8/3/08

Second Place....again

Always a bridesmaid....first place loser....whatever you want to call it. I'll call it next to best. Or how 'bout this one - a good race. It seems like no matter where I am in my racing career, in the 6 years I've been doing this race, I can't seem to pull off a win! It's becoming sort of a joke now....Does it bother me, well kind of. A little. But here's the thing- I always fall short to a (different) really fast girl who has a better race than me. It's that simple. This year it was a fellow Zoot teammate Amy Marsh. she smoked the bike...

The morning started off hot, and just got hotter as the day went on. that part of the country is in a heatwave, and in dallas it was 108....and shreveport is just 2 hours east of there. we started off with the swim in the hot tub - the balmy 92 degree water of cypress lake, then we were off on the relatively uneventful bike - same ol same ol - passing a bunch of guys like they're standing still. you see, this race has no pro wave, so I went off with the age groupers 28 minutes after the first wave went off... so there were lots of people to pass along the way on the bike. this year I must say that most of the guys were riding pretty legal and to the right, which is a nice change from years past. usually I have to hollar "LEFT" or "PASSING" the entire way.

I saw amy coming out of the water and when we got on the bike, but that was the last I saw of her since she put the hammer down on the bike and left me for dead. now, I don't think I slow on the bike, but racing against her these days makes me think i'm a slug. When I got off the bike I saw her Scott Plasma racked with the wheel still moving to I looked up to see if she was still around maybe running out of transition - but she was long gone...but since the wheel was still moving I felt a little hope...until the turnaround halfway into the run! I felt pretty good on the run and my first 2 mile splits were 6:18's which I'm glad to see - but but once I realized amy was so far ahead, i realized running her down was probably not going to happen - so i laid up a little and decided to just cruise in. I ran my my friend and sponsor chris boggs (SRS WEALTH MNGT) and pinched him on the booty (he's lost an obscene amount of weight and is looking awesome I might add) and brought it home. Thankfully the run was good and shady so the heat didn't really bite you on the run, but when the heat creeps into the 100's its hard to hide from it. I stopped for some water about a mile from the finish then came across to find i ran a 20:02 5k off the bike- figures! that's what i get for walking thru the aid station! oh well...

3 comments:

BreeWee said...

Caroline!! Amy is a stud swimmer too, so if you saw her out of the water you must have had a great swim... as for the run, what the $%#@!????

The race ain't over till it's over, what if Amy got a gut ache and had slowed and if you still were charging hard there may have been a chance! and that 20 off the bike, fine, but you could have totally nailed like an 18! You can run!
okay, next year... the race is yours... no more slowing because you figure you won't catch em'...

Eileen Swanson said...

Hey C,
You did great! It sounds like a HOT race and you were tough and you are FAST! We all know it. Next time, number 1 is yours....
Your little buddy,
E

P.S. Reid says hi too ;-)

Damie said...

I love that you posted some new pics! You are so inspirational! And, I agree with Bree...next time you have to run your butt off no matter what. Gear up for that next race!