Katy Triathlon at Firethorne - Triathlon

Lined up toward the front, on the inside line. When the gun went off, I took off at a strong pace and maintained that for a few minutes before settling into a pace I could hold for the rest of the distance. There was very little contact through the whole race. I did come up through a number of people who were in the wave before me, but managed to continue with the minimal contact.

Coming into the swim exit, I saw people standing up and trying to walk out early. I kept swimming until my fingers dragged on the ground, then stood up quickly and ran out. It was muddy and footing wasn't super stable, so I'm very glad I didn't get up any earlier.

Actual swimming time was almost a minute less than the total time for the leg.

Swim was pretty good. There was no one who was swimming my pace, or I would have tried for a draft. Navigation was probably among the best I've done, so overall pretty happy with the swim.

Non-wetsuit swim yields pretty quick transition time. Ran to transition and was devastated to see very few bikes left on my rack. I was confused as I didn't see any blue cap swimmers ahead of me in the swim. I tried to rationalize with myself that they probably didn't have bikes racked by age group (turned out that was the case, and being in one of the last waves to start, it's not too surprising that almost all the bikes were gone).

Told myself to race my own race and get moving. Briefly wiped off the mud and grass from my feet before putting sock and shoes on. Put sunglasses and helmet on quickly, unracked the bike, and ran to the mount line.

Still not ready to commit to the flying mount, but I am starting to consider getting some tri-specific shoes that I could have clipped in and still be able to slide my feet in quickly. Not worry about how many bikes are (or aren't) left on the rack. Fastest transition in the AG was 0:51, so clearly room for improvement.

After seeing the empty racks, I figured I needed to make up some time on the bike (because everyone knows I'm just going to lose it on the run!). I wasn't too much worried about catching others, but I did want to push it pretty hard on the bike, so thinking I was behind was just a little extra motivation.

I haven't raced a sprint in over a year. My last sprint pace was just shy of 19mph (on a similarly flat course), and I was hoping to prove my fitness had increased since then. I was also hoping to hold something around (maybe slightly higher than) FTP to prove to myself that I won't die if I try to do 20 minutes of it! NP was 2W higher than FTP :)

I spent much of the course passing people -- there definitely are some positives to starting in a late wave and being a fairly strong cyclist. There were a couple times that I'd get stuck behind people going into some turns, so I held back until I could safely make the pass. At about 10 miles in, I realized no one had passed me yet....and one of the 40-something men came blowing by me (and all was right in the world again!). I came up on a 38 year old female who appeared to be a fairly strong cyclist, but she was going just a little slower than I wanted, so I committed to making the pass. She stayed back for about five minutes, but then came past me again. I stayed back at draft-legal distance as it looked like it was going to be hard to re-pass her -- we were going roughly the same pace. We did get caught up in some traffic at the end, but oh well.

Very pleased with how this ride went. The only thing I really feel could have gone better today would have been to push through the corners, rather than soft pedal.

Of course, I hope to continue to improve my power output and make more gains on the bike. This is the only event I ever feel like I'm somewhat competitive at....makes me want to try a TT at some point.

I looked down at my computer and saw 13.5 miles and realized I needed to pull my feet out of my shoes quickly (as opposed to Vineman, when I did it with at least a half mile to go). Feet came out fine. The people in front of me all kind of scattered in every which direction, so I had to be careful picking my line to dismount, but got it done well enough.

I ran into transition, racked the bike (somewhat sloppily), put on my running shoes, then grabbed my hat and race belt as I was running out.

Fairly uneventful transition, no real changes needed

Oh, the run....my nemesis. It seems that every other F30-34 has figured out how to run....fast! And I'm still plodding along slowly.

I know, I know, stupid knee injury has kept me from training for more than a year now. But it's so frustrating to know I have a decent-sized engine, based on my swim and bike abilities....but it just doesn't translate to being able to run worth a damn. I really hope this "run lots, mostly easy" will eventually translate into some respectable paces. First, though, I have to build up to the "run lots", as I'm currently at ~10 mpw (which is a victory, as I've been at 0 for about a year now, and have at least been consistently running five days a week for the past six weeks).

I made a very stupid mistake that probably cost me at least a minute (surely didn't affect my placing, but still annoying). I forgot to turn off the HR alarm that I have set at the top of Zone 2. Pretty much the moment I started the run leg, my computer was yelling at me. I knew there was no way I could handle hearing it beep at me for 30 minutes, so I tried to work through the menus to turn it off. I couldn't do it while it was on my wrist and I was running, so I thought maybe it would help to pull it off my wrist. As I did that, the clasp came flying off the band and the watch went to the ground. I think I probably cursed as I had to stop, reach down, and grab the stupid watch. At that point, I was like, "fuck it, just walk and get this damn alarm turned off."

After about a minute of walking (not because I couldn't physically run, but because I am an idiot and forgot to turn off the stupid alarm!), I got it turned off. Since the clasp was gone, I couldn't put it back on my wrist, so I shoved it in my back pocket. It was honestly kind of weird to run with no metrics -- no heart rate, no pace, no distance, nothing. Can't say I enjoyed that much.

I told Stephen that my only run goal was to finish in less than 30 minutes (oh, and not walk -- which I failed at), but I was secretly hoping that race day would bring around a better pace. It didn't. My run is abysmal. I sincerely hope that I can make some improvements in my run. My knee is absolutely not better, but since no one can figure out what's wrong with it, I guess I'll run on it until it really craps out on me. It didn't start bothering me till about two miles in, so maybe if I keep running, I'll prolong the distance before it starts bugging me.

It started to rain part way into the run. We also ran through the grass and mud some, so my feet ended up soaked by the end of the run. My sunglasses were fogged and irritating, so I eventually shoved them into my pocket with my Garmin. I got a little chilly while it was raining, but it was short lived and had stopped before I crossed the finish line.

Learn how to run

Crossed the finish line, grabbed a bottle of water and drank it over the next few minutes, hamstring/quad/calf/glute stretching

Walked around to try to keep loose, find the results, grab a beer (not super impressed with the selection) -- found a banana, as I wasn't interested in the grinder subs or the pizza


Minimal run training, inherently crap runner

Being 30 -- apparently even with my crap run, if I had been 29, I'd be sitting on top of the podium (turns out I'd be 1st or 2nd in any age group that was not mine....and was only 6th in mine). Freaking 30-34 women are FAST! At a minimum, they run like freaking gazelles!


Police support was great -- they were controlling all intersections and I thanked as many of them as I could. Aid stations on the run course had lots of volunteers (only warm water, which is fine with me, but I'm guessing not everyone like their water that way) and the event actually began on time.

When I crossed the finish line, there were only a handful of waters left; pretty sure they ran out and people who finished a few minutes later didn't get any. That's pretty poor planning.

Also, I know I'm super picky, but I don't care for grinder sandwiches or pizza after races. They did have some bananas, but that was the only decent option, imo. The beer was okay, but I know that's on me as well...I just haven't found any TX breweries that I care for.