So this was my first race of the year (spent most of Feb - May with a quad injury, unable to do squat), and the first one since I moved to Texas. I did the sprint distance, which was 500y swim, 17.6mi bike, and 5K run.
This was my first wave start for a swim, and boy, was that a wake-up call. I lined up towards the back, and to the left to go wide around the bouy. Problem #1 - there was a rope with small little bouys attached that squeezed all the women together into a small group, and going to that first bouy, which was 1/3 of the swim, I never got to put my head down and take a front crawl stroke because of the massive amount of people around me, and feet in my face. And looking around, other people were having the same problem as well. After I got around the bouy, I was able to do a bit better, and after the second bouy, I actually had mostly clear water. Took long enough. Ugh. My overall time was 11:07, which was along the lines of what I had expected.
Coming out of the water, my HR was still way, way high from the first 1/3 of the swim. We're talking high 170s here, so needless to say I didn't push it on the run up to the transition area, or the transition itself to allow my HR to come down. However, in my infinite wisdom, I left my Hammer Gel nutrition sitting on my towel, so I had to do the bike with only the sports drink I had.
This was an Out and back course. It rained some, especially near the turn-around, to make it nice and slippery. Not much rain, just kinda a steady drizzle - enough to irritate ya. There were more hills on this than I expected, including one that I had to granny all the way. It wasn't long, but was pretty steep. As far as how I did, it was okay, but not great. I did the 17.6mi in 1:08. The bike showed me why I either need to get my butt out there and do the Olympic distance, or why I should warm-up; probably a bit of both. I came out and did decent, averaging around 15mph. Not fast, but comparable to what I had expected. I was mainly disappointed that my legs weren't working on the hills, which is usually my strong point. It was around mile 13, right after the steepest hill that I had to granny gear, that my legs finally decided to work and I finally got comfortable in the aero position. My avg speed jumped up to 15.6 for the entire course, and I felt great coming into transition. Lots left in my legs.
T2 - nothing exciting here, in and out efficiently but not blazing. The time was somewhere around 2min.
This was one of my better runs. As I was coming out of transition area, I noticed that my time was 1:24, and it occured to me that I might be able to get in at 2:00, which would have far exceeded my goals for this race. I did the first 1/2 of the run really watching my HR instead of how I felt, which wasn't a good thing. When I hit the 2mile marker, I had 11minutes to get back in under 2:00. (I usually do the tris at around an 11:30 - 12:00 min pace). So at that point I said screw the HR monitor, and just went for it, and ended up coming in at 1:59. And I still felt great and like I could have kept on going. From now on, I think I am going to use the HR monitor as a suggestion only, and listen to my body more during the race. I think I could have taken another minute or two off of my time if I had, as I walked a few times when I felt decent, but my HR was going too high. Will have to remember this for next time.
I didn't have many expectations for me coming into the race as it's my first one of the year because of injury. But I performed much better than I had expected. My initial goals were: swim 10-12min, bike 1:05 - 1:20, and run :35-40. I met every one of those goals, and was on the lower end of them. I went back and looked at my old race logs, and for the ones that were a 5K run, this was my second fastest ever during a tri. So I am making improvements here, but I still have a lot of work left to do on the run. (and other parts as well)
I don't have any pics of my own, but there was a photographer out there, so when they get posted I'll add a link onto this.
