Great Clermont Olympic Triathlon - race recap

With a job title of "triathlon coach", Karel and I have the big responsibility of help our team of athletes, physically prepare for races while keeping them in good health. 

Coaching is much more than writing workouts as it requires understanding the athlete as an individual and stepping inside the athlete's life to provide the most appropriate training plan for consistent athletic development. 

Karel and I take our coaching job very seriously and part of our job is putting on training camps. We absolutely love the camp experience as a way to interact with athletes in a group training environment. 

Seeing that Karel and I are not only coaches but we are also athletes, it's important to stress that we understand exactly what our athletes feel and experience with training and we are very aware of the fact that training for triathlons, in a busy life, is not easy.

But, on race day, we are reminded of the why in our triathlon hobby. Race day is what we all live for as we can put all that hard work to good use and share the suffering with teammates. The energy, nerves and excitement is alive on race day and only on race day do you truly feel like a real athlete. 

I can't fully express it in words but I can tell you that racing with our athletes is one of the coolest and most rewarding parts of our job as coaches. Being on the same course as our athletes, experiencing the same conditions and going through the same highs and lows, nerves and uncertainties is what racing is all about. 

The Great Clermont Olympic triathlon holds a special place in my heart as it was the very first triathlon venue that Karel watched me race in, back in 2006 after a few months of dating. Now, 11 years later, after racing this event at least a half dozen times, I did something that I never thought I would do with my body - win the race as overall female. 

This race win is dedicated to all my Trimarni athletes and campers as they are the reason why I love this sport so much and why I continue to push my body in training and on race day. For Karel, the sport of triathlon has given him a new outlet to be competitive and to explore his physical limits and we both love sharing our race experiences with our athletes.

For your reading entertainment, here's the recap of the race.  

RACE DETAILS: 

Marni: 

Swim: 23:34

T1: 2:11

Bike: 1:07.48 (21.9 mph)

T2: 1:28

Run: 46:38

Total: 2:21.37

First overall female

Karel: 

Swim: 23:11 (Karel finally beat me in the swim!)

T1: 1:53

Bike: 1:03.15

T2: 1:29 (I beat Karel in T2!)

Run: 38:30

Total: 2:08.16

PRE RACE:

Nutrition: 

1/2 cup oatmeal + syrup + peanut butter + dates 

Hardboiled egg

8 ounce coffee w/ milk

8 ounce water

Transition area: 8 ounce water with Clif hydration (1 scoop)

Karel and I woke up at 4:45am and after eating our pre-race meals (Karel had a croissant w/ jam and INFINIT Mud in his second cup of coffee), we headed down to the transition area (via bike) which just a few minutes down the road. I left before Karel at 6am to set up my transition area.

After body marking and setting up my transition, I saw all my Trimarni campers start to roll in. They all looked SO good in their new kits. Karel and I sported our new kits as well, but Karel surprised me with our own brightly colored custom Canari kits (Pink and Green).

After 3 days and 8 workouts at camp, they were all excited to race but a bit nervous as to how the morning would turn out. We assured them that this race was all about dusting off the rust as the first race of the season and taking smart risks and applying the information learned at camp.

I spent a good 20 minutes getting myself warmed up on dry land before putting on my wetsuit. Karel spent at least 30 minutes jogging around to get his blood flowing.

After putting on our wetsuits, we made our way down to the water to get into the chilly lake for a warm-up (it was around 68 degrees). After warming up, adjusting the wetsuit and goggles and getting myself comfortable in the open water, I exited the water to line up with the first wave of women to start at 7:30am.

Not knowing what to expect as this was my first triathlon race since August, my focus was to just stay present and to go through the motions of racing so that I could shake out my nerves and get myself more comfortable in the race environment for my upcoming more important races. 

I have to say that it was a great feeling to be surrounded by so many of my athletes/campers and also to see so many familiar faces out on the course. My most favorite part about racing is being around the other athletes as I have made so many friendships thanks to the sport of triathlon. 

