Rev3 Williamsburg

I chose to start my season a bit late this year. I wanted to do some smaller, local races first, get the competitive juices flowing and then jump into my first pro race. I picked Rev3 Williamsburg as my first pro race because I would be able to train on the course, which would ideally lead to less anxiety on race day. My training has come a very long way since last year, and I was really looking forward to coming out guns blazing for this race. However, sometimes things just don't work out exactly the way you expect them to. I'm a rookie pro, and I made a few rookie mistakes.

Swim:
Heading down to the water I realized my timing chip strap was not secured very well, I thought hmmm I should probably safety pin that, but just never got around to finding a safety pin. Its little tiny things like this that I'm realizing I should probably pay more attention to. The men went off a couple minutes before us and we all laughed a bit at how ridiculous it looked when they ran almost all the way to the first buoy. I lined myself up somewhere in the middle along the beach and kept my eyes on the first line of buoys. The gun went off and everyone took off running into the water. My original plan had been to kind of copy cat what the other women were doing. The water was still around knee deep when I started to feel the timing strap going up and down my leg. I didn't want to lose it so I thought, well maybe dolphin diving will be better. This is about when I learned that I really, really need to work on my dolphin dives. After a couple pretty comical attempts, I decided to just swim. The water was still really shallow and the other women were still running. Brian later asked me why I had started swimming when everyone else was running: rookie mistake number one. In all the confusion, the group had gotten a bit of a jump on me which very quickly lengthened. I tried to make up the gap but I was too late and all of a sudden I was mostly on my own: rookie mistake number two. I put my head down and decided to just swim as best I could and hope that I wasn't too far back and could make it up on the bike. I was having some (ok a lot) of difficulty swimming in a straight line. It was hard to tell what exactly the current was doing, and my sighting was probably not at its best. It felt like it took forever down the back part of the triangle swim course. On the last stretch, I was caught by a couple amateur men. This is about where I knew I was in trouble. When I stood up and glanced at my watch, I could hardly believe it, slower even than Kona, which to me had been a very difficult swim. I gritted my teeth and ran into transition. I knew I had work to do so I made it through T1 and onto my bike fairly quickly.

Bike:
My bike has come a very long way over the past couple years, but I knew my work was cut out for me after coming out so far back in the swim. I was getting in a groove pretty quickly and my speed and effort were right where I wanted them to be. I was passed by a few amateur men, and once I was sure I was way back of the drafting zone, I put my head back down and kept at it. In my hurry to get back in the game, I completely forgot about the stagger rule (only applies to pros): rookie mistake number three. Once I realized, I moved to the left, but it was too late and a marshall drove up next to me and told me to stand down. Standing on the side of the road, watching the stop watch count up to two minutes was heart breaking. I knew with a bad swim and a penalty it was going to be very difficult to bridge up to the main group. As soon as the two minutes were up I jumped back on my bike, determined to continue to ride well. Minus the penalty, I actually had a good ride. The wind on the way back didn't get to me, and I rode at a very consistent effort. I also got my planned nutrition down. Heading into T2 I was anxious to get into my running shoes, but also a bit worried if I had made up any of the time I had lost. Looking at the pro women bike splits after the race, without my penalty, I was right up there with a bunch of the other pro women. I know this is far from just a bike race, but it was encouraging to know that I have made good gains on my biking.





Run:
Coming through transition, I heard someone yell good job and that I was on video, I thought it was someone from Rev3, but it was actually our friend Frank. He videoed my T2 which was actually kind of cool because then I got to see later how I can get through transition more quickly. Again, in my hurry to get out and make up some time, I got a little flustered. I should have put my socks then shoes on, grabbed my visor/race belt and run out while putting them on. Instead I put my race belt then visor on. Then socks and shoes. Minor details I know, but still areas I can improve. I also decided to run out the wrong way, and thankfully Frank yelled for me to turn around: rookie mistake number four. The first couple miles I was on pace and felt like my legs were turning over decently well. Overall I felt pretty good. Then, I started to slow. My stomach was feeling weird, and I just didn't want to take calories, plus I couldn't tell if I was hot or cold. I kept trying to make my legs move faster only to see my watch reading off the same pace, I wasn't getting any slower, but I also wasn't speeding back up. However, I've felt similar to this before in a race and completely unraveled. This time I held it together enough to at least have an ok run. There are some kinks to work out, but I'm confident that I can figure it out and have a more solid run in the next race. I love to run, so I always love to finish off strong. Right before the finishing chute Brian started to run next to me. I got a little paranoid and yelled at him that he couldn't pace me and he was going to get me a penalty. He explained that he had asked the race director if he could run down the chute with me. So we ran in together, hands held, and it was a really nice moment to share with him. Another run highlight was seeing Caldwell and Lauren Clarke's kids Will and Katie with their super awesome sign for me "Go Rachel, Run Like A Squid!" I just made it into the money with a 10th place finish.


