Going in I had a good feeling. Training had been going well & I was having some good mental/emotional growth for myself. After the 500m row PRs earlier in the week my curiosity was peaked for what I could do on the 500m row repeats. Two days out I was excited for the row repeats...a bit dreadful, but mostly excited! That in & of itself is big growth for me! I recall OPTathlon 2.0 in April 2012 when I thought about not going to avoid having to do the row repeats & I was mad about having to do them the whole time. Literally like a bratty littler girl that didn't want to do her chores. :) Not surprisingly it was my worst of the 5 with splits of 156.9, 1:58.5. I've done hundreds of row repeats since then & have grown to better accept the challenges before me.
10 min ground to overhead is the first event. Weighed in at 127.9lbs. Heaviest competition weight yet. I opened at 165, then 175, 185 (5lbs C&J PR), 190-worked hard to stand up the clean & missed the jerk on two separate attempts.
Had a recovery shake & a bunch of water following the C&J prior to going to rest for a bit. As I started some warm-ups for the row/triple jump section I got off the rower after 12s & felt my stomach feeling upset. I burped a bit and then I puked up some water in the bushes. It was this a crazy feeling and then it passed & I felt fine. I guess I had too much to drink & my body needed to flush it.
This is probably the first time I did some significant warm-up prior to the row event or any of the row repeats I've ever done I just typically go in and do them. So JT & I had talked about different ways to prep for it and I did some tough sets of 12s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 40s with a few minutes rest in b/w.
Triple jump is prior to row repeats & it went well considering my heel has been bothering me & relative to what I did in practice I was pleased. Not my all time best but will take the 20'3" at this point.
Row Repeats were magical for me this time around. I wanted to shoot for sub 1:50 for both. Went a bit conservative on the first a bit afraid that I may blow up with only 90s rest. Hit 1:49.4. For the second I went out a touch faster holding 1:48/1:49 and sort of testing what was going to happen at the 40-60s mark. I got there and felt powerful so I started accelerating. I was holding strong & finding new gears into the finish which has NEVER happened on these repeats in the past. I had a couple of 1:44/1:45 pulls the last 100m. My second was an PR in the 500m with 1:47.6. Total of 3:37.0 which was like a 7s overall improvement from the spring. I'll take it!
The rest of the day went well. I took first in the circuit workout and improved my reverse shot toss by a few feet bumping it up to 39' 2". I didn't have any kind of plan going into the run and it showed, as I ran from behind for much of the race. My legs generally felt heavy & I just feel a bit awkward in my skin on the track for longer distance these days. I'm carrying a lot more load than I ever used to in my running days...15-20lbs more. Nonetheless, I ran my worst 3ks ever in competition with 12:52 & certainly had too much left in the tank. Will have a better plan next time. I think I can certainly still run int he 12:20s/12:30s if I decide to.
At the end of the day I took second overall with my second best overall score.
Full results here.
I didn't realize it until the day was over, but as I was reflecting back on the day it occurred to me that I never put myself through my typical, "Why did I decide to sign up for this? Why do I do this?" mental torment that I typically go through at or prior to each competition. It could be my comfort level with the competition itself, as I know now what to expect & how most of it will feel. And/or simply some growth in embracing myself as an athlete & the idea of "This is just what I do." Onward!
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