Swim: 

Goggles: TYR Pink 2.0 special ops 

Wetsuit: Xterra Vengeance
Gadget - Garmin 920

The water was dark and a little choppy. The course was a large counter clockwise rectangle and with the sun slowly rising, we didn't have to worry about swimming into the sun. There were plenty of buoys to keep us on course but I found myself zig zagging a few times due to the chop. My athlete Stephanie is an excellent swimmer so we both found ourselves swimming next to each other (and sometimes hitting each other - let's say love taps) for almost all of the swim. There was one lady swimming right in front of us for the entire swim and I couldn't get myself to catch her or stay on her feet. To be honest, I didn't feel too good in the water. I didn't feel speedy or slow, just so-so. I guess I needed this swim to just go through the motions. Regardless of how I felt, Karel beat me out of the water! He has been working really hard with his swimming and we swim a lot together so I am glad to see that he is feeling more confident and comfortable in the open water. I guess I need to really step up my swimming game!

I exited the water in 2nd (women were first wave at 7:30am) and just in front of Stephanie. I had the wetsuit stripper help me take off my wetsuit and I ran into the transition area. 

I did a quick transition and ran with my bike to the mount line and then started up the hill to star the bike portion. I was actually most excited for the bike portion of the race as 1) I have improved my power and skills a lot on the bike 2) My bike is much more "aero" thanks to Kare, so I wanted to test it out for the first time 3) I love riding my bike. 

Bike: 

Bike: Trek Speed Concept 7 series custom (pink rocket) w/ Shimano ultegra Di2 shifting 

Wheels: Alto cycling. Front: cc56. Rear: cc86 

Helmet: Lazer Wasp Air w/ shield

Fuel: Infinit Trimarni base blend (220 calories) 

Socks: Swiftwick 

Shoes: Bontager XKL hilo

As I started the bike, I yelled behind to Stephanie "Great swim!" and I was off. It was only about a mile down the road that I caught the first place female and I found myself riding behind the police car, who was leading the race. I received no draft from the police car as he was way in front of me but it was a really neat feeling to have that escort for the entire bike.

Since I know this course really well, I had a lot of confidence on the course. I knew every turn, hill and descend, which made it much easier to execute on this course. My race strategy was to go hard on the bike and see what happens to my legs on the run. Karel wanted me to ride hard and he believed that I could still run well off the bike, even after a very hard effort for 40K.

For the entire bike, I pushed hard. My quads were burning and my glutes were working but I felt strong. Since Greenville gives us such challenging riding, Clermont is such a different riding terrain for me and I really wanted to take advantage of the gentle rollers and smooth pavement.

The highlight of the bike course was seeing Karel after I made the first turn around. Whereas I usually get a smile out of Karel, he actually lifted his head up and gave me a loud yell. I am not sure what he said but I could tell that he was so proud of me to be in the lead, behind the police car. Let's just say that marrying a cat 1 cyclist meant that one day I would be a strong cyclist. Well, that day has finally come and I owe it all to Karel. 

I saw my competition, which included my friend and superstar athlete Elyse, as well as several of my Trimarni athletes/campers, which gave me a lot of energy.

I gave myself one littler breather to loosen up my legs after the 2nd turn around but besides that, I pushed hard for the entire ride and wowzer, did it hurt!

I made sure to stay fueled and hydrated since I was going into this race after 4 days of leading our training camp (8 workouts) so I sipped on my 220 calorie bottle of INFINIT throughout the race - always making sure to take several gulps when I drank. I now have my bottle cage between my aero bars as Karel recently moved it from my frame (to be more "aero") and I have to say, I really like it as I find myself drinking more often and it's very easy to grab.

I stayed in the lead of the race until about 1/2 mile before T2, when I was passed by the first place male.

Throughout the entire bike, I found myself thinking "I won't be able to run after this.....stay present, don't think about the run!" I was thinking this over and over and I tried to stay as present as possible on the bike. When the time came to get off the bike, my legs didn't feel too wobbly, which was surprising! 

Run: 

Shoes: New Balance Zante

Hat: Boco gear performance trucker
Sunglasses: Oakley women radar lock with vents

Hydration belt: Nathan mercury 2

Fuel: water and Clif hydration cran razz  

I tried to get as much of a lead on the bike as I could, along with any extra "free speed" in transition, as I worried about any fast runners behind me. While I would love to call myself a fast runner, I feel my strength is in endurance racing and as a resilient athlete, I feel I am great at not slowing down.
I put on my running shoes and fuel belt and jogged out of transition while putting on my race belt. I had my sunglasses sitting on my trucker hat so I was able to grab the hat (with sunglasses on it) and put on my hat and then sunglasses as I began to run.

The first mile of the run felt ok but certainly not great. The best part was having an amazing female lead escort on the bike, leading me on the course. Not only was she super supportive to me, cheering me on but she was encouraging everyone around to give me a cheer. She really made the run a lot more exciting for me. It felt a big windy in my face heading out to the first turn around, around 1.5 miles on the trail. Around mile 1, I hit a very low spot and I felt extremely uncomfortable running. I was having trouble breathing with a pain in my ribs, my heart rate monitor was uncomfortable and I just felt blah. I kept trying to focus on good form and to help me out, I would count "1, 2, 3, 4" with every foot strike to find a good rhythm. Oddly enough, all my pains went away when I hit the turn around and I suddenly felt good again! I saw Elyse and she gave me a huge smile and I cheered her on. The first place male was way ahead and when I saw Karel, as the 2nd male, he gave me a cheer and told me to stay steady as I had a big lead.
To be honest, it sure didn't feel like a big lead as I felt like Elyse was coming for me so for the next few miles, I didn't look back as I just stayed focused on what I needed to do to keep my lead for however long that I could. 

It was so great to get back to the crowds at the race venue and to see my athletes on the course. With another 3.5 miles to go, I started to find my rhythm. Like I said earlier, I didn't feel fast and didn't expect this to be a "fast" run but I really wanted to see how my legs would perform after such a hard bike. Although I wore my Garmin throughout the race, I never once looked at it on the run. I had it autolap each mile so that I could review it after the race (I used multisport function for the race).

Although I never felt tired during the run, I experienced a few moments where I felt like I was running low on energy. Thank goodness that I had my fuel belt as I needed that extra energy between the aid stations. I didn't grab anything from the aid stations but instead, grabbed my sport drink flask or water flask as needed throughout the race. I also used my water to cool myself as I found myself getting a little warm near the middle of the run.

After the final turn around, which seemed to take forever to get to after seeing mile 4, I saw Karel and he said "damage control." Not sure what he meant by that at the time but when he passed me again, he just told me to enjoy the rest of the race. Karel passed me around mile 5 and he was quickly out of my sight. It was great to see him so much on the course and to have him pass me, which never happens.

The last mile was pretty special as my bike escort was cheering me on and I was getting some high fives from the spectators. With so many familiar faces on and off the course, this really felt like a home town race for me. It was really special to cross the line as the first overall female and to make the moment even more special, I was the next finisher behind Karel. 

My run splits were super consistent and once I found my rhythm around mile 4, I felt like I could have kept going - not any faster but certainly further. I went 100% by feel. A big confident boost for Haines City 70.3 in a few weeks. 

Karel, on the other hand, didn't even wear a watch on the run as he always goes by feel and decided to just forgo the watch in this race. 

My run splits:

7:29

7:35

7:34

7:34

7:37

7:21

7:02 (for the last .2)

After Karel and I chatted about the race and I did an interview with a camera guy, we headed back out on the course to cheer for the rest of our Trimarni athletes. 

It was really great to see our athletes finish and then immediately head back out to cheer for their teammates. 

After all of our athletes finished, we took a team picture with all of our campers/athletes and then it was time for awards. All of our athletes stayed for awards to cheer on everyone. 

Not only did we have several of our campers on the podium, but Trimarni placed first in the division 1 USAT Florida Region North Club Championship! We had 21 athletes race and all of our campers started and finished the race! What a great group of inspiring athletes who did something amazingly incredible with the human body! 

What a GREAT group of athletes!

Thanks for reading! 

We hope that our campers inspired you to not be afraid to stretch your comfort zone. You never know what you are capable of doing, unless you try. 

Thank you to our 2017 Trimarni sponsors!

-Run In
-New Wave Swim Buoy
-Mg12
-Clif
-Cheribundi
-Veronica's Health Crunch
-Infinit
-Levelen
-Hot Shot
-Boco Gear
-Canari

-Xterra
-Alto cycling
-Swamp Rabbit Inn and Lodge
-Salem Anesthesia

2016 Clermont camp - race day pics

Our awesome photographer Taylor took some amazing pictures during our 4-day training camp.
We just love seeing our athletes (and their strong and healthy bodies) in action. 

Here are some great action shots from race day. 