Right after I saw my little buddies


Will with my sign



A huge congratulations to all the pro men and women, as well as all our friends I saw racing. It was really nice to get high fives along the course and to see friendly faces. Its going to be a great season for everyone. I was really proud of Brian for gutting it out to 1st in the 25-29 division. He even offered to run with me when he passed me instead of continuing his own race. A very selfless offer and I appreciate his support way more than he probably realizes.

Thank you so much to my coach, Tara Norton. All aspects of my training and racing have come so far since I started being coached by her last January. She is so encouraging, and she keeps me honest and positive. She helps me to learn from difficult training days and races and is always helping me to move forward to become a better athlete and person.

Overall, I learned quite a bit. The pro women are an extremely talented, fast bunch and you can't lose focus out there. I've discovered how important the swim start is and that I have a few things that I can definitely improve on for next time. A race is only bad if you don't learn from it. The pro women after were very encouraging, as well as a few of the pro men. Our friends and family are always so supportive and it means so much to me that they continue to believe in us. I am extremely grateful for our sponsors for all that they do for us: Zoot, GU, Fuelbelt, Fat Frogs Bike and Fitness Chesapeake, Ghent Chiropractic, Garmin. I am also excited to start working with a new sponsor, Stages Cycling. I will have my new power meter this week and can't wait to train with it.


top 10 women

Training Partner All Stars

Another really good training buddy of mine moved away this past week, and it caused me to reflect on my greatest training partners of all time, so this is a sort of tribute I guess to them :)

Rebekah Wigton

Rebekah is my older sister, and my longest standing training buddy. I always say that the competitiveness in our family stems from a race my dad put on when we were pretty young. He had us all run a lap around the block and timed us, and then he ran a lap and timed himself. He has kept that paper all these years to prove that at one time he could beat us all. I (and my other siblings) started running by entering a local 5K in Jamestown called the Jack 'O' Lantern jog. One year he told us that whichever one of us had the fastest time, would get a happy meal from McDonalds. I ended up getting the nuggets and lion king toy that year. Bekah and I raced cross country in middle school and our coaches did something similar, they told me if I beat Bekah then they would get me whatever I wanted when we stopped for dinner on the way home. Food must be a pretty huge motivator for me, because that McFlurry tasted extra awesome that night. Now I should mention that my sister is a very talented athlete, and definitely beat me more times than I beat her growing up. She is super tough, she lost a shoe at the beginning of a very cold cross country race one year and still finished second, our coach couldn't even catch her to give her shoe back! I've always said that she has so much natural talent, and she has taught me to tough it out even when it gets hard. When we were in middle school and high school, she used to read all sorts of running books and I still attribute my running form to her running beside, correcting my arm position and telling me to speed up at the top of hills. We went on to run cross country and track in high school and she continued to be a great role model, bringing the whole team together and making practices and meets really fun. She is a really strong upbeat person, and she was able to motivate and excite the team so effortlessly. Once she graduated, she came to a few of my track meets and would run back and forth across the infield to cheer for me on both straightaways. Pretty sure the parents spectating were wondering what this nutcase was doing running back and forth. Once we were in college, she got into Rugby, which is a perfect sport for her, given how tough she is. She would come back from matches with two black eyes and just kind of shrug it off. She did her first tri with me in RI and my favorite memory from that race was when we went to get coffee after. I asked if we should wash our numbers off first and she exclaimed that we shouldn't because they were our badges of honor. She still runs a bit (she injured her knee in Rugby and has to be careful with running) and has done a few tris. She can pick it back up pretty quickly. She follows my racing and is always excited to hear how it went. She lives in London now but we make a point to run together when we are both home in RI. I visited her when she was living in Spain for a year and we made it a point to run along the beach together. We have had many memorable runs together but this one was especially enjoyable. We were running in this beautiful Spanish city along the ocean. A few Italian guys saw us and got down on all fours on the sidewalk yelling "salta, salta!" We hurdled them and they all cheered, we saw them several other times on that run and you would have thought we were running in the finals for the olympics the way they cheered for us. Running was always our way to connect, and find time, amidst the craziness that is our family to chat. We could be in a brutal argument and then we go for a run together and come back completely fine. We have both used running to get past trying moments in our lives and some of our best conversations have been out on the road. It's always one of my favorite parts of going home.

