Lake Pflugerville Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

We started in chest deep water and I had positioned myself near the rear left. I hear 5-4-3…press my HRM to start….1 – GO! And off I went. The first 100m or so truly sucked. I was going at my normal slow pace but was still passing people and it bothered me to be running into people so I would look up and breast stroke and get all disoriented trying to find a clear line. For some reason I didn’t care one bit if I could feel people behind me touching my feet but I hated feeling like I was running people over and I’d stop and move. Now granted – all this took place within the first few minutes and I had a brief moment of “OMG, what have I gotten into, this is LAME!!” and almost panicked. But I forced myself to keep mentally repeating “nice and easy, long and lean” and got into a rhythm and just kept going. The youngest men started in the wave behind us and they were passing us before we got to the turn around buoy (well it was a triangle, but still) but I looked back and saw at least half a dozen purple caps behind me so I knew I wasn’t last and we were still passing people who started before us. I swam until my hands felt the bottom, stood up, took a volunteers hand (it was REAL slippery) and ran out of the water. My DH and friends were on the pier and cheering for me and I looked at watch and yelled out to my trainer partner “under 15 minutes!!!!”. I had left sandals at the exit but decided to skip those and head to T1. (I exited the water with a HR of 189 :o!!!)

I finished 29th out of the 38 women who started in my purple wave. Fellow BTer Kat (who I'd met last wkend when we trained for the course) finished 2nd in our wave!!! A big thanks to her for chatting with me while we waited.

Next time I will start in the middle of the wave, off to the side; bring water to drink while waiting

I pulled my goggles and cap off and found my bike with no problem. I had left my bag wide open and just threw my swim stuff in there as I grabbed the water bottle to rinse of my feet. I shuffled my feet on my towel to get them dry while I put on my shades and helmut, then socks and clipless shoes. I shoved a GU in my back pocket and took off.

Nothng I can think of right now, I think it was pretty good for a first timer!

I immediately went for my GU. I was sooooo thirsty. Downed the Gu and started drinking water. I spent the first few miles getting my breathing rate back and HR down. Then I settled in to do my best. I am not a very fast cyclist but I really do like it and I wanted to push it cuz I knew I could always walk the run if I had to. I passed some people and was passed by many many more. I heard fellow BTer Mike say "good job Tami" as he WIZZED past me :) A very good route really. Not too challenging and not too easy. But about 1/3 of the way through I got a “stitch/cramp” on my right side and I didn’t know what to do about it or how to fix it. I stretched out, changed positions, etc but it stayed with me. I finally decided to ignore it since I couldn’t seem to do anything about it. But it did go away after I started drinking my sports drink so maybe it was electrolyte related? Anyway…got the the last ¼ of the route which I knew I liked. It was the closed lane of the feeder road for the highway and nice easy downhill where I knew I could ride HARD. My computer was showing and avg of 15.5 mph and I have NEVER seen that on a training ride before so I felt good.

Something is off here, everyone I’ve talked to showed 14 miles and a higher mph average so I think the course was off a little bit but no biggy at all – I mean really, how in the heck can they get it exactly right ?)

Lessons learned: climb, climb, climb – practice climbing, I need to be a better climber. OH!! I gotta go get my biked tuned up cuz it slips gears every once in a while AND the chain came off once but I was able to ride back into it without stopping so I was good to go. But with the gears slipping I was afraid to get out of the saddle and pump hard.

I saw DH and friends as I headed into T2. They had posters “Don’t forget to breathe” and “Be the Bunny” (Energizer Bunny is my “running” identity given to me be a running friend to help motivate me to keep going). I unclipped but then had to stop real fast to dismount so I didn’t really get a smooth dismount and ended up walking real fast to rack my bike. I threw all my bike stuff in the open trans bag and looked over at DH and yelled “FIFTEEN AND A HALF MILES PER HOUR” and he yelled back “way to GO…go GET ‘UM Tam!!!”. I slipped my shoes on, grabbed my race belt, put my cap between my teethe and took of running!!!

Practice dismount and run better

Ok, so I know I am really really slow, but I am still very proud that I finished in under 45 minutes! So I looked at my watch, saw I was right at 1:15 hours and I KNEW for SURE I would finish in under 2 hours cuz I can walk a 15 min mile….and I started running. I quickly switched to realy fast walking :) I would run when I could and walk when I couldn’t. When I hit mile 1 aid station (how the HECK I got there in 11 minutes I have no idea) with water and accelerate, I stopped and downed 2 glasses of each. I felt better after that and ran more than walked. Even when I was walking I was passing some slow runners, so I figured why kill myself?- I’m doing pretty good! So I had plenty of energy to run the last part towards the finish. I could here the cheering crowd before I could see them and I started running. I saw DH and friends and DH had a HUGE smile and yelled out “WAY TO GOOOO TAM!!!!!” They were all shocked to see me 37 minutes. I had been running with my training partner and her DH for the past 3 months and I had never done 3 miles in anything under a 13-14 minute pace, especially since I have to walk a lot of the time. But ya’ know…my HR stayed at a steady 150ish and I just think I was able to go faster when I did run and way faster when I was walking.

run more, walk less, train, train, train

Hugs from DH, family and friends


I need to practice and train and practice and train some more so that I can cycle faster and run better :) I think I'll get better swimming the more practice I have with group OW swims.


Lots of fun, good for a first timer, challenging but not a killer, but if it had been sunny......the run would have been absolutely BRUTAL.