2016 Clermont camp - race day

On the first day of camp, at our evening meeting, Karel talked to the campers about the purpose of camp. Our campers knew they were training with an intentional overload of stress and that they would be "racing" an Olympic distance triathlon on the last day of camp. But we emphasized that the race is not why they are at camp. We could not have them worried or overly focused about the race and we certainly did not want them to save their energy for Sunday.
With every camp workout having a specific purpose and placement, we knew with the right mindset, our campers would be impressive on race day - even after 3 days and over 12 hours of training.

At our team meeting on Saturday we all had a good laugh that on Sunday, we would have our shortest workout which was the Olympic distance race. With this, we also told our athletes to make sure they thank their body for being strong enough to tolerate so much training volume and intensity in 4 days.

Of course, we told them they had the excuse of "I just did a training camp" but we knew our campers would not use it. Even though our campers did not taper for the race, we still took the race seriously - we asked every camper to "race it" but with the understanding that they are going into the race tired.

Because it's very easy to put too many expectations and thoughts into the first race of the season, we love our Clermont camp for that reason - our athletes can wake up in the morning and not be stressed about goal times, overall place, watts, speeds or anything else that triathletes like to control on race day. Sure, it's great to have goals for race day but when we tell our athletes to have fun on race day and to practice everything that they learned in camp, this gives them a lot more freedom to not get stuck on the end result but to focus on great execution. 

-------------------------------
Karel and I woke up at 5am to leave at 6am for the race (just a block away). Karel made his coffee from his french press and we also had a coffee pot ready for the other Trimarni athletes staying in our townhome. After a pre-race meal and water, it was time to head to the race.

While riding our bikes to the race, I could  feel a little drizzle - I had checked the forecast and the rain wasn't suppose to start until 9am. 

Well, after we arrived to the race, the drizzle turned into a light rain shower.
I had made the decision to keep my run shoes covered in a bag (learned my lesson from Challenge Knoxville last year) but other than that, my transition area was laid out as normal and I stayed dry with our team under our team tent. 

We love our Xterra Wetsuits!
I absolutely love the fit and feel of my new Vengeance fullsuit. It was extremely comfortable, especially around the arms. 
After a few team pictures, we instructed our athletes to get in a good warm-up due to the previous three days of training so several of them got in the water whereas others stayed on dry land with old running shoes (we asked them to bring two pairs) and performed a serious of dynamic warm-ups and some jogging w/ pick ups.

The race started at 7:30am with the collegiate waves and I was up next (with several other Trimarni teammates) at 7:45am. 

It's always a different feeling being in open water (versus the pool), especially at the first race of the season. I swam aggressively to the first buoy to try to position myself near the front before settling into a good rhythm.
The sky was dark and the water was dark but there were plenty of buoys on the course to keep us going in the right direction.

Another great benefit of this race was dusting off some rust and practicing transitions. I rehearsed what I was going to do in T1 in my head as I was exiting the water (after getting my wetsuit stripped off by the volunteers) and I jogged to my bike, powered on my Garmin and then put on my socks (calf sleeves were on under my wetsuit), cycling shoes, helmet and sunglasses (well, I put on my Oakley's but then realized I didn't need them so I hung them on my tri suit top for a mile and then put them on).

Seeing that we had spent two workouts on the race course, I knew our athletes would feel really confident on the course, even with the rain (which had stopped by the time we got on the bike). We had a lot of discussions with our athletes on smart execution on hilly courses and with a few hills on this Olympic course, we knew our athletes would ride confidently.

With no expectations, I just rode strong. I had no power, speed or time goals but instead, I just focused on riding hard.

My legs felt strong, not fast, but strong and I had a lot of fun on the course. One of my favorite things about this race is seeing all of our campers and teammates out on the course. With 18 Trimarni athletes racing, we couldn't ask for a better environment to push hard and to support one another.





It's rare for me to finish the bike ahead of Karel so I welcomed the opportunity to be the first Sumbal out on the race course. 

I saw Karel twice and gave him a smile. He is always in race mode but he gave me a nod back. As for the other Trimarni athletes, there was a lot of cheering for one another which was awesome. 

Once again, with no expectations, I just ran. I was so excited to wear my new Brooks Pure Flow 5 in a race and wow, they felt amazing. I felt like I was running on my treadmill (which I love) as each step was light and springy.

I knew my legs wouldn't have much in a kick in them for two reasons - 1) no speed work in training yet this season due to building strength over the past 5 months 2) 3 days of leading a training camp takes a toll on the body.

