it was a pretty good day...nothing super special but pretty good. My stomach was a bit upset on t bike and run but i just tried to ignore it. After that I watched the elite race....very exciting as usual! Kathy Tremblay and Lauren Groves just missed the front pack but ran their way up to it with 2 amazing runs. Colin Jenkins got in the front pack right away and when the next pack caught up he broke away as did Colin Edwards who managed to stay away and got almost a minute lead! Paul Tichlaar had a fantastic race finishing 7th which is the best he has ever done in a world cup. Kyle Jones wasn't far back in 13th and Nick Hastie also made it into that front pack coming 25th. Those are all the results I remember from the NTC athletes. Great day for everyone.
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.runnersweb.com
/running/images/sweetland.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/r
=4&tbnid=OXr2ddSnXxdFrM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=72&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkirsten%2
Bsweetland%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG
This past weekend I raced the junior national champs in Edmonton and watched the World Cup race a few hours later. Our race started at 8:00 AM so it was an early start! (especially because I set my alarm to 4:45 instead of 5:45!). I had a normal warm up and headed down to te beach to do a loop of the course. The water was full of chlorine, leaches and dead snails ... mmmm! The swim warm up closed before I got to do any sprints or test out the start...which I hadn't even done the day before! So I just had to guess when the race started. I took the very left hand side which was the best aongside a new Alberta athlete who swam BESIDE me or on my hip for about the first half of the race! Very frustrating because it slows me down and I was trying to get a lead out of the swim! I came out with a 45 second lead over the pack...about 15 seconds less than last time. I had a great run to transition...smooth transition and headed out onto the bike alone. I had a good ride not great...was holding back a bit so I could run my first half of the run fast. I came off the bike with 1:20 on the pack and ran the fastest time (which was my goal!) and started my first lap fast according to plan and put 30 more seconds on the group but then I relaxed a bit on the second lap. This was practice for worlds but in worlds the second lap will have to be just as fast!! All in all it was a pretty good day...nothing super special but pretty good. My stomach was a bit upset on t bike and run but i just tried to ignore it. After that I watched the elite race....very exciting as usual! Kathy Tremblay and Lauren Groves just missed the front pack but ran their way up to it with 2 amazing runs. Colin Jenkins got in the front pack right away and when the next pack caught up he broke away as did Colin Edwards who managed to stay away and got almost a minute lead! Paul Tichlaar had a fantastic race finishing 7th which is the best he has ever done in a world cup. Kyle Jones wasn't far back in 13th and Nick Hastie also made it into that front pack coming 25th. Those are all the results I remember from the NTC athletes. Great day for everyone.
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.runnersweb.com
/running/images/sweetland.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.runnersweb.com/running/news/r
=4&tbnid=OXr2ddSnXxdFrM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=72&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkirsten%2
Bsweetland%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG