Annie Oakley Buffalo Bill Super Sprint - Triathlon

Had my first OW panic attack. Purely mental on my part. I only had the chance to get in the pool 3x before with the last one being a forced 500 to be sure I could even go the distance. between "I'm not ready", and "That's too ^%*&ing far", I psyched myself out. If there was a choice worse than bad, I'd choose that.

Need to be better prepared

T1 went as expected. I planned for 4:00 due to lack of practice. Other than completing the race, this is the only set goal that I had that I actually accomplished.

I had hoped to avg about 14mph. Nope.

Training time.

In and out, no shoe change, so was hoping for faster.

Really, nothing

Never planned to run. Did get some short bursts in, including finishing.

Everything

Took stuff to van, got my times, headed home.


Me.


Starting again after 3 years. Wife suggested the race about 2 months beforehand, so getting back up to speed was not an option. Trained to survive/finish.

The swim is what really killed me on this. I've never had OW panic attacks before, but I got in my own head, and that's all she wrote. I ended up swimming with my head out of the water the entire time. After exiting the water, I was beyond dizzy and was veering left (something new!). It took longer to get to T1 because I had to keep reorienting myself.

After jumping on the bike, I just couldn't relax. My heart rate stayed above 150 for most of the ride. I didn't start to calm down until mile 5 (of 8). The gentle rollers got me too, but my climbing sucks as there's no where truly local for me to train hills.

During the walk, my pulse was still unusually high (for me), and I started hearing my pulse in my ears. For me, this is a tell-tale that my BP is also spiking, so I backed way off and just went for the finish.

A friend was wanting to run another event with my next month. I think I am going to nope out of that one, especially since it was my last race 3 years ago, and I am NOT. READY. I'll stick with my plan of training through, continue losing weight (down 14 so far) and go for the PR trifecta next season.