Virginia Run Sprint Tri - TriathlonSprint

I can't say the swim completely sucked but it wasn't pretty either. First, I am SO glad I had the wetsuit - as cold as the water was I wouldn't have made it, end of story. Just before I was supposed to go in, I dunked my goggles one last time, put them on and heard a "snap" - insert your fav cuss word here. I stepped back, told the folks behind me to go (fortunately they weren't strictly enforcing the order of the swim) and was quite relieved to discover that the strap had just come unthreaded on one side. Fixed that, apologized to the volunteer for the confusion and explained I'd had a small equipment malfunction - she was SUPER nice about it - "You sure you're OK? You can wait if you need to." Nope I was ready to go.

First 50 was good, the wetsuit is doing it's thing, I am super bouyant, things are good - except I have gone out WAY TOO FAST. I don't really realize this until about the 75 mark when my HR is spiking, I've inhaled water and I'm near on top of the person in front of me, and the person behind me is nowhere around (this in the 2:40 pace group).

The person in front of me offers to let me pass at the wall, I decline, cause I need to sort things out - I am a mess already and at least the person behind me is quite a ways behind me. I take the couple seconds to try and figure out what to do - theattorney's race report is echoing in my head "people drown because they panic" and well, no way I am gonna panic and drown in a pool swim, cause that would just be VERY embarassing. I start breast stroke once the girl in front of me is out a bit, still trying to get a secondary game plan together, because doing the jackrabbit thing was not in the plan and freestyle just isn't happening at the moment. (I am SO bad at judging my swim speed.)

Funny thing, I'd already seen one person walk at least the first 25M of the swim, yet that never occured to me at this point. Then the light bulb goes off. What am I really, REALLY good at that I can do in a pool swim? Backstroke. So, flipped over and backstroked the rest of it. MUCH BETTER. Did inhale more water in the second to last lap, let the two guys behind me pass at the wall so I could take a moment and cough up half the pool.

Finished up, dragged myself out of the water, sat a second on the deck to catch my breath and one of the volunteers asked if I was OK - "Longest 250 meters of my life right there!" Got up, wobbled over to the fence and grabbed my tevas and tried to take off as quick as I could for T1.

Not jackrabbit out - cause I was easily doing sub 2min 100s and then I freaked out about it (body & mind) - I am so bad at pacing myself when I swim. Also, double check where the end of the strap is on the goggles so they don't come undone again.

I was doing pretty good getting everything off until I managed to snag my watch in the sleeve of the wetsuit - that took a while to get undone. Made a last minute decision to go w/my tevas instead of my running shoes for the ride as I just didn't feel like trying to wrestle the socks on over the wet feet or even trying to tie my shoes at this point. Didn't bother to dry off at all, just threw on my windbreaker, tevas, camelbak & helmet and headed off. Slow, but not nearly as spazzy a transition as I would have expected, and at that point, I knew the worst for me was over. My brother was on the other side of the fence and I'm promising him that the next race he comes to, I will be much more impressive in transition. Little bit of a backup actually getting out, as the person in front of me was having some troubles, but really not too bad.

Practice getting the wetsuit off with the watch on - it didn't occur to me until it snagged that I'd not had it on the couple times I'd had the wetsuit on. Nice little "D'Oh!" moment there.

I LOVED THE BIKE LEG! I felt fantastic through the whole thing. About a third of the way through I did notice some pressure on my hands and thought to myself, "Geez, I really should have gone with my other pair of biking gloves I guess..." and then looked down at my hands and realized I should have gone with ANY of the biking gloves I had. Yes, managed to totally forget about them in T1, even though they were right there waiting for me...

I did get passed by a ton of people on the bike leg, but I also got to pass people too! I even managed to pass one person on a hill - I just had a good, good rhythm going and I was gaining on him and realized if I didn't want to slow down, it was pass him, hill or no hill. It was extra gratifying to get to the top where the police officer was looking at me and going "Damn!"

Got to see Chippy on the bike leg, too - she passed me on her SECOND loop towards the end of my first! But that was so neat to hear behind me, "Hey Cindy, is that you?" Got to see my brother 3 times on the route, and that was just great.

Also feel like I did really well w/the hydration - the camelbak is definitely the way to go for me as I will actually drink more than if I had to contend with trying to get a bottle out of the cage. Did ice/gatorade that had melted into a good 50/50 mix by the time I was out on the road and it was just right.