Super swimmers at an early age

Bekah came out for my first half Ironman

at one of my track meets my senior year

heading out for a bike ride together on a family trip

cheering me on through another 70.3

A wintery run in RI on Christmas Day

out for dinner with our parents

Bekah's first triathlon

Adam Towler

When I first met Adam  he was singing Irish folk songs on the beach at our high school meet and greet freshmen year. I immediately thought, woah this guy is weird, and we didn't really hang out much freshmen year. He was also on the cross country team, so by sophmore year we had started to chat at practices and meets. He was this goofy, quirky guy from Wyoming that had all these crazy stories, and we shared a mutual love of pie. We started hanging out more and became very close friends. He was a very honest, loyal and caring person. I always felt like he was so much wiser than me. He had a very old soul but was still just very fun and upbeat. I always called him Towler, as did most of the school, I actually blanked one day when he asked me what his first name was. We often ran together outside of practices, talked on the bus about our races (and pie) and ate countless dinners together. Our dinners were pretty funny because I ate really fast (if you don't eat fast in our family's house, you don't eat), and he ate extremely slow. This usually meant that he had to guard his plate from me picking off his french fries once I was done. He got me into Irish music, and one of my favorite songs to this day is "Jonny Jump Up," we listened to it before every race. We both struggled with injuries, so we would ice together after practice, or walk down to the bay to wade in the cold New England water. We stayed in touch when we both went to college and he was always trying to get me to come to Wyoming to get some good altitude training. The last time I talked to Adam was a week or so before he passed away. I was telling him about how I was starting to train for my first marathon. He was so excited about it and was really encouraging. After he passed away, the training for that marathon really helped me to deal with the loss. I ran the marathon for him, and continue to run for him. I often think about him, and another good friend that passed away (Ali) during my training and racing and they inspire me to do my best. His sister and dad also run in his memory and we have grown closer sharing training and racing experiences.

Adam after a cross country race

at the semi-formal dance, in his Wyoming cowboy attire

putting us on the senior wall as XC captains

at New Englands for cross country

Sarah and I at the Rock N Roll half marathon

my first marathon for Adam

my first Ironman for Adam

Brian Jastrebsky
I met Brian at running group (Running Etc.) in January of 2010. I didn't know his name for a couple of months but he always wore an orange shirt so I called him "orange shirt guy." He was very outgoing, but we didn't chat very much until the summer. After runs the group went to get beer and pizza down the street. We had many mutual friends and groups of us went to the beach. We often played with a football in the surf and he distinctly remembers me nailing him in the head with it several times (I swear it wasn't on purpose). He asked me to dinner a couple times but I kept putting it off. We were becoming really good friends and I just wasn't sure. I had been in a serious cycling/car accident in 2008 and was nervous about riding on some of the roads. He started doing my long rides with me so that I wouldn't be so nervous. When you ride with someone for 4-5 hours, you get to know them really well. In the fall, I had class and couldn't make it to running group, so he would skip the group run to run with me after class so I wouldn't have to run alone at night in Norfolk. It was after one of these runs that we had our first kiss... It was super awkward, but to his credit he didn't give up and about a month later, right after I finished my first Ironman, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and then his wife at the same Ironman the following year. We still do some of our easier workouts together. We keep it light and fun for the most part, sometimes we chat and laugh, and other times we can run/ride in silence and still enjoy the time together. If we swim together, it usually ends in either a doggy paddle race or a few rounds down the slide at the pool.

