On Sunday, September 7th I competed in my second DC Nations Triathlon Duathlon. Saturday night there was a huge storm in DC which apparently caused some sort of sewage spill into the Potomac River where our swim should have taken place. Ew. So the swim was cancelled. Oddly enough, I did this race in 2011 and the swim was cancelled that year as well due to rough waters and trees floating down stream after a torrential storm.
I’d be lying if I said I’d be training hard for this race. It comes about one month after the NYC tri which I did train for, but after that I didn’t do too much to prepare for another Olympic tri. Either way, I was disappointed to hear the swim would be cancelled, I was looking forward to (and also a bit scared) of the challenge. The Nations swim is supposed to be pretty tough.
But let’s just get on with my recap and stop dwelling on the cancelled swim. I grew up in the DC area so this race gives me a nice chance to spend some time at home home with my parents and makes it easy for them to watch me race.
[bike racking on Saturday]
Sunday morning my friend Lydia called me at 4:30am to notify me the swim had been cancelled. The only place this info was relayed was via the Nations Facebook page. Race morning I was certainly not looking at Facebook so an email alert would have been nice.
[saw this girl editing her sign Sunday morning]
The race start was delayed 20 minutes, now starting at 7:15am. MM drove me and Lydia into the city, leaving Bethesda at 5:15am and arriving in transition before 6am to get our gear set up.
Then we waited…and waited some more. We had to be out of transition by 6:55 and unfortunately women 25-29 was one of the last groups to start. We got going around 8:30am. We had to run in barefoot from where the swim would have ended. We weren’t allowed to wear shoes or any of our bike gear which seemed sort of silly.
[taking some selfies while waiting 2 hours to start]
The bike ride was ok. I was instantly feeling short of energy. I’m doing Whole30 and was on Day 7 so my energy levels were expected to be low. The bike course was full of really tight turn arounds. Part of the course was a double loop. Most of the roads we were on were fairly wide but people were not sticking to the “ride right, pass left” rule and people were weaving in and out of other riders to pass. Felt a little scary. There were so many sharp turns, not sure of the actual number but I’d guess about 10. The course wasn’t hilly but the turns made you majorly slow down.
After the bike I felt ok but not great. I would never have expected to feel so tired after just a bike ride, no swim included. After the bike I headed out on the run. Since we started the race late it was getting really but was overall it was good racing weather. The run course has some nice parts that go around monuments and along the water but also has some boring straights that seem to last an eternity. I felt sluggish on the run and could tell my pace was slower than my regular race pace. In a very un-Amanda fashion I forgot to start my race watch so I had no concept of how I was doing, and I also didn’t really care, I was just happy to get through it.
- Bike: 1:20:25 (18.5 mph)
- Run: 54:16 (8:46/mile)
- Total Time: 2:19:21 (37/149 in the age group)
By the finish line I was ready to be done. While this wasn’t my favorite race, I still had a good time going out there and racing with my friends (Lydia did the Olympic and my friends Becky and Josh did the sprint). We were all disappointed about not having the swim and because of this, I would not sign up for the Nations Tri again. Obviously I understand why they cancelled the swim and I would absolutely not want to swim in sewage, but I’d prefer to do races in locations where there isn’t a chance of sewage. Someone at the race said out of 9 years the swim has been cancelled 4 times (can’t verify if this is accurate but it’s definitely at least 2 times). To pay a lot of money for a race and prepare (sorta) for all the events makes it a major bummer when parts of it get cancelled. Perhaps I’ll aim for more lake triathlons next summer.
But as I said, I loved seeing friends and family at this race so it’s not a total loss! Still another race under my belt!
*raced in my new suit from Coeur Sports and absolutely loved it*
