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 Swim
Comments: Since all of my gear was stolen, I was using new swim goggles, cap and ear plugs for the first time. I was praying that the goggles wouldn't leak and they didn't, so I was happy. Glanced at my watch at the first 100 and it read 2:04, the fastest 100yd time I've ever seen on my watch even when doing 100 sprints in training. Kind of freaked out and stopped looking at my watch. Lost count of my laps and just decided to go with it. The other girl in my lane was FAST. I lost count of how many times she lapped me. Figured I'd be the last person out of the pool and just focused on breathing and trying to stay consistent and hoping I'd make it before the 30:00 cut off time. What would you do differently?: Grow longer arms or something. Maybe invest in one of those torture stretching devices. I swim SLOW. But, for me, it was a good effort. I didn't choke or anything and was able to maintain consistent freestyle throughout.  Transition 1
Comments: Ran into T1. My boyfriend was there. I remember asking him if I was the last person out of the pool and he said, no you were the 3rd person out! This made me feel a little better. Put on my shirt and my race number got ripped off so spent some time fiddling with that. Otherwise the first transition went really smooth and fast. Remember getting on my bike and thinking I must have forgotten something, but everything was there. Times for T1 and T2 were combined in results and since my Garmin was stolen :( I don't know exactly what T1 was. My combined transition time was 2:30 so I'm guessing T1 was around 1:30. What would you do differently?: Use a race belt.  Bike
Comments: Felt really good on the bike. Since the heats only consisted of 8 people and were staggered by 30 minutes, everyone was really spread out, which made it hard to remember to be in race mode. Kind of felt like I was cruising. Caught up to the girl that was in my swim lane pretty early on and realized she was in my age group. Had no trouble getting around her. Tried to stay in my drops as much as possible. Ate a Hammer gel around mile 4 and was glad. Felt like the course was downhill all the way, I stayed in my big chain ring the entire way except at the very end there was a small hill and dropped into 2-1. Spotted the first woman out of the pool in my heat towards the end of the ride, but couldn't catch up to her. What would you do differently?: Try out some aerobars, maybe some road cycling shoes instead of my mtn bike shoes. And I definitely need a new saddle. Probably push it a little harder, I wasn't sure what to expect for the run or how much energy to save. Transition 2
Comments: Smooth and fast. Grabbed another Hammer gel, but didn't end up using it. Stuck it in my shorts which worked pretty well. What would you do differently?: Nada  Run
Comments: Had trouble catching my breath from T2 even though I didn't feel like I was breathing hard at all on the bike portion. Had a side ache for a few minutes in the first mile. Finally got into a sort of rhythm. I could see the woman that was first out of the pool in my heat the entire time, but couldn't get any closer to her. It was pretty hot. No shade on the course. Felt the whole time like I should be pushing it harder but was worried I would die in the last mile and waited to push it until the very end. What would you do differently?: Push it just a little harder. Wear sunscreen. Post race
Warm down: My mom was there at the finish and my boyfriend. I was glad to see them. Drank some water and watched the other racers come in. What limited your ability to perform faster: I'm not sure that I could have gone much faster, but the two days leading up to the race were fairly stressful, I could have done without that. I wish I had my Garmin. :( Event comments: We decided to hang around for the awards hoping to win some good raffle prizes. I did win a pair of bike socks, but they were men's XL so I gave them to my boyfriend. They began announcing the times of the winners in each age group and I realized that I had a chance at placing in my age group! Before I knew it they called my name as first place in my age group!! Mind you, this was a tiny beginners triathlon, but what a confidence booster! I was stoked. The 30-39 age group was much more competitive than my age group and I ended up 5th overall. Looking at the individual event times I see that my swim is what separated me from the top women overall. My swim time was 6 minutes slower than the top 30-39 year olds. But, surprisingly, I had the 3rd fastest overall run time, I expected the bike segment would be my strongest. It's no surprise I need to work on my swimming. Overall, this was a really rewarding and confidence building experience for me. After bitterly and obsessively complaining about my stuff getting stolen for several hours, my boyfriend finally said, "Take lemons and make lemonade." And he was right. Despite everything seeming crazy and out of control, in the end, the training paid off and mentally I was ready and ended up doing much better than I ever would have expected! I'm registered for my second tri in two weeks, which will have another new challenge, open water swim. Of course I'm anxious but now I feel excited too. It's a journey I've just begun. Profile Album Last updated: 2008-05-19 12:00 AM
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United States
Big Sky Cyclery
60F / 16C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 5/20
Age Group = 20-29
Age Group Rank = 1/8
Pre-race was potentially the worst possible disaster that ever could have been. Let's start with 2 days prior to the race. Friday - I had been obsessively making lists of everything I needed weeks in advance of what would be my first ever triathlon. I meticulously packed everything, checked and double checked and had everything in my car ready to go. I drove to my boyfriend's house Friday night, unloaded my bike and went to bed early. We planned to leave Saturday morning and have a nice relaxing weekend windsurfing and camping before the race Sunday.
Saturday - Woke up to utter disaster. In my anxiety and stupidness I forgot to lock my car containing all of my best and meticulously packed gear. Everything I needed most, I loved most, was gone. Stolen. My Garmin, my swim goggles, my swimsuit (who would steal a swimsuit!), my ipod, all of my bike tools, CO2 cartidges, my favorite Patagonia rain gear, Black Diamond backcountry ski pack, etc. etc. All gone. My Garmin!! Spent the rest of the day filing police reports, talking to the neighbors, foolishly driving around looking for teenagers in a gray car (the neighbors thought they had a lead). Finally came to terms with the situation and decided to move on, buy the essentials to get through the triathlon the next day, and let it go. (Since then, I've alternated between feelings of rage and feelings that it was a lesson in learning not to be so attached to things..)
Saturday evening - Drove to Helena, bought what I needed, went to the pre-race meeting. Here's where disaster #2 began developing. Swimming has always been, for me, a subject of dread and panic. Part of the reason, I think, for wanting to do a triathlon was to face this fear. The reason I registered for this specific race was because of the fact that it had an unusually short swim (450 yards)... or so I thought. It came to my attention at the pre-race meeting that the swim was twice as long as I had thought it was. 900 yds as opposed to 450 yds. How could I have miscalculated this important detail!! Spent the rest of the evening trying to convince myself that it wasn't a big deal. I could swim 900 yards. No problem.
(Also, just a side note: My boyfriend and I had planned on camping comfortably at a lake close to the race site, but since we got to Helena so late, we didn't have time to set up a camp site and ended up sleeping in the back of his car instead..with the dog.)
Continued drama.. Woke up. Ate a cliff bar. Drove to the YMCA, where the race was being held. My heat was scheduled to start at 10:30, the last heat, which up until this moment I believed was the slowest heat. We arrived around 8:30am when the first heat started coming in and I quickly realized that the slow heats were definitely starting first. Suddenly I realized that since I thought the swim was half as long as it actually was, I had entered my estimated 1/4 mile swim time instead of 1/2 mile swim time and got placed in the fastest heat!! In a panic, I explained the situation to the race director who said that one of the people scheduled to start in the 9:00 heat hadn't showed up and that if I could be ready to race in 20 minutes, I could take her spot. Needless to say, "event warm-up" was not an option. I didn't even brush my teeth. But, got my bike racked, transition set up and raced to the pool in time to start in the 9:00 heat.