who wants to go to the olympics anyways??

So as most of you know, I raced our first Olympic Selection race in Des Moines, Iowa last weekend. It also happened to have the biggest prize purse in ITU history. $200,000 for the win with a Hummer H3 tossed in. I traveled over on Thursday afternoon and after the 13 min flight to Vancouver my luggage had already been lost! Luckily not my bike, just the small suitcase. I was going to take it with me until I realized th big container of Nutella wouldn't make it through security...soo my Nutella cost me my luggage! So we arrived at the hotel in Des Moines around mid night on Thursday (and if you read Colin's blog about being the only one to get that package in his room..he's a liar, we all got them! :-) Some light training on Friday, then the race meeting and pasta dinner and a good nights sleep. Then Saturday was the usual lounge day with 3 short sessions. As for race day....

Des Moines wasn't going to give us that Hummer easily! It brought 94 degree temperatures along with humidity and crazy winds! I kept cool during warm up and waiting for the start. I got a great start position, 2nd from the left with almost all the best swimmers to my right. I had a clean start and I was set from there. I came out of the water in a group of 8 with 20 seconds up on the rest of the field. Once on the bike, the group of Anabel Luxford, Jessica Harrison, Sarah Haskins and McClarty, Laura Bennett, Joanna Zeiger, Julie Swail and myself got organized and starting putting some time on the rest of the field. Then lost time...then eventually brought it up to 2:45 by the time we entered T2. I worked pretty hard on the bike and I knew it was a risk but I was willing to take it, hoping that my legs would still feel good. I have had this happen countless times in brick workouts in training so I was holding on to that bit of hope! I felt fine starting the run. Nothing like Richards Bay but good enough. Laura, Anabel and I ran together from the start putting a gap on the rest of the field. It looked as if this would be the podium. I felt very comfortable and was waiting for the sprint. I didn't want to risk going ahead and then blowing and was confident enough in my finish that I could wait until the end. The laps seemed to go by really slow. I only remember 3 of them though because I collapsed in the last 1/2 km from the finish! Joel saw me run by looking zoned out. By the time he called Tom and ran around the corner, he found me lying on the ground with Kathy Tremblay's coach Phillipe holding me. He wanted to give me every opportunity to make it so I got up but I couldn't stand. I dragged myself along the barriers for about 15m with the medics following close behind until I couldn't do anymore and they took me to the ambulance...not where I wanted to finish the day. I got a couple IV's and then headed back to watch the men's race. I wanted to win so bad that I ran myself into the ground...literally. :-) I did everything right with nutrition and hydration details, it was just an extreme day. Only 26 of 49 women finished the race and 10 dropped on the final lap. I was disappointed that I didn't get that automatic Olympic spot (top 5 was the criteria) but I know I delivered on the day, I just didn't get all the benefits! It's sounds cheesy but I really like the saying "you get out of it what you put into it", it's something I think about in training a lot but this one was a little hard to handle because I put so much into it and didn't get much out of it! Although, I guess that's not true because I learned some lessons and gained some confidence which are valuable things.. but not an Olympic spot, not to mention $$! But the money didn't mean anything to me compared to the Beijing spot. Anyway... I was still very pleased with myself. It is very satisfying to know that I did everything I could..no regrets. Some people ask me, "well why didn't you just slow down?" ...well..if you slow down, you don't win... It's not a very complicated equation! (I know..if you pass out, you don't win either! But at least i gave myself the chance!)
In the mens race Simon went for the win as well. He was in 2 breakaways on the bike, coming off 1:10 up on the rest of the field that included the sports best runners. I thought he had it for sure (and was secretly hoping he would hand the Hummer over to me!) He took a risk an it ended up hurting his run a little in the end and he finished a very respectable 6th. But it was a BAMF 6th because he did what it took to win, it just didn't pan out like we hoped. So I was pretty proud of him! Cool to watch. The rest of our team didn't have too much luck either. There were a ton of suffering athletes out there. World Cup winners running 37 mins...like a million athletes lined up for IV's...it was a tough day.
After all that we got to the airport on Monday only to find out that our flights were delayed and we would have to stay over night. Sweet...well it actually was because I roomed with our massage therapist, Kim who kindly gave me a terrific massage before bed! I was in rough shape. Now I'm back home again but I will leave on Friday for the next World Cup in Edmonton...Take 2......

Here are a few race photos:



Swim




T1




I retouched this one for all the sickos out there who commented on the last pics!!