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 Swim
Comments: Once again, same as last year, the swim was awful. Not SO awful I guess. It could have been worse. But generally, I was slightly panicked the whole time, had one moment when I worried I couldn't do it but flipped onto my back and was able to relax focusing on the clouds and the sky. My navigation is horrible - I waste a lot of time zigzagging around. I thought for sure I was the last last person out of the water - I was close, but not quite. I could not believe when I saw the results that I took 4 minutes off my time from last year! What would you do differently?: Practice open water swimming, relax, learn to sight, be happy that I'm slowly improving! My time actually for me was great - even if I were in the pool - I don't know how I did this.  Transition 1
Comments: For the first time, my wetsuit got stuck on one wrist. I had to have someone in transition help me. Besides that it seemed like this went okay - could have been a little quicker.  Bike
Comments: Overall I felt good on the bike. I made a conscious effort to drink lots of water and hammer gel. Legs never got overly fatigued - but I felt like it was hard to get any fast sprints out of them. Nothing too notable here - I got stuck behind a line of women the first few miles on the technical section - I could have picked up time here if I would have passed sooner. Oh my chain came off once near the top of the climb from shifting stupidly - that took some time. My time was 3 minutes slower than last year - not too bad for riding about half as much. What would you do differently?: Need to start thinking about being smoother and more streamlined on the bike - I think I waste energy weaving around. Training more - that would help. Transition 2
Comments: This was fast and smooth. What would you do differently?: I grabbed a new full hammer gel flask - then decided it was too heavy and threw it off the side of the trail at the very beginning of the run - then of course wished I had it halfway through. Next time have a single hammer gel package to throw into my jersey.  Run
Comments: I felt awesome on the first lap of the run. The female leader who I remembered from last year was just starting her second lap when I was starting my first so I tried to stay up with her for a bit - that didn't last too long.. The run was rerouted from last year to avoid high water, which added an additional hill and distance I think. That last hill that I wasn't expecting kind of killed me. The second lap was rough. This is where I started feeling the effects of not training. I started getting clumsy and tripped half a dozen times on roots and rocks. Went down pretty good once - minor scrapes and bruises but nothing serious. Rolled my ankle once. I realized on the second lap there was no way I was going to beat last year's time and felt a little disappointed - my run was 6 minutes slower than last year. What would you do differently?: Take a hammer gel with me. Not get discouraged! Seeing the results now - everyone's run times were slower this year since the course was rerouted. Once again the run was my best event - even though my run training is pathetic! I need to take advantage of this more. Post race
Warm down: Ate some watermelon. Camping buddy Craig had a cold beer waiting at the finish - like he said he would! Watched the awards. Since the overall 1st and 2nd place women were in my age group (one of which was a pro), I got bumped up and ended up getting an age group prize - an Xterra pint glass! What limited your ability to perform faster: Pretty much my lack of training. Event comments: Even though I was content on some level to just finish this race without any major incident, I was feeling a little disappointed about my time compared with last year (even though this might have been illogical based on my lack of training this year). But when I looked over the full results I was really pleased. I improved my swim time by a bunch and brought the gap between me and the top females from 40 minutes last year to 30 minutes this year. It's really cool to see the amazing athletes at this event. It's always good energy and good people. I'm inspired to stick with it and start thinking about my next goals and training more consistently. Last updated: 2009-06-18 12:00 AM
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United States
Big Sky Endurance Sports
65F / 18C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 12/29
Age Group = 25-29
Age Group Rank = 5/11
Drove over Friday to pre-ride the bike course and check out the lake water temp with Jerry. Glad we did this - I'd forgotten how technical the first few miles of the bike course were. This was my first tri this year - by this time last year I had already done 2 road tris and lots more training. Since I haven't really been training much this summer, I was going in with the mind frame of just having fun and finishing without getting hurt.
Camped out in the same awesome spot as last year and another Xterra entrant, Craig from Minnesota, shared the spot. Went a little overboard with food the night before feeling like I could use the extra energy. Also, I got a new backpacking stove and was excited to try it out and just kept cooking things. But I ate so much I worried my stomach would be upset all during the race. I had dreams that the tri was point to point with no transition area so you had to carry everything that you needed along the way on your back. It was weird.
Woke up at 6 - ate cranberry oatmeal, a banana and mint tea. Got to the start at 7 and set up transition. Last year I was nervous for this race several months ahead of time. This year I couldn't make myself nervous for some reason - until about an hour before the start. Had a shot of hammer gel a little after 8. Got in the water and swam around a tiny bit. The water felt much warmer than last year although it was only a couple degrees warmer.