aquathlon Irongirls wachtebeke

On Saturday the 26th of March the ‘Irongirls’ organized an aquathlon in Wachtebeke. it’s a 500m swim followed by a 5,5km run. After my half marathon on sunday I had another hard training week but this was just another training race. I really looked forward to this one because it was just gonna be awesome :-) we had some big names competing in my category: Carmen de Ridder; a girl I used to swim with about 10 years ago. she’s been in the ‘nederlandse selectie’ for a while and goes really well in open water swim races! Sophie de Groote; her 1st year as a full time pro athlete, she’s going for the same goal as me: 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas. and Jolien Lewyllie: a young girl who’s got lots of talent and is part of team 185 coached by Marc Herremans. So no pressure.. ow and I almost forgot: my mum competed as well! 

we started with a 500m swim. Because it was training and I wanted to get the most out of it  I started at the front. we shared a lane with 5 girls and I had no idea how they were gonna go but they could pass me if they wanted to. the day before I had done a swim training plus power training. push ups, dips that sort of stuff with a backpack. Kind of felt that after 200m, my muscles were a bit sore. I tried to keep my pace the same through the swim. the last 50m I tried to safe my legs a bit. I got out of the water 1st of my lane. Jolien, Carmen, Sophie and Evy were all in front of me plus maybe a couple of other girls. Not sure who was in front of me. 

When I ran into transition Mieke was on the micro keeping the public up to date who got out of the water. I saw there was one girl just leaving transition and I quickly jumped in my shoes and grabbed my nr, and started the chase. after a couple of hundred meters I was just behind her and because it was quite windy I wanted to run out of the wind for a bit but she was going to slow, so I had to go past. I saw Evy running in front of me and I tried to catch her. after the 1st lap I noticed the gap got smaller but Evy wasn’t gonna let me get to her. damn! I ran as fast as I could to get some good training in and I finished in 5th place. I saw my mum starting her run and yelled out at her. she looked strong! 

Sophie finished in 1st place, surprise surprise.. Carmen did awesome and finished 2nd and Jolien got a well deserved 3rd place. they definitely were the strongest ones out there. 

you can see the results here: http://irongirls.be/files/uitslagen/2011_dames.pdf

I had a great day and really enjoyed it! Would love to do more of these races. and it was surprisingly well organized for being such a small race!  a day to remember :-)

half marathon disaster

on sunday the 20th of March was my 1st half marathon of the year planned; in Sluis. I really thought that I would run faster than last year even though I had my 2nd cold in 4 weeks and I was in the middle of a 4 week training cycle.. it was a disaster. From the start on I didn’t feel very good. because of my cold I had trouble breathing and I couldn’t find a rhythm. In the 1st kilometer Reiny jumped passed me and just took off! I was a bit scared he would get hit by the man with the hammer around km 16-17 but he finished really strong. 1:40:54 for you first half marathon is awesome! 

km 1-10 were ok, I couldn’t cool down and kept throwing water over me and that sort of got me through half the race. From then on my lungs started burning and I felt like I couldn’t get any oxygen out of the air I was breathing in. my race was over. switch button from ‘racing mode’ into ‘training mode’ and just finish. It sounds easy but trust me it isn’t. I really had to keep telling myself: Ok, Gwen, take it easy. Don’t force it you’re just gonna do yourself more harm than good. finish it, and use this as training. 

km 10-18 were a bit of a mental rollercoaster. a lot of people passed me! It felt like everyone passed me! I just wanted to stop and go home. but from km 18 things got a bit easier. only 3km, that’s ‘if you would run at the slow pace of 6min/km” only 18min untill you cross the finish. piece of cake! so, I finished in 1 hour 49 min and a bit. I wasn’t even really upset because I was kind of proud at myself that I could just ‘switch the button’. In the passed I would of been really pissed, angry and upset but this wasn’t the race I’m preparing for. this is just part of my training, and training isn’t supposed to be easy. not just physical but also mental training is what I need to work on to go better in my half ironman races. So it probably didn’t feel as the best training I could of done for my body but my mind learned a lot that day! 

Mike, Pieter and Celine also raced. Mike didn’t do any running over an hour for about 8 months and finished in 1:39! Pieter, we all know he’s just an amazing athlete, finished in 1:22. and Celine beat her pb by 5 min and finished in 1:45! 

If you want to see the results you can see them here:

 http://www.racetimer.eu/uitslagen.php?v=%25252Fnl%25252Frace%25252Fresultlist%25252F486%25253Flayout%25253Dracetimer_eu%252526amp%25253Brc_id%25253D2968

