USAT Nationals
Portland, Oregon 20th September 2008
USAT Nationals was on 20th September 2008 in Portland, Oregon. The setting of the race was gorgeous, beautiful, spectacular, magnificent, extravagant, and “GLOURIOUS!”
The swim was a one loop course in Henry Hagg Lake; it was decent swim, nothing spectacular. I came out of the water in 10th and there was one girl directly in front of me, Becky Witinok-Huber. Becky and I worked together the first lap and caught one of the girls that was in front of us and on the back half of the bike, after the long hill before the turn around back to the start I had dropped her.
ALL HILLS!!!!
It was kinda hilly, and by kinda I mean there was NO flat section….you were either going UP or DOWN. Needless to say I ended SOLOing the bike. This is NOT a good thing on a hilly course, it sucked actually. I was in 8th place on the bike and when I got to the run there was nobody in sight, I wasn’t going to catch anybody and nobody was going to catch me (at least that is what was going through my mind).
Luckily I was think right, I didn’t catch anybody and nobody caught me. I got 8th, I would have liked to have done better but in the end this was where I was predicted to finish. Not too bad considering the top 5 girls consisted of 3 Olympians (Sarah Haskins, Laura Bennett, and Julie Ertel) and the next 2 alternates to the Olympic team (Sarah Groff and Becky Lavelle).
Last year I was 14th, which means that this year was a huge improvement.!