French Creek Tri

I had been meaning to get up to this race for the past couple years but it hadn't worked with my schedule. This year I had been planning on doing the race right after IMTX but then found out I wouldn't be able to run for 6 weeks. Race director and friend John let me switch into the aquavelo and generously found somewhere I could stay for the weekend.

Race director extraodinaire John Kenny

Some of the volunteers and race staff, fabulous people!

I arrived Friday evening and was excited to see how pretty the park was where the race would be held. Saturday morning I headed down to the start area and began helping with setup. I was a little limited on lifting heavy stuff so instead worked on marking the kids course. Once the kids started arriving I was on body marking. It was so much fun getting to chat with the kids and hear how excited they were to race, even in the rain. Shortly before the kids races were set to go off I changed into my Zoot Prophet (the water was in the 60s! chilly for me!), grabbed a buoy and headed into the water. There were several of us out in the water just watching the kids and offering the buoy for them to grab a hold if they needed a little break. I was chilly in my wetsuit, but these kids were troopers! Very few had wetsuits and they plunged into the water no problem. One tiny little thing hit the water and her face just went nope! But she kept trucking along in her adorable little mermaid suit. It was a chilly rainy day, but I didn't hear any complaints from the kids. They were all big smiles.

After the kids race was all wrapped up I headed out to check out the bike course with one of the other volunteers. He raced the sprint the next day and finished in an impressive 2nd! I'm glad I was able to get out on the course because there was some good climbing. That evening, I met my cabin mate and pro triathlete Emily. She had met my husband Brian before so it was nice to finally meet in person and chat about her injuries, recovery,  and impressive start to her pro career. It was nice having someone else to hang out with for the weekend! We were racked together the next morning and had a fairly amusing morning getting our stuff together.

Some super attractive pictures of me getting my stuff together in transition

We were laughing so hard because the photographer picked that moment to take a pic while Emily was trying to fix her suit under her wetsuit

        

Contemplating the cold water, glad I had my prophet!

Since I was in the aquavelo I started with men in their 30s. It made for a good fast start and I was able to practice getting in with a good group. My feet went numb fairly quickly but the colder water meant no overheating. The swim was two loops for the olympic and as I glanced at my watch exiting the water I was pretty happy with my effort.

 

 

With my very recent stress reaction diagnosis I was on strict no running. This meant I had to talk from the swim exit to my bike in transition. It was pretty funny having swam hard and then casually strolling into transition. It was also one of the reasons I was putting zero pressure on myself and just wanting a fun day with no risks. Since I knew I would already have a long transition I figured why not be warm and throw on a vest and arm warmers? I get cold easily so was happy to start the bike pretty toasty warm.

The bike for this race is very challenging with a few good climbs and you do the loop twice. I had been worried about how my hip would hold up climbing hard and was happy to find that it was ok. I was able to put in a good effort and enjoyed getting some good hills in after training mostly on flat farm roads. It was a little anticlimactic riding into transition and stopping there rather than continuing on to the run. It was still really fun to be in the race environment again though. It was great to see Emily having a great day as well, finishing as the first female. She did tell me that the run course was tough as well, but also very scenic.

How cool is it that the race photos are free!

After I finished I wandered over to the post race food. I was super impressed by the amount and quality of hot food for all the racers! This race is everything I would expect from John, tough course, scenic venue and great food. I ended up winning my category (female aquavelo).... but I was also the only one in my category.... Still though, I ended up with a little gift card and there was all sorts of swag and gift cards for age group winners. Very cool, even a bouquet for the female sprint/olympic winners. 

Overall, a very fun race weekend getting to see both sides as a volunteer and racer. I hope to come back next year healthy so I can race the whole thing!

This race report was a little delayed so I am happy to report that I just started running again this week and I feel good! Even though I took a 6 week break from running, the biking/pool running/swimming that Tara has had my doing has me feeling very fit. I feel that I have maintained some good fitness for the run and have even improved on the bike and swim. Last weekend I was able to get some good riding in my home state of RI while visiting some close friends and family. After a solid few weeks of training I will be heading to Utah tomorrow for a little vacation! Pretty good timing as well with a little running build (good trails out there!). We will be rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking and camping. I will take lots of pictures and post an update once we are back.