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 Swim
Comments: I guess I was more nervous than I thought, because I had a hard time getting started swimming. There was one yellow cap behind me, but the other 98 or so yellow caps were many yards ahead. I would take a couple of strokes, come up for air, try breast stroking, then back stroking, and then more hyperventilating before trying again. The kayaks were following me closely, asking if I wanted to hang on for a bit or needed any help, but I finally settled down about a 1/3 of the way in (near the bridge) and started actually swimming. The next wave (pink caps) were catching up to me at this point, so I figure I lost about 10 minutes. Under the bridge, around the buoy, back under the bridge, and then down the river to the swim exit. About halfway there, the next wave (black caps) were catching up to me. But I was swimming steadily, and the river was wide enough that there was very little contact with any other swimmers, so it was all good. Finally out! I was thinking it was going to be a long morning :) What would you do differently?: Do the warmup swim!  Transition 1
Comments: Jogged out of the water through transition and found my bike! Something else that was different than the DC Tri was that people had balloons and buckets and really not-very-good bikes and totally uncoordinated nontechnical outfits. A much more casual tri atmosphere, I think, which helped make me more comfortable. And the balloons made it easy to spot the bike, so yay. Drank the rest of my bottle of Nuun, ate a gel, washed the sand off my feet, got all my gear on, and headed for the bike exit. Worried a bit that my heart rate coming out of the water was high, and the day was getting HOT. Also, running in bike shoes, bleah. Poked at the Garmin as I crossed the timing mats and finally managed to get it to work - surprised to find later that my Garmin times matched the official times pretty well, so I guess it worked. What would you do differently?: Practice a faster bike mount in a narrow, crowded space! The bike mounting area was narrow, but I was at the back of the pack, so not much pressure, yay. Figured out I was too shaky to do this fast, stopped, took a breath, got on the bike and clipped in.  Bike
Comments: I took the two gels I had taped to the handlebars with electrical tape, which worked a treat, and also managed to drink half a bottle of water on the ride without dropping the bottle OR falling off, win. 65 minute bike leg. I didn't touch the second bottle, but I still think it was worth carrying just in case I dropped the primary bottle. Not that I've ever done that. o.O What would you do differently?: Be less afraid to go fast on the downhills. Transition 2
Comments: Finally off the bike and into T2. Running in bike shoes even worse at this point! And it's freaking hot and humid. Rack bike, change shoes, grab stuff and GO! I jog out of transition, cross the timing mat and along the back of some building to get out to MLK Drive. 3 minute transition. Just as I'm turning onto the road, I realize I'm still wearing my cycling gloves - oops. Pull them off and stuff them in my bra. What would you do differently?: Remember to take my cycling gloves off :)  Run
Comments: There is almost no shade at all on the run course, and it's now a quarter to 10, and really humid. I have to say the people on the run course at this point (the butt-end of the pack) definitely all had a sense of humor. We were dripping, but there was still a lot of joking and smiles. Distances were well marked, and the kids at the water station were hilarious. I was sipping out of my little handheld runner bottle, which I was very pleased with, and poured a cup of gatorade in it at the 1-mile and 2-mile points. I had a Casey Trees bandanna tucked in it for sweaty face wiping, also worked out fine. I had one gel also taped on it, which I took at the 2 mile mark. While I felt slow, I never felt that empty-pit hunger/thirst anywhere on the course, so I'm happy with the nutrition/hydration plan. What would you do differently?: I really should have done a quick walk through the course in and around transition before the race. I knew where the run start was, but was confused once outside -- there was a weird section before you got onto the road. Post race
Warm down: At which point we packed up, departed, showered at the hotel, and wandered in to Philly for lunch. I didn't learn until a couple of days later that one of the black cap guys - a newbie like me - never made it out of the river. So sad for his family, so sad he never got to cross the finish line. I wondered why none of the volunteers seemed as cheerful after the race as they were at the start, and I think they must have been wondering what happened to him by that time. They had also run out of medals by the time I finished, even though I (apparently) beat 50 people. I guess they didn't plan on so many to tough it out? But I'm glad I made it. What limited your ability to perform faster: First-time jitters Event comments: Ive already commented above on the lack of communication - both email and website was pretty sparse. The transition areas were kind of treacherous - it was very steep getting out of the water, most people needed a hand up. It was also very narrow getting onto the bike, and very confusing starting the run. I think most of that could have been avoided with better planning (or better signage). Running out of medals at the end also seemed like a simple thing to avoid. Sad not to get a medal for my very first race. Last updated: 2010-07-13 12:00 AM
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United States
Phlytri
94F / 34C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 1286/1336
Age Group = F50-54
Age Group Rank = 31/37
My first triathlon! Very exciting.
