Top-10!

This will be a short blog tonight as I am struggling to keep my eyes open!

I finished 10th today and honestly, I am thrilled with this result. I didn't exactly have an ideal pre-race week with the yucky cold, and just yesterday, I was sitting in the hospital with high performance director, Kurt, both of us wondering if I was even going to be able to race. I developed a painful, deep cough mid-week that had us a little worried. A chest x-ray ruled out pneumonia, but showed bronchitis, which is unpleasant but not life-threatening, so I was cleared to race. I was just told my breathing might not feel the best. No big deal, racing never feels good anyway!

My swim wasn't anything too spectacular but I was happy to come out alive and breathing (it was ROUGH out there today!). I found myself in a small group, about 30 seconds down from the large lead pack. We caught them by the 2nd lap and the pace was quite relaxed for the remainder of the 40km. I wasn't feeling too bad at this stage and decided to get myself in the mix for the run. I had a good T2, starting out with the lead women. I couldn't match their speed for too long, but settled into a good rhythm with a group of five. We battled it out together to the very end, with a sprint finish for 8th through 12th place. I forced my legs to turn over as fast as they could (I'm not normally known as a "sprinter" :) and finished up in 10th place. I am thrilled to start the Series with this result and my 10th place ranking will be a wonderful help with swim start positions in the later races. What a GREAT day for Canada, with all of us finishing in the top-10!

A big THANKS to our incredible support crew this week: coach Phillipe, Kurt Innes, and Rob "I want a running rematch" Hasegawa. 

I think now I am going to buy some cookies and curl up in bed. Tomorrow is the men's race and I am already getting goosebumps!