Austin Triathlon success

Wow, what an awesome weekend!! I'm so happy it's crazy...
Let's see...I left Thursday afternoon for San Antonio. Friday and Saturday did two long rides and solid runs, one off the bike, one 1hr after ride and swim Sat evening (legs felt DEAD which was very beneficial!). Also I had a great long main swim set Saturday that made me feel close to normal in the water :)
Then Sunday my brother and I left for Austin early after his quick morning ride for the Austin Triathlon. He was doing the sprint, me the oly. I volunteered at packet pick up for a bit and then helped at bike check in. After the heavy traning the whole week (11hrs of it on Fri+Sat) standing at bike check in for a couple of hours had my legs/feet screamng for ice water.
So after that we rushed to Barton Springs Pool and soaked in there for about 20mins...OMG that saved my life :)That was followed by a trip to my Eden: Whole Foods Austin...we bought some awesome spelt blueberry muffns for breakfast race morning that I hope I can find at the Dallas store.
Anyway, I was supposed to stay with my friend George but when my bro decided to race we convnced my mom to book a hotel. She found a great deal at this new hotel about 10miles from the race and we slept amazing!!
Race morning we were trying to find parking and had no cash...everything was blocked or $7. So I had my brother ask the "manager" at Whataburger to let us park there and not tow the car. He said ok just be back before noon when it gets crowded. Sure, no problem we'd be way done by then...(more to come on this later)
RACE....
Ok now the most incredible part: I had my best race of the season!! haha. I never thought you needed to break your collarbone to finally get some good stuff your way.
My plan was to play the swim conservatve- swim solid but nothing crazy, take care of my shoulder, and hammer the bike and run- get a great speed workout in from the race.
So I lined up on the far right to have my right shoulder free of swimmers...I decided to race the Open/Elite wave so I had to be careful not to get knocked around at the swim start hehe.
That went perfect...I was clear and found a good draft immediately. The pace seemed effortless and I just kept my eye on this person. About half way in, he or she slowed down and I saw a small pack about 25m away. I'll throw in a little sprint to my swim I thought so I picked it up, caught them, and settled in with that group till the exit.
I couldn't believe after the race when I read that I swam a 23somtn! That's got to be one of my fastest 1500s and it felt soooo ez.
On to the bike... loved the course...it didn't have all of those crazy corners like Captex and weaved around downtown and near Austin High. I had some ups and downs on the bike but overall felt strong. The rollers felt like a cakewalk but at various parts my legs were defntely feelng the lack of rest from the prior week.
I fgured the run would be quite a beating but NOPE! For some reason which I'll never be able to comprehend...my legs felt close to new!! Again, I loved the course, simlar to Captex but with a tiny off road section :)
I don't know why but only in Olympic distance do I always have to pee starting the run. I was feelng great though and wanted a PR on the run so I didn't stop (maybe a good call, maybe not) By loop 2 I really had to go but by then it was pointless.
Either way I had one of my best Oly runs, a 41somtn :)
Well, that was that, I felt proud to have come from lying in bed between two pillows face up to sleep, being unable to speed walk 4 1/2 wks ago to this day. I'm very optimistic about Cancun now which is why I wanted to race before then...to get a sense of what I could expect.
I ended up 6th overall female, 1 spot short of 100 bucks :( hehe but they gave the top 10 a package of this organc coffee so given that I spend about $2/day on coffee that's bad ass!

BUT.....the rockstar of the race, at least in my un-biased (yeah right haha) opinion, is my brother! That kid makes me feel like a snail. He went 2nd overall, a minute behind his Icon1multisport teammate, who obviously kicks major butt too, Hunter Overly. Not only that, but he had the fastest run split and set a PR: 17:48 5km! Needless to say he was stoked.

Lastly, before I head out the door for masters swim (supposed to take the day off but I'm hyper haha)....the Whataburger fiasco: I got my car towed!!! OMG I was mad. The so called manager told us we could park there and not get towed! We were back at 9:55am!!! So I had them call the supervisor who called the towing company to wave us the charge. Thankfully it worked out, but we still had to drive, with my parent's car, to the towing place in some farm road about 30min from Austin. Haha...that I'll never forget.

Stellar weekend :) Off to swim!
Cheers!