9th Place at World Championships!!!!!

My race yesterday was really awesome! To quickly summarize, I had a really great swim, of course I was out front right from the start...when I got out of the water and ran to my bike, Libby told me that I had put 1 min and 44 seconds on the next swimmer!! (later I found out that the 2nd girl out of the water was JASMINE!!) I felt really strong on the bike right from the start...I hauled butt and managed to stay solo for 5 1/2 laps...on the 6th lap I was caught by 2 girls from New Zealand. Unfortunatly, right when they caught me Denny yelled that there had been a crash in the chase pack and Jasmine was down and out of the race. I was really depressed to hear that her race was over because she was in perfect position for a top 3 finish...a lot more likely for her since she can kick my butt on the run!! but I had to refocus and finish my race...for the last lap I worked with the Kiwis and we increased our lead over the chase pack to 1 min and 20 seconds. It was incredibly HOT by the time we started running (about noon) and there were NO trees on the course...I knew that paying attention to how much water I drank would be really important to finish strong. I knew what place I was at the end of the bike and I kept counting the girls who passed me...at 2 laps of the run I was sitting in 7th place (all the incredible runners from the chase pack had already blown by me)...at the 3rd lap of the run I was sitting in 9th place and I buckled down and managed to hold that position all the way to the finish!!!
I was so proud that I had stayed cool and eaten enough to finish without going past my `redline`. It was a great race...I could not be happier with my whole race and especially my top ten finish! On a sadder note...Jasmine was not able to finish the bike because her chainstay on her bike broke in two...Jenna was unable to finish due to vomiting up the motor-boat-oil that she drank in the swimming water (the water that we swam in was completely disgusting, smelly and green)...Michelle finished 16th to round out the U23 American Girls. Our U23 boys had fantastic results...Jarrod WON!!! Manny and Matt both crashed on the bike (in unrelated crashes) but they were both able to finish the race...Brendan had a solid performance also. Our Junior girls had a 15th place finish and 2 others in the 30s...Our Junior boys also did fantastic...Stephen WON!!! The other two junior boys finished in the top 30 out of 72 racers. The Elite women just finished their race...it was incredibly exciting...Laura Bennett held off the fastest runner in the race for the Bronze Medal!! The Elite men just dove into the water as I am typing this and I hope they they do as well as our other boys!! GO USA!!!
(I hope this blog does not post like the previous one in all blocks...sorry about that:):)