before we were dating, Brian paced me in the Rock n Roll half marathon

asked me to be his girlfriend after my first IM

proposal after IM Florida 2011

racing in Kona for our honeymoon

Meghan Gebke

Meghan has shown me that training doesn't have to be super serious, it can be really fun! I first met Meghan when she was nine months pregnant. She and her husband Clint came out to do an open water swim with Brian and I (we had met Clint at running group). I still give Brian a hard time that a nine month pregnant lady beat him on that swim. I remember thinking she was either crazy or awesome for then going on a short run after the swim. I've had so many runs with Meghan where I've almost had to stop because I'm laughing so hard. I remember one run in particular in the park, it was downpouring like crazy and the trails were flooded. We had long since stopped trying to go around the puddles. It was towards the end of our run so we had gotten a little quieter, but every couple minutes one of us would start giggling at how ridiculous the whole thing was. We've also had runs that we call "therapy runs." If one of us was having a tough time with something we would go out for a run, chat about it, and I always felt better afterwards. There was usually some good natured smack talk with Meghan or her husband Clint leading up to IM Florida 2011 (we were all racing together). I think I remember telling Clint I was going to send him on a scavenger hunt in transition for his running shoes. He was always trying to offer me extra helpings of Meghan's awesome chocolate chip cookies in an attempt to fatten me up. They even traveled to RI with me to do a half IM up there, and then a big group of us all did IM Florida together. Their daughter Lexie was the first kid I got to see grow up from infant to now almost 3 year old. Now Meghan and Clint are getting ready for their second kid and I am going to need to get down to Texas to meet him/her.

Lexie's first birthday, thought this shirt would be appropriate for her

IM 70.3 Providence (Clint, Meghan, me, Lawrence)

the whole group that did IM Florida, and where we finished among all the finishers

Meghan as one of my bridesmaids

Brenda Carawan
We met Brenda through her husband Russ. Russ is a cyclist and had ridden with Brian. He asked Brian if he would pace Brenda in a half marathon. We both met Brenda that morning and headed out to the race. Her and Brian did very well, and finished in the time she had wanted. She is an ultra marathoner, so running a faster half marathon was a little outside her comfort zone. My favorite recounted moment from them was when they were approaching the one hill on the course, a bridge over the inlet. Brenda exclaimed "ugh the brdige!" and Brian replied "you just did a 135 mile race [Badwater] with 5,000 feet of climbing and you're worried about a bridge?!" and Brenda said "actually it was 14,000 feet of climbing." After that race, Brenda and I started doing some long runs together. We both have coaches so there was always the understanding that our workouts might not be the same, but we would do what we could together. We often went to Starbucks to get coffee and chat about running and life. She moved to Texas last year, but we still catch up often on the phone and she makes a point to check in with me before and after races to see how I'm feeling and how it went. We struggle with some similar things so we are always exchanging notes and giving each other some new insight. She puts me in check when I need (in the nicest way possible of course). I remember recently she very nicely, told me I shouldn't be worrying about a certain thing. She later apologized for speaking up, but I said "no! don't be sorry, that's what I needed to hear." Brian and I have paced her for a couple ultramarathons (a 100 miler and a 100K) and it was really cool to see her in her element. One thing she said after one of these races has really stuck with me. She wanted us to all cross the finish line with her (her husband and crew, Brian and I). I asked her why she wanted us to do that, it was sort of her moment and I didn't want to intrude on that. She said, this training/racing that we do takes a village. She pays so much tribute to everyone that has encouraged her, trained with her, crewed for her etc. and I hope that I pay that same type of tribute to those that have helped me along the way. She helps me to remain positive. I remember a race last year that I was was just devastated after. She got coffee with me and told me "that race is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you, because it showed you what you were doing wrong." That helped me to learn from the "bad" races and enjoy the "good" races.

pacing Brenda for the Graveyard 100 miler

finish of the Graveyard 100 miler (1st overall)

finish of the Graveyard 100K (1st overall)

Michelle

And last but certainly not least (did these in order of when I met them), my biking buddy Michelle. Michelle is a very talented triathlete that is getting back from an injury that put her out for over a year. Since she wasn't able to run at all for a year, we started biking together (met through mutual friends). She has been so great to ride with. I'm not always the easiest person to bike with, because I tend to just want to go my speed. So sometimes we ride next to each other, other times we ride single file. Sometimes if I have intervals during a long ride, she'll ride a little behind and shout words of encouragement and its like I have my own cheerleader on long rides, pretty awesome. Riding with someone for a few hours at a time, you get to talk about a lot of stuff. We talk about anything from training/racing to our pups. She is super positive and really believes in Brian and I, and she also understands the challenges of being a competitive athlete. It has been really cool to see her coming back so strong from such a tough injury. She even recently won her first triathlon back. With her already being a super strong swimmer and runner, now that she has put so much time into the bike, she's going to crush it. I've really enjoyed getting to know her better, and am looking forward to many more awesome bike rides and hopefully some great runs and swims as well (if I can keep up!).