Start of the 2014 Season!

The year is up and running already with our qualifiers for the 2014 season where USA Pentathlon will select the team for the World Cups this year. For the world cup teams there is a total of six men and six women that will be a part of the rotational team. There are four World Cups this year and four men and four women will be able to participate and compete in each. The team will rotate through based on the scores from the previous event.

To determine the teams there are qualifier competitions that are held in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. The best two out of three competitions will count towards points for our ranking in the US.

For the first USA pentathlon qualifier there was about 16 women competing. I have been working a lot on my fencing so it was encouraging to start my day with a decent score in fencing putting me in 5^th place. Since we are training through these events to prepare more for the world cups it can be a bit hard to race and push hard after a full training week. My swim wasn’t very close to my personal best, but still put me in a good position to start the combined in 3^rd place. I had solid rounds of shooting and a strong run to put me in the lead by about a minute. This gave me a pretty good buffer zone for the riding event. I had a clean and clear round in riding which secured my first place finish at the first qualifier of the season! This was a great way to start out the year and gave me some good things to work on for the World Cup coming up at the end of February.

 The second qualifier was very similar to the first event. I had a good fence and a faster swim time which allowed me to gain more points and start the start the combined in 2^nd place. With a strong run and ride I was able to come out with another first place. This would definitely give me a slot on the team for the World Cups in 2014.

Through all the competitions and hard training I was starting to have some issues with my knee. This caused me to take some time off of running unfortunately. I focused on low impact training like biking and aqua jogging to help sustain my fitness level. Thankfully after a lot of rehab, physical therapy, and some rest my injury healed up just prior to the arrival of the international athletes who came to train before the World Cup in Mexico. It was great seeing the international athletes again and having more training partners. The excitement was also starting to build inside me as I had missed out on the world cups last year due to my surgery. I was excited to get back into the circuit to travel and compete again.