Just insanely pleased with the bike leg. I love my pink bike. (It got a lot of comments on the course and in transition, too!)

Nothing - I felt great the entire time. It can only get better with more time on the new bike.

T2 was obviously much faster than T1, just a matter of racking the bike, switching out the tevas for the socks & shoes (my feet were near dry - MUCH easier than it would have been in T1), on with hat & race belt, took a couple seconds to stretch and out the chute.

Can't really think of anything - once again, not speedy, but not knocking anything over either, so I consider it a success.

Leaving T2, you go out a chute on the side of it for the run - this was SO COOL to me - I have absolutely no idea why. Got out to the main road, high fived my brother and told him I'd see him on the back side.

At this point, it's about an hour and ten minutes into things by my watch. Basically mile 6 in the last 10 mile race I did a couple weeks back - so why do I feel like I am at the equivalent of mile 10?? Thought about Tri Take Me Away's IMAZ race report and the "Ironman Shuffle" and laughed cause well, I sure felt like I had the shuffle part down. Along the course a volunteer is cheering us on and talking about "finding our legs" - I told her, "I've found them and they're screaming at me right now!" I'd say by the first half mile if not sooner, my legs had fortunately shaken off the bike effects and felt a lot better.

I was shocked to see my lap time at the mile 1 marker under 11 minutes. At this point, I was feeling SO slow and at what seemed like a 15 minute pace. Couldn't help but smile at that. So, just a half mile to the turnaround and A WATER STATION. I am so ready for it - until this point, there's really been no "rest". Couple seconds of sitting and collecting myself right after the swim, T1 was the wrestling match with the wetsuit, I had pounded through the bike leg and then T2 was just a quick sit down for the shoes and the stretch. I've been going pretty much constantly for almost an hour and a half at this point. I was so ready to walk the water station.

The course was T1 to main road, 1 turn and then the turnaround. We're approaching a bend in the road and folks are coming the other way telling us, "It's honest to god right around the bend right there!" And it was. YAY! Now, the organizers had asked folks to please not toss the cups and use the trash cans at the water station. No problem...Except that this gave me a whopping 6 steps or so between getting my water and the trash can. Ah well, better than nothing - onwards and upwards.

Second mile came in at 11:10 - shocks me again, cause even though I feel good, I also feel like am staggering along, but hey, I'll take it. As we pass where the mile 1 marker was, I am in heaven - I tell myself the same thing I do every last mile - "Anyone can run a mile." I approach the turn back to the main road and there is a volunteer cheering me on - I tell her, "Sorry I'm so slow, I'm sure you want to go home!" "No, no - I'm here til the very last person!" "Really, it's OK, I'm ready to go home too!"

Rounded the corner and it's just a bit down the main road and we're almost done. I see "Ray" with his flag on the main road, he's been out there all day cheering everyone on - as I go by him I tell him thank you so much for being here today - he was just awesome. Then up the driveway to the end - through the chute around transition again, my brother is on one side yelling for me, I am almost done! Get through the transition area, around the corner and down a hill (Yes, I yelled, "thank god a downhill!!") and there is the finish. Well, there was someone in front of me, and I was so SO ready to be done, I kicked it out and passed her and basically went leaping though the finish line. :)

Screamed "I DID IT!", got my award, hugged the volunteer, cried and looked over and saw Chippy, TriTakeMeAway, Daerath, 3558, coredump, and ejc999 waiting for me, and almost cried again. My brother also cut behind the community center after I'd gone past him in the chute and was able to see me finish.

Stretch my quads just a bit longer/harder in T2 - I know from my bricks it really helps and just didn't do it quite long enough this time, I would have shaken off the bike effects a little sooner. I was really, really surprised at the sub 11 pace on the run, I really thought it would have been much slower given everything that came before.

Grab an orange soda, stagger around looking like I'd been hit by a truck, then we all headed off to IHOP. Mmmmmmmmm, pancakes.


I can only assume not doing this on a near empty stomach would probably help, but overall I'm really pleased with how it all turned out, even the swim. (Actually, especially the swim cause I managed to get my head clear of the freakout and figure out a viable alternate plan to finish!) The transitions went so much faster than I'd anticipated, even with the watch attacking the wetsuit in T1. I'd really figured the clumsy factor would do me in.


Very, very well run.