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5430 Sprint Triathlon
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5430 Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint
View Member's Race Log
 Swim
Comments: I was very comfortable on the swim. I am so thankful that I did the surf & turf swim/run race on Wednesday night at Chatfield this past week. I'd never done a mass start open water swim, and I knew I wanted to experience that before my first tri. So on Wednesday, they started all the men and women together and it was ROUGH. Today, swimming with all women, was much much more gentle. Yeah, I got kicked and bumped a few times, but I didn't feel like I was in a boxing match. I even had a lady say "I'm sorry!" when she ran into me. That was funny. The strangest thing that happened was when a jet ski (rescue) went right in front of me to help out a swimmer and I got thrown sideways in its wake. I am fortunate to be able to swim in a straight line in open water, so sighting was easy and I never got off course. The biggest problem I had was having to overtake the superslow people from the wave before us. The swim was over before I knew it. It was really cool to be swimming to the shore toward the huge Clif Bar arch at the swim exit. It sure beats sighting to "the third tall tree over" like I normally do in my openwater training! I probably stood up too early in the water and should have swam a little further in - the running wade to the beach didn't work too well. Lesson learned. It was a longish run up the beach to the transition area, but I needed it because my wetsuit tends to get stuck around my elbows, so I needed the extra run to tug on the suit. The run up the beach (and the anxiety, nervousness, newness, etc.) really got my heartrate high though. I was a little wobbly going into T-1. What would you do differently?: I probably could have gone faster. Since this was my first tri, I wanted to pace myself and not go out too fast. Next time, I won't stand up too early.  Transition 1
Comments: T-1 went really well. The only problem I had was putting one of my socks on backwards (I had put them on before the race and rolled them down to get them ready to put them on my feet, but one had fallen out of my shoe and was turn around). So, I had to take off the sock and turn it around and put it on again. I haven't even tried to do the shoes-already-on-the-pedals thing, so I put on my shoes and ran toward the mount line. I can't do the running bike mount thing either, so I had to stop and get on my bike. What would you do differently?: Well, I'd like to say that I wouldn't wear socks, but I've tried it and my feet get shredded, so I don't really have a choice there. I basically just need to work on making my transitions faster, work on the bike mounts--all the stuff that comes with experience. Considering this was my first transition, I thought it went pretty well.  Bike
Comments: I had so much fun on the bike today. I never got passed by any women that I didn't end up passing and staying in front of. There were definitely several very fast men who passed me, but I passed a lot of people too. I was happy with my time and how I felt on the bike. There were two instances that really made me mad when I got trapped behind cars that were slowing me down. One was out on the course right after we turned onto Neva around all of those turns. The other one was coming back into the reservoir when I got caught behind a truck pulling a boat. I was screaming at the guy to pull over, move, speed up, slow down, whatever. I finally passed him on his left and screamed "JERK!" into his open window. I was NOT happy and wanted to scream something worse, but there were a lot of spectators lining that road and I didn't want to offend anyone. What would you do differently?: Uh, not get caught behind cars. Other than that, I was pretty pleased. Transition 2
Comments: My transition area was in a good spot for the swim finish and the run start, but NOT for the bike finish. Well, you can't have everything, can you? Basically, my transition area was as far from the run finish as you could possibly be, so there was a long run through transition to get back to my rack. I ran pretty slow because my legs were jello and I was running on metal Speedplay cleats. Not a good combo on asphault! I thought it was funny that my T-1 and T-2 times were identical. Once I finally got to my rack, I changed out of my bike shoes into my running shoes very quickly and had no other problems. What would you do differently?: Find "the perfect" transition spot???  Run
Comments: Running is my weakest sport, so I already knew that this would be the hardest segment. It was pretty hot by this time and there was zero shade. My legs were tired, but I kept on thinking how glad I was that I'd been doing bricks because I can't imagine how bad it would have been otherwise. I felt like I was creeping through the run, especially because everyone was passing me! But, I ended up running right around the pace I expected to run, so no big surprises there. By the turnaround point, my whole body was burning - and not with heat. It was basically screaming at me to stop. I was hurting, but even through the hurt, I was having so much fun and I was so excited to get to that finish line. What would you do differently?: Be born with a genetic gift for running? I've been working on my run a lot but I still have a lot of work yet to do. Post race
Warm down: I somehow almost missed passing over the timing mats at the finish. Thankfully someone stopped me. Grabbed water, walked off the pain, went and found my family (everyone but my husband avoided hugging me because I was raunchy sweaty, but Russell hugged me anyway - awwwwww. He was really proud of me and knows how hard I've worked for this day and has been so supportive), found some of the BT crew, ate some food and headed home. What limited your ability to perform faster: Just my run, which has always been my weakness. But I ran as hard as I could, gave it my all, and I am happy with that. Event comments: This was a great first race. I had so much fun and I am so happy that I can finally call myself a triathlete. :) Profile Album Last updated: 2005-06-19 12:00 AM
