Geneva, NY ITU Race

Well, this one will warrant a pretty hefty race report which I will publish later this week. All in all a fantastic weekend, as I had the nicest homestay and Geneva is simply a beautiful place! No big city here, a small little town tucked in upstate NY (or at least, I think it is considered 'upstate'?), green rolling hills, Seneca Lake (a 40-mile long river and at its deepest part, 400 meters deep) running through the town and dozens of wineries. What more do you need?

Getting there was seemless, as I arrived on time, got my rental car and was in Geneva by Thursday afternoon. The return was not so smooth, as I was overcharged for my bike at the airport ($150! BEWARE OF UNITED, all you triathletes, I am warning you now) and had to return my rental car with the gas tank 1/2 empty...this stuff ate at me the whole flight home, but upon reflection, the race was a very solid effort and considering that I really am not training myself to go 100% max effort for 2 hours straight, I did all I could in the end. I was 9th out of the swim, not very good but again I got a bit buried in the washing machine start and by the time I found clear water the front pack was far ahead; Solo-ed most of the bike, which I believe was the norm for the 25-person womens field as there were some good rollers and technical sections on this 8-loop course; and ran like hell. The run was great, second fastest run of the day and I probably passed 8-9 women on the run. In 6 miles, not too shabby! It was also 6-1 mile loops through a beautiful park, and at 5:00 in the evening, it had become overcast and we were running right along the water...very cool! I ran myself into 7th place and to put it mildly, was toast at the end.

I forgot how incredibly hard those races are. I don't like to go maximally hard, I don't have those fast-twitch fibers in me. So I fight really hard to find them. And that fighting hurts, really bad. :) But again, I enjoyed the challenge of it...but it confirms that I truely feel like I am in the right place right now, sticking to non-drafting and 1/2 Ironmans! So...check out the race report later this week, which will be on my website (www.kellyhandel.com). Thanks for reading~!