I suppose that the word to describe my run was resilience. I didn't feel fast but I felt strong and steady. I know my body wished this was a half IM as I was just starting to feel like I was getting into a good rhythm by mile 5 but then again, I know my body was struggling to find that extra gear in this short distance race.
Mile 1: 7:10
Mile 2: 7:12
Mile 3: 7:15 (10 sec walk break to reset form)
Mile 4: 7:12
Mile 5: 7:17 (10 sec walk break to reset form)
Mile 6: 7:16
Mile .2: 7:07

I carried a hydration flask with 80 calories (1 scoop) Clif Hydration mixed with 8 ounce water and finished the flask by the end of the race. I had a sip every mile for a nice boost of sugar with sodium. I didn't grab any water at the aid stations.

It was fun to see all the other Trimarni athletes out on the  course and Karel and I could not have been more proud of our campers/athletes. Everyone was in race mode and no one was using their "I just did a training camp" excuse card. 

After I crossed the finish line, I went back out to cheer for Karel who was nearing the finish line. Once again, it was a nice change to be on the sidelines cheering for Karel as he is always finished way before me.

After Karel and I finished, we went out and cheered until every Trimarni athlete crossed the finish line. I will be sharing some race pictures of our campers in my next blog (Thank you Taylor for the great pics!). 

There was so much support among the Trimarni team and we loved having everyone out on the course, cheering for each other. 

You can just call us a pack of highlighters - we love our bold and bright kits. 

I absolutely love my bike - the fit, my new saddle, my super stiff and fast Alto Cycling Wheels. I'm so excited to race the Rev3 half Ironman in Knoxville in 7 weeks! 


A big congrats to Karel for winning the Male Master's division.
(Karel is coming to terms with getting older but he is still getting faster. This is his first race in his new 40-44 age group - he will turn 40 in September). 

I had fun racing with these fast ladies in the 30-34 age group!

We are so proud of our athletes/campers!

3-day training camp - check!
Olympic distance race - check!
Great attitudes - check!
Motivation to last the rest of the season  - check!

GREAT CLERMONT TRIATHLON RACE RESULTS:

Gary – 1st AG (65-69) - sprint distance

Maggie – 2:19 (Aquabike)

Lisa – 2:32:42 (1st AG 40-44)

Justine – 2:31:13

Stephanie – 2:43:21

Erin: 3:00:06

Heather – 3:26:45

JoAnn – 3:34:43 (despite having some back issues when starting the run, she pulled through and finished strong!)

Joe- 2:17.02 (3rd AG 30-34)

Wlad – 2:25:50 

Adam: 2:27.02

Carsten: 2:28.20

Rob: 2:38.44

James W: 2:47.36

Chris A: 2:53.24 (PR)

Jim N: 2:58.04

Ryan – Mechanical on the bike but excellent swim!

Keri – despite a little open water swim anxiety, she still swam strong!

Marni: 2:23.20 (3rd AG 30-34)

Karel: 2:10:32 (1st Male Masters, 7th overall)

Trimarni Clermont camp - day 4: RACE DAY!

Throughout the entire camp, our athletes knew that they would be racing a USAT-sanctioned Olympic distance triathlon on the last day of camp. Little did they know that they would all do amazingly well on race day despite over 12 hours of training accomplished in 3 days. 

How was this possible?

If the mind is in a good place and you remove the outside pressure and internal expectations, you'd be surprised what the body can accomplish. 

Although we do not recommend going into your races exhausted, it's extremely valuable to put priority on your races in your season plan and to not chase times/places with each race but to instead, use the race to gain experience, knowledge and skills for down the season road of racing. 

We knew our athletes would be able to pull out the "I just did a training camp" card at any point during the race and take it easy but that's not how our athletes approach races. 

We encouraged every one of our athletes to race smart and to give their absolute best effort. This advice was not only for our athletes but also for me and Karel. We have carefully designed the training plans for our athletes based on their season goals and this is also true for me and Karel. I did not expect anyone of our athletes (including me and Karel) to have stellar performances at this point in the season, even without a training camp 3 days before the race. It's just too early for any one of our athletes to "peak" or to have the speed that will come further down in their training plan. But giving your best effort is a way to put all the past training (over the past 4-5 months) to good use and to show what a strong and healthy body is capable of achieving. 