After making endless checklists and doing a couple rounds of practice transitions, G and I departed DC for Philadelphia about 3:45 pm on Friday afternoon. I know, big mistake. Traffic was heavy-yet-mostly-moving virtually the entire way through Baltimore and into Philly. I figure we lost 45 minutes to an hour of time, which wasn't horrible. Would it have been better to leave at noon? Probably.
I spent a good amount of time on Friday fretting that they would cancel the swim. A violent storm had hit Philadelphia hard on Thursday, and the phillyrivercast website was reporting that the Schuylkill River was not safe for swimming. Running is far and away my worst sport, and doing it twice? Ack. But G reminded me it would be good practice for Nations, and I knew I could finish even though there would likely be more walking than running. And so we went.
Anyway, finally arrived at the hotel (Hilton at 4200 City) around 7:15-ish, unloaded the car, and headed off to find our friend R for dinner. The hotel was full of other triathletes, so getting the bike through the lobby and up the elevator was absolutely no problem! We told R we wanted pasta, so she recommended Penne (on the Penn campus, get it?). Dinner was tasty and fun. We had vague plans to stop and shower at her place after the race but instead decided to ask for late checkout at the hotel, which worked out better in the end.
Begged off on dessert, then headed back to the hotel, sorted out gear, and fell into bed at 10 pm. Got a solid 6 hours of sleep - yay! Up at 4. I had pre-filled my (5!) water bottles with DC water, which made my bag realllly heavy, because I didn't want my water to taste funny. G argued that you wanted the water to taste like what you were swimming in. Benefits either way, I guess. o.O
I toyed with biking from the hotel down to the site, which was only a mile away on the map, but (a) it was still dark at 5:15, (b) there was a LOT of debris on the road from the big storm on Thursday, and (c) getting lost was likely in any case. So we put the bike back on the car and drove (with only a few wrong turns) to the Please Touch Museum, arriving around 5:45.
Realized I should have jotted down my bib #, because they made you look it up on pages filled with tiny print tacked up on randomly arranged wooden easels. Line up at registration was also confusing. Where to get t-shirts was totally unclear. (Allow me to sing the praises of the DC Tri at this point -- the Philly Tri totally loses on the communication and organization front. Can I please recommend more NEWS on the website? Anything? Bueller?) But the volunteers were cheerful and encouraging, which made up for a lot! Finally, we headed down Black Road (and by down, I mean a decent half-mile-long downhill) to the transition area.
Waved bye to G and headed into the transition area. Even though she had explained how she screwed up racking her bike last week, I ended up doing the same thing. :) But a nice volunteer pointed out that your stuff goes near the front wheel, not the back, and I fixed it right up. The sun was up at this point, but the grass was really wet, so I was happy someone had recommended bringing a kitchen trash bag to put under my stuff. I thought I was arriving late, but I was the first one on my rack -- each rack was to have 7 bicycles, so I put mine on the end closest to the center aisle.
Right around this point, the relentlessly-upbeat announcer confirmed we were going to swim! Relief! Turns out the phillyrivercast site uses a model based on rainfall and current and temperature, but the Triathlon folks actually test the water and it was just fine for swimming. But he also said that the last check on the river temperature was 83.7 degrees, and they were going to check one more time and if it was 84, there would be no wetsuits. About 10 minutes later, this was confirmed -- 84 degree water, so no wetsuits allowed at all. I hadn't even brought mine, so this was all to the good for me. But several other women were planning on wetsuits, and so were wearing just sports bras and tri shorts for the swim.
Plenty of time to arrange my stuff - bike helmet, sunglasses, shoes, socks, shirt-with-number, gloves for T1 and then running shoes, hat, water bottle for T2. I ate a half-sandwich and half of a large water bottle (Nuun) once things were set up. Also brushed my teeth and used the portapotties before the lines got too long. They let people swim a little in the river (directly from the entry to the exit), which in retrospect would have been a good idea. The guy next to me on the rack was also a first timer, and really nervous about the no-wetsuit swim.
I was in the Athena area, and it turned out to a be a very friendly bunch. I met several women who had one tri under their belt, and one woman who was an experienced IM veteran (and doing IM Hawaii this year), just doing the Sprint because she was volunteering for the Olympic the next day. Women 40-44 were also in my swim wave (yellow caps), and there were a lot of good wishes amidst the nervous smiles. They closed transition at 7:15, and my swim wave didn't leave until 8:18, so we hung out for about an hour talking about training and temperatures, and tri clubs and race organization :)