Ok, so I'm a little late on my race report, but it's better late than never! I was slightly skeptic about how Rev3 was going to turn out because I have been spoiled by the Ironman brand. Turns out that Rev3 put on an event just as stellar as the Ironman brand. There was a little less hype, but the fact that the half racers were allowed to "sleep in" and do their transition set up later than the full racers, which was AWESOME!
Getting to Cedar Point was the easy part, then signing in, getting the goodie bag, and turning in Felix (my bike) for the night was a little bit tougher. At M-dot events there is a clear line and set up that everyone follows so everything goes smoothly. For Rev 3 things went smoothly once you figured out where the starting point was, meh, still a nice race. I loved the fact that the Full Rev started an hour or so before the Half Rev but I didn't have to be up or anything. That was glorious!
Swim:
So my friend didn't tell me that the water was going to be FREEZING. I don't do well in cold water, but I survived. I was incredibly grateful that I was wearing a wetsuit because I could float and "swim" while my lungs adjusted to the cold. This was all peachy but then somehow the waves started coming from the left which made no sense. Turned out the wind had picked up something fierce and was causing quite a bit of chop. The race coordinator actually changed the swim to the bay because the actual Lake was ridiculous and had a huge undertow. I thought the swim was never going to end and I kept taking in water and feeling blarg. My arms were cold, shoulders weren't too bad, but I was over choking on Lake water. I finally finished the swim and the wet suit strippers had me out of my suit in no time! I ran to transition and hurried onto Felix.
Bike:
Remember that wind I talked about? Yeah, we were originally told the wind would be a random 8 to 10 mph. Turned out it was a steady 15 mph with gusts up to 20+. Awesome. The bike was fairly uneventful but I felt good which was the important part. Red had been awesome and bought me a speedfill A2 water bottle for between my Aero bars and it worked like a charm. I was happy and hydrated and overall just felt fine. I was kind of over the whole wind nonsense, but I just kept saying "think small" and I tucked into Aero and caught and passed people bigger than me. An awesome power to weight ratio seriously comes in handy. The only problem I had was trying to eat on the bike. Since the wind would randomly toss you around like a kite it made letting go with one hand difficult. I was still able to get my calories in so it was fine.
Run:
This is where things were interesting. I came off the bike thankful we changed the swim because when we passed the lake and I saw the waves it was terrifying. The waves were worse than the ocean waves Florida and the gusts coming off the bike made me seriously fear crashing. The run was getting much better. I had to pee!!! I never have to pee off the bike so needing to was good! Red caught me coming out of transition after I went pee and told me I was in 11th. I asked how far ahead the other girls were and he didn't know yet. I was all kinds of happy and then my head went "that means almost top 10, those top 10 girls are fast, can I get there?". Well I took off feeling really good and stuck to my nutrition. I don't know if I could have gone faster but I know I was pushing. I kept looking for girls who looked my age and only found 2 people in my age group on the run. One girl passed me but then I passed someone else so I ended up even.
I stayed in 11th but it was ok. I was a little disappointed in my time because it was slower than Muncie, but the course was harder because of a couple of hills and the annoying wind. If I could change anything I may have tried more on the bike, but the most annoying thing was the finish line. I think there were 6 turns in this shoot and I never thought it was going to end.
I ended up placing better so now I'm pushing for a top 10 finish for next year! Right now I'm debating about a 50k in February but I'm making my race schedule for 2014. Pictures later :)