We did not feel that abiding by our gadgets was useful as this was the first triathlon for all of our athletes at camp this year and it was important to gain valuable information from this race...after the race was finished. So we encouraged our athletes to make sure they had their gadgets working for the race but to not be a slave to their gadgets (GPS, HR, Power). This race was all by feel and it had to feel "right". We gave our athletes specific pacing strategies for each leg of the triathlon and also instructed our athletes to do a good warm-up as a tired body needs extra time to wake-up tissues, tendons and muscles and to get the blood flowing. 

Most athletes avoid racing on a tired body and abide by some type of taper to go into race day a bit rested and fresh. This is good advice when you have a key race on your schedule. But, this was far from the case for our athletes. Therefore, it was necessary that our athletes accepted that they were not in peak shape at this point in the season and their bodies were tired. It would be very hard to find that extra gear, especially on the run. Bottom line, there was no pressure on the outcome of their race performance and I think this mentally, helped most of our athletes. Without time, pace or power goals, our athletes ended up racing better than they expected due to putting less pressure on themselves. 

But with many of our athletes racing their first key race in the next 4-6 weeks, having a race on the last day of camp was a fantastic opportunity to practice transitions, to associate RPE to pacing (and to review data files after the race) and to shake out the emotional cobwebs that affect the mind on race day morning. 

Karel and I got up at 4:50am and had our pre-race meal/snack around 5:30am after a cup of coffee.

Our athletes Kelsey and Danielle met us at our condo around 6am and we all biked down to the race venue (about 1/2 mile away) with our transition bags on our back. 

After our athletes set-up their transition areas, everyone did their own pre-race warm-up and rituals. Sommesports provided the Trimarni Team with a tent which was great for us to gather at before and after the race. 

My mom showed her support bright and early as Campy was still sleeping. Campy has never seen me in a triathlon race before so it was a great treat to have Campy cheering with my mom when we were on the run portion of the triathlon. 

SWIM: 23:53 (4th female)

The swim was wet-suit legal although some athletes chose not to wear wet-suits. I wore my Xterra Vector Pro full sleeve wetsuit and dark-lense Vanquisher Speedo Goggles.

I really enjoyed starting the race with my athletes (and my friend Lauren on the Stellar Triathlon Team) but nevertheless I did get the nervous tingles in my belly as we were standing on the sand before our swim wave. I felt surprisingly good after my morning dynamic warm-up session and quick swim and I was really excited to race.

I managed to get a good start/entry in the water and settled into a nice rhythm with a few other girls until the first turn buoy. I felt really strong throughout the swim and all that pool work with our toys (ex. ankle strap) was paying off in the open water.

I exited the water feeling good and ready to bike. 

BIKE:  1:08:27 (21.7mph average, 4th female)

I took Karel's advice to our team and took it rather easy for the first 8 miles or so in the race (until the first climb on Jalarmy). Since moving to Greenville in May (after 10 years of living in FL), I certainly have a new perspective on "hills" when I race for there is no easy or flat riding in Greenville. I felt good on the hills but made sure to not power up the hills too hard as I wanted a steady ride for the middle and end section of the race.

I spotted my friend Lauren D. when I made the first turn around and I knew she was getting close to me. I really wanted her to pass me as I need some work getting out of my comfort zone on race day and I knew she would be the one to help me. When Lauren passed me I legally drafted behind her and she really made me push hard. I was so grateful for this opportunity because not only is she a friend of mine from Jax but a super strong athlete who is performing awesome right now. She pushed me when we use to do track work when I lived in Jax and I loved the uncomfortable push to try to keep her in my view throughout the bike.

I made the mistake of easing up a bit too much in the last 1.5 miles so I will learn from this and trust myself that I don't have to slow down that much in order to still have a strong run.

I consumed 1 bottle of 250 calories of sport drink on the bike and I planned 1 flask of 1 scoop Clif Hydration in my hand held flask for the run. 

RUN: 46:09 (7:27 average pace, 9th female)

There's not much to over-analyze about this run as I felt good and that's all I can ask for. I'm so excited to see what I'm capable of this season with the help of Chris Johnson, PT. My biggest mistake for the first 6 years of endurance racing was trying to get fast too early in my season. I was able to get fast but it came with an unwanted side-effect: injuries. Finally, I am nearing almost 2 years (in May) of absolutely NO injuries. My hips, back and glutes are healthy and strong and I am one happy runner!

