Sunday, June 18th was my first race of the 2006 triathlon season; the Long Island Gold Coast Triathlon. With a year of sponsored racing under my belt, I went into this race really excited about my abilities. Training for this season got off to a pretty slow start mostly because of weather, and road paving in the area where I train. Also, I participated in a summer program at my school, which lasted for 10 days including weekends which left no time for training. I tried not to let that bother me, and I went into this race with the mindset that I was really going to kick some serious butt to see where I could expect myself placing this season. In accordance with some training experimentation, I devised that my strategy for this race would be to really go for it in the swim, relax a little on the bike (because that's the leg that I'm naturally the fastest in), and really hammer the run.

I did this same race last year, so I had a pretty good idea of what times I had to beat to come up with an exceptional finish.

So I went into race day feeling really good. The swim started, and I got into the water in a pretty bad position, but I tried to really swim hard. It felt like I did, I was out of the water pretty fast, but when I looked at my watch, I realized it was 16 minutes already. I tried not to let that slow me down though, and I continued with my plan of attack.

On the bike, I tried to keep up a constant speed of about 20 miles per hour. Knowing that I wanted to be loose for the run, and not wiped, I tried to stay relaxed, and stretch a lot on the bike, but I also knew I needed to make up some serious time. It felt like I was going really fast on the bike, In fact, it felt like I had passed about 20 people. When I came in from the bike, my watch read exactly one hour, which I remembered was slower than last year, and a tad slower than I wanted to be going at that moment.

Going onto the run feeling very good and knowing that I was slowing really motivated me to go for a record 5k. It was here that the race began to fall apart. After the Saratoga Lake Triathlon last year, it really hit me that it was the people that save some juice for the run that really do well, so leading up to this season; I really tried to put an extra focus on running. However, in my last few training runs leading up to this race, I found myself cracking way too quickly, and cramping up when usually I would not. I didn't think much if this, I just thought it was a bad day and when the race came, I would be able to pull off a sub-20 minute 5k no sweat. But when it came time to race, I had the same old problem. After about the first mile, I already found myself struggling. I had plenty energy left over from the swim and bike, I felt great, but I was already cramped up and my stomach was killing me. So I completed the rest of the run with this horrible pain and came up with a 5k time of about 26 minutes, giving me a total time of 1:26. 10 minutes slower than last year, and 15 minutes slower than my goal time. It was a major upset.

Upon reflecting on the race, I realized that there is definitely something wrong with the way I'm running. By the time my next race rolls around, I would like to have this problem fixed, and to once again be able to run well. I already consulted my pediatrician to see if there was anything structurally wrong with me (because I felt pains in my ribs when I touched them). Between now and then, I think I'm just going to really work on my running and maybe even get a trainer to help me get back on my feet. As much as I would love this, I don't know how possible it will be. I still have 2 weeks of internship coming up at the United Nations, as well as ski camp with my ski racing team in Canada for 2 weeks. My summer is very busy, plus I have a lot of friends that are graduating and turning 16. Racing at this stage (being in high school that is) is very difficult, but I tell myself that I enjoy training and that usually does the trick. Plus, it's a great story to tell my friends, who don't do anything like this.