(long) REPORT: Surviving my first triathlon (and smiling through it!!)
Thanks to all the good advice I received from you, wonderful TE chicks, and some from my sweet boyfriend, too, who's a master at that art (but didn't give too much advice, he's very delicate with that), I not only survived but thoroughly enjoyed my first triathlon yesterday, University of British Columbia's sprint-distance triathlon (they also have a short and an olympic and a duathlon). The great thing for me is that the swim is in a pool, 16 X 50 m laps. I just started swimming in November, from nearly zero, so I was not going to swim in the ocean!!
The boyfriend had been agonizing over doing it or not for the past month I think. He was first registered in the olympic but didn't feel in such good shape so he switched to the sprint but his foot still hurt and he just didn't feel like it. He hesitated until 12pm the day of the event (my heat was at 12:50, his at 2:50) when I came back home (the site is just accross the road from where we live!!) and asked for his race belt. "Ok then I'm not racing!" I think he still had loads of fun just being a spectator, chasing me around the course for pictures (http://www.angelfire.com/folk/grog/ubc_triathlon/ for the results, with French captions....). So he was a great support and I also had a couple of friends in my heat and another great friend with a cowbell along the course. That was really nice.
Weather was beautiful, shiny sun in blue sky, but coldish (8 C). Still, it was so much better than I feared (for those who have read my thread on snow and rain!!).
The swim went surprisingly well, I did better than I usually do in training, in part due to the great drafting effect that I didn't even know of. I was a bit concerned with my heart rate when I stepped out of the pool (177 :eek: ) but I just had to get used to it because it was even higher on the bike (I couldn't believe it). I was afraid that I would have no more energy left for the run but turns out I sort of relaxed after I ran out of T2 and my heart rate went back down to the high 170s. It seems like, with adrenalin, I can hold a much higher heart rate for a longer time without the usual side-effects (panting-like breathing and other forms of painful physical response!). I couldn't believe, when I stopped my watch, that I had an average HR of 180 for a period of more than 90 minutes!!! (and it never really went down the whole time)
Anyway, the cycling part was pretty uneventful, on a very windy course where I train all the time, passing a few people and being passed by a few others (the fastest swimmers from the heat after mine I think). And the run was just great, although it usually is not my strongest discipline. I spent too much time transitionning - I sort of hoped I could dry myself out a bit because I was so wet and it was so cold out there, but I realized that it would just take too long to get serious results so whatever... - and did a few newbie mistakes (I climbed on my bike at the wrong line... which was one meter away from the right line, and unstrapped my helmet when I entered the transition area after the cycling, whereas I should have kept it attached until my bike was parked).
... but I had loads of fun! Actually I was not thinking about much the whole way (except my heart rate!!), just enjoying the sun and the wind and cheering for other people along the way. I ran 200 of the last 400 m with my sweet papparazzi, who then had to take a shortcut to get to the finish before I did. That was pretty cute.
So not only I survived, but I smiled through it, and much to my delight I discovered last night when I came back home that I had finished 53rd out of 144 women, and 14th in my age group of 30 women. I was hoping to come in mid pack, this is even better than I hoped for!
So there will be another one or two this Summer. I'm not interested in doing Olympic distance for now, but I am getting curious about open water swimming. I intend to get my own race belt though so we can both race at the same time. :)
... just looked at the pics!
What a beautiful course! WOW! You look so good out there! My face turns really red when I am working hard and I'm afraid the medics will keep trying to take me away!!! :eek:
again, great job!!!