What I can say is I felt strong during this run and it was steady. I wanted to have a strong back-half of the race so pacing was really important to me. I was not looking at my Garmin for pacing feedback as I ran but instead, I just ran. I took two stop breaks to take a breather for about 5 seconds or so throughout the race. Karel passed me in the first mile of the run and it was great to have a short chat with him before he ran away from me as he was chasing down his competition.

Mile 1: 7:15 (142 HR)

Mile 2: 7:24 (146 HR)

Mile 3: 7:23 (149 HR)

Mile 4: 7:23 (152 HR)

Mile 5: 7:23 (155 HR)

Mile 6: 7:09 (159 HR)

.31: 7:00 (161 HR)

I chose to wear my Brooks Launch with a 9 mm drop rather than my Brooks Pure Flow 4 that have a 4mm drop. I wanted the little extra heel to toe drop to help my legs which were already tired going into this race. 

Karel had a great race and just like me, we both felt like we have so much more fitness to gain this season and we are really happy with where we are right now with our athletic development.

Karel placed 2nd age group and 6th overall male.

Swim: 25:31, Bike: 1:03:14 (23.5mph), Run: 40.01 (6:28 average)

Total time: 2:11:55

Lauren had an AMAZING race and placed 2nd overall female and I shocked myself with a 3rd place overall female result. As great as I felt on race day after 3 days of camp, I look forward to a taper before Challenge Knoxville half ironman distance triathlon!

Total time: 2:21:48 (25th overall athlete)

Two podium finishes made for a great start to the racing season but racing with so many of our athletes was the best part of it all!

Enough about me and Karel....it's time to show off our AWESOME athletes! 

Kelsey raced the aquabike and placed 2nd overall female! She's AWESOME!

Taryn looking strong!

Keep it up Josh!

Karel and our friend Daniel K on the Stellar Triathlon Team. 

Jim Nitz having fun and looking healthy and strong!

Karel headed out on the run course to cheer on our athlete Mike B. 

Looking good in the kits Josh and Karel!

Colleen is smiling big because she is healthy,  injury free and enjoying her season training for her first Ironman!

There goes Karel again pushing our athlete JoAnn!

There goes JoAnn's hubby Rob!

Great race Joe! Every day you are getting stronger!

Nice work Mike M - looking great!

Karel giving Jeff B a pep talk to keep up the great work!

Looking great Ryan!

Love the smile Tricia!

What a great group! Keep having fun Maggie, Tricia and Ryan!

Heather - you look amazing! Photo credit to Heather's friend on Facebook who took this great pic!

Nice work guys! Way to go Wlad - keep making those fantastic improvements! 

Great job Taryn, Kelsey, Elizabeth and Danielle! 

Our Trimarni camp couple - JoAnn and Rob sharing the race-day love!

Thanks Lauren for the push! You rock! 

Elizabeth spoiling Campy with kisses and butt massages. 

Great job Danielle on the podium!!

Way to go Kevin!! Nice work!!

Great job Kelsey!

We love our Jax friends! They will always be our training buddies!

Smiles post race. 

Results from our athletes:

Joe N - 2:22:33, 2nd age group (25-29)

Wlad -2:25:44, 3rd age group (40-44)

Nick G - 2:30:23 

Kevin D -2:30:41, 3rd age group (55-59) \

Josh G - 2:32:49

Danielle - 2:45:17, 3rd age group (35-39)

Rob J - 2:46:35

Mike M. - 2:48:38

James W - 2:50:55 

Colleen L - 2:47:32 

Jeff B - 2:56:24

Mike B - 3:01:36 

Taryn F - 3:02:29 

Jim N - 3:05:20 

Elizabeth - 3:05:22

Heather A - 3:10:34 

JoAnn J - 3:18:04 

Maggie - 3:31:30 

Ryan -3:39:33 

Tricia - 3:44:41

Kelsey A - 1:50:51 (aquabike), 2nd overall female

Karel - 2:11:55, 6th overall

Marni - 2:21:48, 3rd overall female

Thank also to the Trimarni sponsors! 

Clif Bar

Canari Cyclewear

Run In

Oakley and Oakley Women 

Veronica's Health Crunch

First Bourn

TrainingPeaks

SOLESTAR

Challenge Family

TriBike Transport

Salem Professional Anesthesia Services

XTERRA Wetsuits

And thanks Sommer Sports for welcoming the Trimarni team!

Thank you for reading about our 4-day Clermont Training camp. Stay tuned for our advanced athlete, Ironman-focused Greenville camp this June!