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 2005-06-20 8:13 AM |
Extreme Veteran  458   Denver, CO |  Subject: 5430 Sprint Triathlon |
| 2005-06-20 8:25 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Expert 615 Littleton, CO | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon Hooooray! No more tri virgin! Looks like all those time trial races in rotten weather paid off - you were FAST |
| 2005-06-20 9:00 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Official BT Coach 2210 Englewood, CO | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon Great first TRI! I am glad it was a good experience. You did great in every event CONGRATS! I am glad you raced on WED too, I know it would help with nerves and all! Way to go! |
| 2005-06-20 9:17 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Veteran 265 Westminster, Colorado | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon Great report. This was a really fun race. I'm sure your looking forward to your second Tri as much as I am!! |
| 2005-06-20 9:42 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Expert 963 | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon That is an EXCELLENT first race!!! 28th out of 97 in your age group for your first tri and you had fun?!? Talk about an great combination... |
| 2005-06-20 10:29 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Expert 852 Evergreen, Colorado Bronze member | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon Way to rock your first triathlon!! You did great It was good to meet Russell too - hope your in-laws thought watching the tri was somewhat interesting! |
| 2005-06-20 11:01 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Pro 4228 Broomfield, Colorado | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon Stacie - what a fabulous race! you did awesome!  |
| 2005-06-20 11:13 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Pro 5153 Helena, MT | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon 28th out of 97 in your age group?! That, m'dear, makes you a FOPer! Congrats. You are sooo damn fast on that bike! Incredible! "At least I had plenty of time to put on my mascara (hey, I'm from Texas - we don't go to the mailbox without make-up on!)." That made me laugh soooo hard because when you were getting that picture taken before the start I looked at you and thought, "Is that mascara? WTF? Oh, yeah, isn't she from Texas...." LOL! Edited by kimj81 2005-06-20 11:13 AM |
| 2005-06-20 11:28 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Extreme Veteran 386 Fort Worth, TX | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon >Be born with a genetic gift for running? Dam I want that too. Although I think you did awesome just the way you are, you FOPer! You did such a great job. And now you are officially a triathlete. I love how you and Brett & Erik the first timers had such awesome times!! It was so good to see you again. I can't wait to hear about your next tri. |
| 2005-07-01 8:10 AM in reply to: #178501 |
Master 2233 Mechanicsburg, PA | Subject: RE: 5430 Sprint Triathlon Great first tri Stacie!! Ahh, getting stuck behind cars - the joys of an open road bike leg... Looks like you did really well regardless Awesome race report. -Frank |
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United States
5430 Sports
80F / 27C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 389/934
Age Group = W 30-34
Age Group Rank = 28/97
This was my first ever tri, so please forgive me if I ramble on. I must record my experience for posterity. :) Since I live an hour away from Boulder and the transition area opened at 5:30, I knew I had to leave my house at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. So, I set my alarm clock for 4am. Well, at least I thought I did. I had really set it for 4PM, but luckily I double checked it right before I fell asleep. Phew! - thank God I'm anal. That would have been a disaster. Since all I gave myself was 30 minutes to get up, get ready and leave, I french braided my hair the night before and just slept on it. Who cares if I have bed head at a tri. The whole day before the race, I was jittery and nervous and EXCITED, and that carried over into my sleep. I woke up a lot. But the worst was when my husband, Russell, had a sneeze attack at 3am. I was wide awake after that and never got back to sleep. So, I laid in bed until 3:45 then finally gave up and got up. At least I had plenty of time to put on my mascara (hey, I'm from Texas - we don't go to the mailbox without make-up on!). I left the house at 4:30 and then I really started getting nervous so I started talking to myself saying "just calm down, you've trained for this, you're ready for this, you're going to have fun. Just breathe!" Luckily it was dark and I was alone in the car during my monologue. I got to Boulder Reservoir at 5:30 and pretty much was in the first row of cars in the parking lot. They were assigning racks based on your start wave #, and I wanted to find a spot close to the outside so all of my family who was coming could actually see me in the transition area. Stacey (Stacers) ended up setting up on my rack too - it was nice to have her there to talk to. I set up my transition area and mounted my American flag on my rack, went to the porta-potties about a million times then walked around and found my BT friends. My family arrived and called me on the cell phone, so I was able to give them landmarks to find my transition area. It was nice to have a cheering section (I can't believe they all got up so early to come see me).
I mostly just warmed up my mouth...talking to Stacey (Stacers), Brett (Alpine 87), Joe (joeinco), and Ovetta. They closed the transition area to activate the timing mats at 7:15, so I headed over to the water and swam around for a while. The water was a lot warmer than I thought it would be - I was pretty surprised. I was in the third wave, so watched the start of the other waves before me - wow - that is quite a spectacle. No wonder people freak out in the water. It's almost easier to be in the middle of it than to watch it from the shore. Very intimidating looking. They called my wave and we were off!