Jena Greaser recently joined the Colavita New England Racing Team. She wasted no time taking the top spot on the podium. Jena placed 1st at the Winding Trails Off Road Triathlon. The off road triathlon is similar to the standard triathlon event. The event starts with a ½ mile swim, 5 mile mountain bike and a 3.1 mile cross country run. Jena had an outstanding race even beating two time Olympic Mountain Biker Jimena Dolzadelli.
You can be sure to see more great results from Jena this season.
Great Job Jena!!!
Race Report Provided by Jena Greaser:
I participated in my first off-road triathlon of the summer on Tuesday. The Winding Trails Series is a ½ mile swim in a lake, 5 mile mountain bike loop, and a 3.1 mile cross country run loop. I finished as the FIRST female out of 50 starters and placed 17th overall out of 163 starters (men and women combined). I even beat a 2 time Olympian mountain. biker (Jimena Dolzadelli, ). She was a minute a head of me on the bike portion, so next Tuesday I will make sure to ride even harder! I started in the first wave with the men and few of us brave women. I inhaled at least a gallon of water on the swim portion and even had to stop to do the breast stroke to calm down a few times. I forgot how intense the swim part is with people kicking you in the face and pulling at your legs from behind you. I plan to get on the front row next week! Once out of the water we had to run on a hard packed, rough, stone filled dirt trail for a couple hundred yards to the transition area. This was not too much fun without shoes on...and the transition area was all sand. I made the mistake of not putting my socks on for the mountain bike or the run and paid the price in bloody blisters. Despite the side cramps from a gallon of pond water in my gut and the stinging pain from the blisters on the inside of my feet, I had a blast! The mountain bike loop is sweet single track zig-zagging back and forth, and I always love a run in the woods over pavement any day. I was impressed that I was even able to complete the race at the pace that I did considering this was my first triathlon since 2 summers ago. I blew out my acl, mcl, and meniscus in February 2009 and was barely even able to walk by the end of last summer, non the less run or ride my bikes. My swimming and biking are fine, but the running will need some more work. I am just being patient with the knee and I know that over the summer it will continue to improve and perform better for me. It is hard to not be able to run how I use to prior to the knee injury. Before I ever got into bikes I was an elite runner, acquiring many D1 scholarship offers to run in college. A repetitive IT-Band injury put me in the pool a lot and on the bike. I entered my first triathlon at the age of 18 and won for female overall. I was hooked. After getting a job at a bike shop, all I wanted to do was start racing bikes. Thanks to the sport of triathlons I am where I am today with bike racing. I look forward to competing in more of these off road series races this summer since the series is every Tuesday until August 17th. Therefore it does not interfere with the regular USA cycling races on weekends.
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