Southwest Valley Regional YMCA Sprint Tri - Triathlon

This was a reverse tri....so stop reading down and work your way up from the bottom.
The swim sucked!! I think I have been in the pool twice this whole month. OWS has spoiled me. I love it and it is so much easier!! I was breathing pretty fast off the bike, so getting my breath regulated into a swimming rhythm was hard. This in combination with my lack of pool swimming fitness immmediately made it clear this swim was not going to be my finest moment. The 50m length didn't help either!!! Lots of thrashers and worse swimmers than me in the water, if you can believe it, and that just made it harder. Managed to finish and ran to the finish line.

Pool swim more. I have slacked off on this, and I paid for it. BUT, to my defense, I THOUGHT my next race was going to be my Oly with an OWS in a wetsuit, so I was focused on getting ready for that. All of a sudden I threw this race in, and was not ready for the pool.

Had a good one-legged dismount and racked my bike. I made the mistake of taking my knee strap off. I should have just kept it on. Eventhough I really don't move my legs in the pool in a way to make it hurt, I still had to run to the pool!!! OUCH!! It was killing me and I was hobbling peg-legged to the pool. I was thinking about my knee so much I just about put my head underwater with my goggles ontop of my head. Althought I improved on the time it took me to get into the pool and get going, it was still not great. This is probably where I lost 1st in my AG. 4 seconds was all I needed. :-(

I had a great bike leg. I just felt so strong the whole way. My new seat felt awesome, and my new aerobar position seemed to work well too. I don't know why I had such a good ride, but I just felt awesome. For the most part I stayed in a spinning gear, eventhough I am more of a masher, but a few times I was able to go into a harder gear just to get a bit more power output. The last straight away I drafted behind 2 guys I had leap frogged the whole way. They were picking it up toward the finish, so I just dropped in right behind them and let them cut through the wind for me. It wasn't really windy, but there was a bit of a breeze you could feel when you turned into it.

Nothing. Felt great!!!

I was a little light headed as I came into T1. But I managed to guickly get on my shoes and helment and as I looked at my watch I was unracking my bike at 15:56. So about 40 seconds. When I got the mount line I was not a happy camper. There were about 7 people who all STOPPED on the line to mount their bikes, and took up the whole lane. I do a running mount, so I tried to go to the outside and due to the conjestion I about bit it as it just wasn't a clean jump. BUT I managed to keep my balance, pulled it together and took off. This time I had remembred to make sure my bike was in a low gear, as you have to go up a hill out of the parking lot. I took off and passed people right and left out of the lot. I never get why people are just lolly gagging around when they first get on the bike!! It's a race!! GO!!!!

Not much. I was happy with my time. Helped to have my hair braided and not have to worry one bit aobut it. My helmet has NO extra room in it, so smashing it down over my braids was kind of hard, but I did it.

I started on the line, as was my plan. In this race it's not when your chip crosses the start line...they start the clock ticking at GO! So whether you are on the line or it takes you 10 seconds to get to the start line, you have that 10 seconds added to your time. I don't need that, so I always start on the line. Run was good. My knee started bothering me after the turn around, but didn't really progressivly get worse, so I just kept going. A heavy breather came up behind me and muttered "yes, I did it." I assumed I was her rabbit and she was happy she caught me. That helped me run faster, becuase I didn't want her to pass me. (Sorry...I am competitive. I have to at least TRY to push myself, right?) She stayed behind me the whole way, and I think I finally dropped her in the final "sprint" toward the timing line. I was able to pick it up just a bit for that last stretch, and that felt good. I thought for sure there was no way I was going to improve upon last year's time as I had a personal best then just breaking a sub 8 min mile. With my knee issues, I was just happy to be running. So when I looked at my watch and it said 15:16 I was totally stoked!!!

Nothing really.