snake pool swim in a 50m pool....this was my second pool swim. my first was also my first tri. that was a debacle. this was 1000x better. felt calm. wasn't a great time, but i felt okay. passed 1 or two people. never got passed. during the last lap there was a line of 2-3 swimmers that couldn't get around due to traffic in the lane yet the guy behind me felt the need to tap my foot for a full 50 meters. dude, i am not stopping to let you pass. me and the 2 people in front of me are also trying to pass. can you really not see this?

need to swim more.

13/228
didn't feel too speedy, but whatever.

the course was really wet with a lot of puddles. i very nearly died on the the last loop at the corner of wiehle and reston pkwy. my back tire skid about a foot and i almost lost it. should have slowed more. i am glad this happened on the last loop cause it rattled me. i really love my aero bar shifters. i feel like i am going much faster on the downhills and reaching max potential on the flats. i need to get more fit here though. i do not feel strong on uphills at all. this was about 4 minutes faster than i was planning on though. can't be upset about that.

i need to train more. the hip has kept me from doing that, but that will be a large focus next year.

again, wasn't super speedy.
45/228

rolling hills on reston's trail system. this actually is a rare case when a loop course feels more downhill than uphill to me. went hard in the middle section. felt a little burned out at the end, but finished strong. i was 1 second behind the next woman in my age group. i definitely would have pushed the end a little harder had i known that. staggered starts are rough that way.

speed work.

nothing. as usual.
crossed the line (and here is where it gets emotional), looked at my watch, 1:11 flat. 3 minutes better than my goal. 3 minutes in a sprint?! that's alot! holy cow. maybe i placed? that time would have placed me 2 or 3 in my age group last year. oh my god! i sat down and drank some water and waited for results to post. looked at my splits on my watch....no swim time. there's the bike and transitions of 46min and a run of 24 and change, but no swim. i must have messed up and hit off instead of split after the swim. damn. i remember looking at my watch after the swim and i was at 7:30 ish. so instead of 1:11, i actually did it in 1:18 and change. i felt like a deflated balloon. i walked over to ryan (embarrassed) and told him i had made a mistake and had actually finished in 1:18. i was bummed. here i had started getting excited that i might have placed. nope. oh well. what are you going to do? i walked over to where they were posting the results. they had just put up the page going all the way through to the 1:20s. i searched the 1:18s, no lisa albrecht. crap, did i do even worse than that? nothing in the 1:19s, nothing in the 1:17s. what the hell? on a whim, i checked the 1:11s...nope. then, in the 1:10s something caught my eye. there i am. holy crap! oh my god. i didn't hit off. i just didn't hit the split either!!!! my 46 min split was my swim, my bike, and my transitions. oh my gosh. i could have placed. i probably placed. yay yay yay! i check above me. sigh. no place. i think i placed 5 in my division. ....but the up and down roller coaster that happened had me walking out really bummed that i didn't place. dumb, i know, but it is what it is. i need to move to a slower town :)


more volume on training.


heard some complaints about some foul ups at the start. didn't impact me. i was clueless and in line at the bathroom. ryan also said that water station was just setting up when he passed. they were there by the time i got by, but for 3 miles i don't really have a lot of needs anyway. i was fine.