Swim
Comments: Well, I was the only woman in a lane with three guys. I had estimated my swim time based on my high school 500 pace, and then added time to that. I had not done enough training to really know what my pace would be. I was lapped once by two guys in my lane, but stayed close to the third guy. I had estimated that my time would be about 8:30, but that was much faster than I swam. I hadn't actually done a 500 in training even. So the swim was hard, but I held on, and felt as strong as I could feel under the circumstances. So I will say that the swim was good for me, given my limited training. Obviously there is more room for improvement. What would you do differently?: More swim training. Didn't put much time in the pool ahead of this event. Give a more accurate estimated swim time. Didn't have a good sense about my anticipated pace, and was in a faster heat than I should have been.. Transition 1
Comments: Well, I had no idea what to expect with the transition. Didn't know what to wear. Didn't have a tri suit, so had my swim suit on. Wasn't gonna just wear a swimsuit on the bike, so put on a pair of yoga pants over top of the wet swim suit (not a great plan), and put on a tshirt too. Stopped to put on bike gloves and my helmet and chat with the boyfriend and other people in transition. Thought to myself, hell, I'm doing a triathlon. I will call it below average overall, rather than bad, because it was the best that I could be expected to do under the circumstances. Otherwise, it was just plain bad. What would you do differently?: Lots of things. Get a tri suit. Not stop and talk with people during the transition. Practice transitions. Try to minimize the amount of extra clothing and extra stuff that I have with me. Bike
Comments: OMG. I didn't expect the ride to be so hard. I rode on a mt. bike, which I knew was going to be a recipe for disaster, but it was still worse than I expected. Lost my chain twice during the ride. Still I'm impressed that I and my bike both made it to the end. What would you do differently?: Different bike. Road bike in working order. Um, and actually train on a bike on the road. Most of my training was on a stationary spin bike at the gym. Transition 2
Comments: This was a little faster since I had rode my bike in my running shoes (since I don't own bike shoes). Probably still had too many things to put on and take off. I was just so tired by this point that I couldn't really move too fast. What would you do differently?: Just more practice with transitions. Get bike racked quicker. Helmet off quicker. Not wear bicycling gloves for a sprint distance race. Run
Comments: Well, by this point, I couldn't imagine continuing to race. I was so tired coming off the bike. But I kept telling myself to keep going. I figured that I would be done soon enough. At least the run was flat. Of course, at this point, I realized that I was indeed the last person on the course. That did help me to keep going, because I could tell that the volunteers were waiting for me to get there so that they could pack up and go home. I saw some of the people I had chatted with during T1, and they were all cheering for me. That was pretty cool. Also, I have never run a 5K this fast in my life, and I can't believe that I did that at the end of a triathlon. What would you do differently?: More swim and bike training so as not to get to the run totally exhausted. More run training so that I could go faster. Otherwise, I think that I did everything that I could have done. I even managed to sprint into the finish line. Post race
Warm down: Um, ate a bagel and a banana and had some water, and then collapsed in the car. It's a really good thing that Kelly was there, because I might not have been able to drive myself home. Went home and slept. What limited your ability to perform faster: I had no idea what to expect from my first triathlon. I hadn't ridden my bike on the roads except for the few days right before the event. I hadn't spent much time in the pool prior to this event too. I'm mostly just glad that I didn't die. Now I will know what to train for and to expect in a triathlon. I would say that my mental and physical effort were great for my current condition though, and that is the most important. There were several times when I totally could have given up, and I didn't. Event comments: I don't have anything to compair this race to, but I enjoyed it. Last updated: 2009-04-23 12:00 AM
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United States
Hawthorn Farm Athletic Club
Overall Rank = 197/208
Age Group = Athena under 39
Age Group Rank = 6/7
Woke up about 5:30. Ate two eggs and two pieces of toast with pear butter and had 16 oz coffee with cream. Headed out to Hillsboro with Kelly to set up my transitions. This was my first triathlon, so I was kind of nervous about how the transitions would work. It was a point to point race too, so it meant that I had to hit T2 first to set up my run gear, and then head to T1 to set up my bike. I really had no idea what to expect about the whole race. Got settled and then went to watch the earlier heats of swimmers compete.
Some laps in the warm up pool and some stretching. Didn't warm up much, was mostly too nervous about my race. Wasn't sure how much warm up to do, since I wasn't even sure if I had the fitness to complete the whole event.