1st race, 1st win

A good start of the season with a win in the sprint distance triathlon in Herderen! Just found out my times a couple of hours ago and pretty happy with them. As you know, this was a training race. I just had a really hard training week behind me a definitely didn't expect a win. On wednesday I felt great in training and was ready to race but by friday it was all gone. I had to do this really hard run and there was no way I could get my heartrates up to what they had to be. I suffered so much that day and just completely had it. Luckily I still had a 2,5 hour bike ride on saturday to look forward to.. yay. I do admit that my legs felt a bit better afterwards.
Then, a cruel sunday morning where we had to get up early. I got all my stuff ready the night before so we just had to load the car. We arrived in Bilzen, where the swim was, at around 10 am. there were 2 waves for the women and I had to start in the first one. 11:15 lane 3. I got the lane for myself which was great, did a bit of a warm up swim before and I felt ok. The legs didn't feel great but I don't really need them very much in the swim. I started off at a pretty good pace, trying to take long, strong strokes, never dropped my pace and even picked it up towards the end. in Lane 1 was Charlotte de Kort swimming, she had a great swim start but I saw her dropping back towards the end,  couldn't catch her though. In lane 2, next to me was Elke Conings, from the beginning of the swim untill about a 100 mtrs to go, she was just in front of me. I saw she wasn't doing her tumble turns so I knew what to get her on. the last 4 laps I accelerated end I finished 13 seconds in front of her. 7:43
In the 2nd wave was one really good swimmer, Lisa Stes. she kicked our asses by more than a minute!
After the swim we drove to Herderen for the second part of my race. it was a 4 lap bike leg followed by a 2 lap run. It was quite cold so I did a bit of a warm-up on the turbo and Reiny rubbed my legs in with warm up oil. reminds me of my bike racing times, good times :-)
since I ended up in 3rd place on the swim I was to start in 3rd position on the bike, 1 min 26 behind Lisa and 8 seconds behind Charlotte. I had no idea how strong the other girls were but I have to admit, they looked pretty fit and since my run isn't my strongest, I had to pass and get some time ahead of Charlotte and Lisa on the bike.
I started pretty fast, it was slightly uphill but I knew there would be a downhill bit just around the church. I saw Charlotte in front of me and yelled out at her, watch it: i'm coming. we sort of planned to try and ride to Lisa together and then attack her later. But I flew straight past Charlotte and she didn't get my wheel so I was gonna have to do it on my own. The bike lap was quite hilly but nothing too bad. there was quite a bit of wind as well and I was happy I only had to ride for 20km. At the end of the 1st lap, I completely loved my new bike, it's just amazingly fast! When we rode towards the finish there was a split, the men had to go left on this big hill and the women just had to ride straight ahead up a smaller hill. A few men passed me.., they took there corner and then I saw something that gave me wings: a good 100 mtrs in front of me was Lisa riding up the hill. I was still in the big ring and came back quickly. The last hilly bit to the finish was too steep for the 50 so I changed it back to my 34, spinned up the hill and went passed Lisa. Quickly back in the big ring on the false flat and .. attack! I dropped her, yess! Just had to keep it up now. After the 2nd lap I was using the small chainring a lot more and really thought I was going a lot slower because of that. Had some troubles with my chain as well, it kept coming off when I changed gears. front derailleur needs some fine tuning again.
Last lap I tried to 'recover' a bit and get ready for the run, really took my time to spin up the hill and get in Transition. Then, a quick change of shoes and off I was for a 5km run. I was sort of panicking because the last thing I heard Reiny scream was that they were about a min and a half behind and I didn't think that would be enough. My legs were completely powerless and I didn't feel like I was going anywhere. The guy on mic was convinced I was going to win but I thought he was a bit optimistic... There was another guy riding a mtb riding in front of me who said I didn't have to worry but I wasn't convinced. the 1st run lap was hell, I couldn't get in a rhythm, hamstrings weren't working with me and I couldn't breathe very well. When I first passed the finish line with one lap to go I heard Reiny, Jacob and his friends all yell out at me.  I looked back past the soccer field and didn't see any other girls yet so I knew the chance of anyone coming back would be pretty slim. After about 3,5 km I started feeling a bit better. I ran past the houses, had some little kids cheering me on and then I got to the soccer field. yay! a couple of hundred meters to go and it's over.
Reiny was waiting for me at the finish line, which was really nice! He took some nice photo's too and he filmed my swim!

So, looking back at the race, with racing times next to me, I can say that i'm quite happy with my result. I think I kicked ass on the bike, the only thing that went wrong there was my chain. lap times were: lap 1: 9:43 lap 2: 10:39 lap 3: 9:58 and lap 4: 10:08
I swam ok, but there is still lots of room for improvement, especially after watching my stroke on camera!
And for the run, I was very surprised to find out that I got the fastest running time! a shared, fastest running time, Elke did 21:36 as well. Still need some work on my run though, but i'm very happy with the improvements so far.

below you can see the results from the race:

Uitslag Herderen 2011 Dames
Pl.	Naam		Cat	Swim	Fietstijd	Split	Looptijd	Finish
1	Lossie	Gwen	Dames	0:07:43	0:40:32	0:48:15	0:21:36	1:09:51
2	conings	elke	Dames	0:07:56	0:45:33	0:53:29	0:21:36	1:15:05
3	Stes	Lisa	Dames	0:06:27	0:46:30	0:52:57	0:23:21	1:16:18
4	Debock	Julie	Dames	0:09:28	0:44:52	0:54:20	0:22:25	1:16:45
5	De Kort	Charlotte	Dames	0:07:35	0:47:36	0:55:11	0:24:43	1:19:54
6	Rinkes	Els	Dames	0:11:24	0:46:49	0:58:13	0:23:28	1:21:41
7	Berden	Jessica	Dames	0:09:46	0:48:56	0:58:42	0:24:57	1:23:39
8	Van den Bossche	Ruth	Dames	0:11:34	0:50:38	1:02:12	0:26:05	1:28:17
9	broechoven	an	Dames	0:10:41	0:52:02	1:02:43	0:29:48	1:32:31
10	Nijs	Greet	Dames	0:12:26	0:56:59	1:09:25	0:27:40	1:37:05
11	Callebaut	Klara	Dames	0:11:02	0:59:26	1:10:28	0:33:29	1:43:57
12	Wauters	Ellen	Dames	0:11:37	1:28:51	1:40:28	0:03:32	1:44:00
13	Vermeerbergen	Kirsten	Dames	0:09:21				DNF

The organization was very good as well! Really enjoyed doing this race. I loved the challenging bike circuit :-) Looking forward to seeing the photo's online.
check www.sport-events.be triathlon herderen!!