The first “half” of my season is finished with the past double header in New Hampshire 70.3 last weekend and the fifth stop on the XTERRA tour in downtown Richmond, VA this past Sunday.    Although I always race to win I am happy to have finished in second place to a super strong and impressive Shonny Vanlandingham who took her first win of the season.   I am not enjoying the health and form that I had when I started this insane schedule on March 10^th and it is showing in my racing when I faded out of contention on the run.  The heat and humidity generally exacerbates any of my weakness and although I put up a good fight for almost two hours of the race I sadly faded quickly and exponentially in the closing miles of the races to take second.   Finishing runner up to a World Champion is great especially when she has superpowers in heat and humidity.  I am proud of that effort as I felt I got every last ounce of my body that day to stay in front of Suzi Snyder in third, Chris Jeffrey fourth and Jess Noyola in fifth.   Teammate Conrad Stoltz earned another win this weekend to have four wins and a second going into the US Champs later this season.  Very impressive.  He was followed by Dan Hugo, Nico Lebrun, Branden Rakita and Craig Evans.

It looks like the demanding schedule is taking its toll on many of us as the gaps in this women’s race were pretty large.  There were moments on that super hot run where I had to keep reminding myself of why I love this sport so much and why getting another job would be a terrible idea even if there was air conditioning.  I think I fought the hardest while my Bex Runner was extra cool… having some coolness in your hand really helps you mentally feel cooler and the science says it is cooling your core temperature at the same time.  I think I needed a full body ice bath to really rock it though.  REad more……