Today I was 4th at Challenge Rimini in Italy. It was my first time in Italy and I enjoyed the experience. The race organisers were very good to us and we have been here for over a week trying to get over the jet-lag. Rimini itself is a resort town on the coast. The beach is beautiful and we have been very lucky with the weather and cycling up into the hills around Emilia Romagne was very pleasant with beautiful views all the way down to the coast .The bike course was very challenging, with some good climbs, some tricky descents and a lot of wind too.
So to the race. We started at 11am which I actually found really tricky as I still woke up early and then had nothing to do but wait and get even more nervous than usual. I find it hard to get food in on race morning so only starting at 11am made this even worse as I still could only really get in my usual breakfast but then we didn't start until 11am (and I missed lunch entirely). I actually prefer the mad rush to the race and then just getting straight on with it. The swim was a beach start and the water was very shallow which meant we had a very long run in the water. I would say I am probably the worst water runner ever. I'm short (5 foot 3) and I find it so hard to get my legs over the water. I pretty much saw the entire field running away from me and then spent the whole swim passing people. I was thinking this is so not a good demonstration of my swimming at the moment as I have (under Matt's guidance) been swimming as fast as I was a few years back. But actually looking at the results now, despite my poor start I had a very good swim around 25 minutes and did get a bit of a buffer on the other girls, and it was the highlight of my day. At the time I had no idea what position I was and thought I was chasing on the bike (but now I realise I was in the lead for the first half of the bike ride).
Onto the bike and I did not feel good. I felt like my body was a bit asleep and not race fit. This is usual for my first race in Europe. I will never be one of those that can do a big block of training and then nail one race. I have to go and do race after race and my body gets stronger with each, especially on the bike. The bike was very challenging, some steep climbs of 15% and then the first half of the bike was uphill finishing with a 3k climb, and all the uphill was into a headwind. I was caught by Eimear Mullan and Tine Deckers at around the half way point on one of the longest descents. I was totally not in their league technically and they flew by me on the downhill and I never saw them again. The turn around was not a direct out and back, you had to do a loop around the town and so I had no clue about those in front or behind unless they were a long way behind me. The road surface was totally not your typical European road surface, there were cracks and pot holes everywhere and I found it a challenge to stay in the aero bars, it reminded me of the course I did in Samoa last year. At the end of the bike I was caught by Vanessa Raw (an ITU athlete doing her first half ironman) and that was a surprise as I had assumed she was way up the road being a good swimmer, and then in transition I was outsplit by Gabriella Zelinkka so I began the run in 5th position.
The run was 3 laps up and down the promenade so finally I could see what was going on in the race. I didn't feel good. I made my way past Gabriella and Vanessa into 3rd and then hit a really rough patch and Daniella Saemmler who was running very well went by me. I trudged on and didn't feel good until 18k which was a bit late! In the Challenge races Benny is allowed to come across the line and as he enjoyed it so much in Wanaka we had promised him he could do it again. The only problem was that Brett could not get close enough to the finish line and handed me Benny about 400m from the end. Benny got a bit overwhelmed with the shouting and didn't want to run which meant I had to carry him, he is getting pretty heavy! and in the end Gabriella only finished 20 seconds behind me. That would have been very embarrassing to have been taken down a position because I chose to finish with my son! But it was a great way to end Mothers' Day.
So a pretty solid day. Usually I finish either 6th or 7th in my first European race so 4th for me is quite a decent result. Hopefully I can take some race fitness and strength away from this race as tomorrow we head to France and I will be racing Ironman 70.3 Pays D'Aix in 1 week!