TBF Ice Breaker #5 - TriathlonSprint

I don't know my time for this segment, because I believe my watch got reset during it.

COLD. COLD COLD COLD COLD COLD. C.O.L.D.

My hands were numb. I swam very slowly, but deliberately. Amazing how quickly it comes back after taking 6+ months off. I was happy with my performance, although I know it was slow.

Train?

I wasn't going for any land-speed records into transition. I walked rather slowly up the beach, catching my breath and getting my land legs back. I always have a problem with being a bit wobbly after a swim.

I removed the top part of my wetsuit while walking, but waiting until I got to my transition are before trying to remove the legs. I actually sat down on my extra towel to take it off. It came off fairly easily, but I didn't really care about my time, so I took it easy.

The first lap felt terrible. I was really pushing hard, and kept trying to slow myself down. At the bubble at the end of the second out and back leg, I stopped, pulled off to the side and took a minute to eat a gel and drink some Karen-ade. After that, I started to feel a little better. I think I really just needed the break more than the food.

I focused on drinking regularly, and keeping my cadence high and working the gears on the downhills to make the uphills a bit easier.

A the beginning of the second lap, I stopped to remove the arms from my jacket, because I was getting over-heated. That helped a lot, I believe. After that, I felt strong and managed to pass the woman ahead of me (she passed me while I was stopped). Again, I worked on remembering how to drink while riding, and how to use the downhills to my advantage on the uphills. I felt good and finished strong.

Train? Seriously... I've lost most of whatever little amount of strength I had in my legs in the last 6 months. I need to work on that the most.

My T2s are faster because all I have to do is rack my bike and trade out my helmet and jacket for my hat and racebelt. Easy.

Sunscreen. By now, the clouds were breaking up some, and it was getting warm.

The first mile just plain sucked. I was having a hard time getting my pace and felt like I was pushing really hard.

But just around the 1 mile mark, I started to find my legs and started to feel pretty OK.

Then I saw Eric walking back along the course looking for me. He ran with me the rest of the way, which was nice. It was nice to have someone to talk to. Of course, the fact that I WAS talking to him probably means I wasn't pushing hard enough, or something like that. Oh well. I kept to my planned HR build (170, 172, 175, 180) for each mile.

My second toe on my left foot was really starting to bother me around mile 2. But not enough to make me stop running.

By this point, I realized that I was going to finish and not die, and that made the last two miles go by pretty quickly. When I saw the finish line, I ran nearly all out.

The time on the clock said 3:03:XX. If that's the case, and factoring in the 35 minutes for my wave, I finished in 2:28:XX. Nice. Not a world record. But I'm happy with it.

Not much. I'm deep in my base training, so this was probably the best I could have expected from myself. I'm starting Build Phase now, so I'll be working on increasing my distance and my speed, slowly but surely.

Sunscreen. I have a pretty icky sunburn in the shape of my top. Considering I wore my jacket for the bike, it's solely from the hour I spent on the run.

Walk around and drink the Vitamin Water and then pack up transition. Nothing fancy.


Oh, I don't know... maybe not training for 6+ months? Not sure, but that probably had some sort of small impact. =)


I love love love TBF, and all their events are great.