![]() Swim
Comments: Funky way to start my tri. The first two waves had each started about 2-3 minutes late. Silly me for thinking mine would follow suit. The swimmers for the next wave were not allowed in their swim lane until the people from the last wave had exited. Makes sense! As soon as the last person was out of my lane, I walked over and sat at the edge of the pool with my legs in the water. I heard the timer guy yell "40 seconds". There were still a couple people from the previous wave swimming so I thought the guy meant 40 seconds until they had their swim cutoff. Assuming that my wave was going to start the same 2-3 minutes late like the other waves, I was very lazily getting my goggles ready and watching the other swimmers. Next thing I know the timer guy yells "7:57 start time GO!". One poor lady from the previous wave was just finishing her swim and about got run over by the next wave jumping in. I heard the timer guy say that he hadn't seen that she was still swimming. Doh! So now everyone else is swimming and I just jump in, do a quick spit and swish of the goggles, threw them on my face and started swimming. It's amazing that I got them seated correctly and they didn't leak. Good goggles! They put the slower swimmers (me) in the shallow warm pool. They weren't kidding when they said it was warm! Wow! Still I felt good the entire swim. I thought I might have gone out too fast, but my adrenaline was so high that I just felt good all the way. I was going to time my swim with my watch, but that didn't happen because of the chaotic start. So the time includes getting out of the pool and running to transition. What would you do differently?: Learn how to swim better so I can be seeded in the deep, cooler, regular lap pool. ![]() Transition 1
Comments: I felt good, but of course coming outside, soaking wet and wearing nothing but tri shorts and a sports bra was a little chilly in the 55F air. I took a little extra time to put on socks, a zip up jacket and my cycling gloves. I had decided at the last minute to go with my lighter weight jacket and my fingerless gloves and that worked well. 7/8 age group rank. 58/129 overall. Isn't that funny? At the bottom of my age group, but in the top 50% overall. What would you do differently?: Nothing really. Someday I want to practice going sockless, but I wasn't going to try anything new on race day. In warmer weather, I would skip the jacket and gloves. I probably could have skipped the gloves, but was anticipating being cold. It was probably nice to have them on. ![]() Bike
Comments: It took about 2 miles to settle in. My heart rate was soaring when I first got on. I passed a couple hybrids right off the bat. Then I passed a girl on a road bike, but she passed me on the first hill. I never could catch her and lost sight of her by the end of the bike (but I would see her again on the run). It took me awhile to commit myself to gearing down and spinning up the hills, but once I did, my heart rate calmed down and I started feeling good. I really pushed the downhills as much as I could. I passed a couple other people toward the end. I was past the turnaround and headed back before any of the speedy bikes from the fast pool wave caught me. I was able to drink about 3/4 of my water bottle so that was good. My max speed was 28.8 mph. Would have been higher without all the turns in the road. What would you do differently?: Well of course train more. My mileage is lagging behind last year due to all the bad spring weather. But considering everything, this was a good bike for me. I'm still limited by the old steel framed touring bike and toe clips, but I'm not to the point where I want to change things yet. Too much work on the engine left to do. My goal because of all the hills was 50 minutes and I beat my goal. ![]() Transition 2
Comments: Why can't people rack their bike in the same place as where they started? Someone racked their bike right over all my stuff. I had to squeeze my bike into a tiny space and pray I didn't knock the whole rack over. Then I had to retrieve my stuff from underneath this other person's bike. Still, I felt like it went pretty well. I took my bike gloves off. It would have been nice to not be wearing them. Changed shoes. Picked up my hat and race belt and I was off. 3/8 age group rank. 59/129 overall. Top 50% in T2 too. Yay! What would you do differently?: Not wear the bike gloves so I didn't have to take them off. Find more considerate people to rack with. ![]() Run
Comments: My pace was good. I am thrilled with my time. My goal was 28 minutes so I beat that. But this run was PAINFUL! My body does not like to run after biking. I was well into the second mile and maybe even the third mile before I felt my stride coming back to normal. Of course by then, I could feel myself tiring. The last uphill over an overpass in mile three was torture, but I ran the whole thing. I just kept pushing and pushing. It was about equal me passing people and people passing me. The waves were pretty strung out though so there weren't a lot of people on the course at any one time. I passed the girl on the road bike. Yay! It took me over 2 miles, but I actually passed a guy from my swim wave that started the run right before me. And he was young. And cute. And I passed him! What would you do differently?: More bricks! ![]() Post race
Warm down: I ran as hard as I could the final stretch (didn't want that young cute guy to catch me, heehee!) so I was pretty out of breath. I didn't feel like puking though so that was good. Mostly I just walked around, drank water, ate cookies and bananas and then some stretching. I got to see ovspmike finish his first triathlon ever. What a great picture to see him running through the finish chute with his two kids! Great job Mike! I finally got to meet psycofish (Dave) but only because he won third in his age group! Way to go Dave! What limited your ability to perform faster: Inexperience and lack of traing mostly. But who cares?! I had fun and it was ALL good. Interesting notes about age group placements. If I were in the F30-34 age group I would have won the age group (although the overall female winner as 34). In the F50-59 age group I would have been 6th of 10. The F45-49 and F50-59 were very competitive female age groups. Also, my swim and bike rankings were below my overall 84th placement so that means I made the time up on both transitions and the run. That is cool! Event comments: This was a very nice race with a TON of volunteers. Everyone was so nice. I would do this race again in a heartbeat. Last updated: 2007-04-10 12:00 AM
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United States
55F / 13C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 84/129
Age Group = F45-49
Age Group Rank = 5/8
I REALLY like to have an unhurried routine in the morning so I got up at 3:30am. Fed the cats and dogs. Ate a bagel with peanut butter and drank some Gatorade. Loaded up the car as the rain was coming down and left the house at 5:10am. I was so worried about racing in rain and temps in the 50's. Fortunately the rain stopped by the time I got to the race site and other than a few sprinkles it stayed away. Whew!
I got to meet ovspmike right off the bat as his rack was next to mine. That was great because it helped having someone to talk to and forget (a little) about the race. The race started at 7am, but my swim wave didn't start until 7:57am. So mostly I watched some of the other swimmers from the lobby. I feel a little guilty for saying this, but I felt better seeing a lot of people who swim worse than me. One guy who was younger mostly walked the lanes of the shallow pool after swimming just a couple laps. Lots of backstroke and breaststroke going on too. Then I waited poolside while the wave in front of mine finished. I was going to get in the pool and swim a lap or two, but .......