North Mankato Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This was a pretty good swim for me. I decided to wear my wetsuit... I think I would have been better off not wearing it b/c the water wasn't cold and I lost some time getting it off in transition. But oh well, at least I had some buoyancy.
So we started on the beach and had to run into the water. That was sort of fun, I've never done a run-in swim before. I felt all Bay-Watchy.
My swim felt good and I got out in the front of everyone pretty quickly. My breathing started to get a bit erratic when I was catching up to the group of men that started before us- instead of swimming in a straight line with no obstacles, I had to dodge other swimmers and that threw off my breathing.
The swim was over before I even knew it, and I was running up the hill to transition.

Oh, I was 10th in the entire race for swim time. Not bad!

Not wear my wetsuit.

As I was running up the hill, a woman passed me and I thought "dang it!" but then just tried to hustle more into T1. My wetsuit came off relativley quickly. Tranistion went pretty well, but once again I had trouble clipping in when I got on my bike. I've had the problem before and I think it's nerves from rushing.

Get a better spot in the transition area. Clip in smoothly!

That gigantic hill that I was warned about certainly was pretty big. I felt like I was going soooo slowwww. I just tried to spin and keep moving. I saw Brian on the hill and that was a nice boost. Quite a few people, both men & women, passed me on the hill- I'd say 10-15. Yikes!
Finally it was over, and from there it was a pretty straight shot to the turn around area. I had decided before the race that I would try to go fast on the bike and not worry about my run (since I wasn't expecting anything great b/c of the marathon last weekend). Well, I only remembered this about half way through the race. I always just kind of settle into a pace that feels good and never really bust my ass on the bike. So I started to pick it up and I was feeling pretty good but I don't think that my extra effort really made much of a difference.

I was the second woman out of T1 (Lynette Bacon was in front of me, of course) but I ended up falling to TENTH coming into T2. I think this illustrates how important bike speed is and how much work I still have to do.

Get faster on the bike!

My bike dismount was kind of ugly. I unstrapped while on the bike, but the dismount itself was wretched. Getting my shoes on was okay, I used the new yank laces. They worked well but the tongue on my shoe was bunched up for my run. Anyway, this was a pretty unremarkable transition. I just need to do things faster.

Just get faster!

My legs didn't feel so hot coming off of the bike. I tried to focus on keeping my cadence up and my form right. My legs were tired. I knew that I shouldn't expect a really great run split but I still wanted to have a respectable time. I just felt like I couldn't get my legs to really MOVE the whole time.
I was suprised to see a guy in a BT top while I was running. Said hello to him, turns out he's ImTriing. It's always great to see BTers out there!
Along the course there were people sitting outside their homes cheering, and they were really great. I made sure to yell thanks to them as I passed. There were a few water stops and I grabbed water and two of them. My head started to feel kind of squashed as I heated up so I dumped water on me to cool down.
I passed more people than passed me, but I was passed by a couple men on the run. There was one woman in front of me from the start that I tried to catch, but my legs just weren't moving enough and she pulled ahead in the first mile.
I passed one guy who was puking on the side of the road with a mile to go. Gross. I tried to pick it up in the final stretch and finished strong, at least it felt strong to me. I could have pushed harder and although I would have been in pain, I would have ran faster. It made me think of the first outdoor tri I did this season- I had a phenominal run split and the entire time I was running I was thinking "I want to walk. This hurts, this is terrible, please please let this be over soon." Running fast means it won't feel great: it will hurt. So for my next sprint, I will need to run past my comfort level if I want to see a better run split. Same goes for the bike.

I feel okay with my performance. Experience is always good, even if I didn't compete as well as I'd like. Next time I will push past my comfort level.

Water, lots of water! I was parched.
Saw Brian & Kelly after the race so I talked to them for a bit. Saw the results, realized there was a girl in my AG only 30 seconds behind me. Her run split was wicked fast. I'm lucky she didn't catch me!
Stuck around for the awards ceremony and then went back to Richfield to sleep. Once I got home I slept for five hours! It was glorious.


The marathon the weekend before was a big factor, but also I think I raced in my comfort mode instead of really trying to go fast. Next time I will be striving to be going hard enough for it to hurt the whole time.
Oh, and let's not forget that I was drunk as a skunk Friday night and stayed up until all hours of the night bidding a friend farewell. That might have affect my performance a bit too.


This was a fun race. I really liked the swim course-- I just wish it were longer so I could have built up more of a lead!
Besides that monster hill, the bike course was great too. And the run course was good. Basically a good course all around. Volunteers were great. Only things that were sub par were the lack of bike racks and the long wait for packet pick up. I'd definitely do this race again.