Am I faster? See Jane Tri race report
On September 27 I raced in the See Jane Run Triathlon. I picked this triathlon because the course was very similar to my very first race in June and I wanted to see how much I had improved over the summer.
I haven’t been running much since my Half Ironman in early August. First I was recovering from that event. Next Thom and I finished installing our wood flooring. Then I went back to work. The start of the school year is always stressful and tiring so running just wasn’t high on my list of things to do. In fact I feel like training in general hasn’t been high on my list since the start of September.
The morning of the race I actually considered just not going. I hadn’t slept well and 4 AM came too fast. Thom nixed that idea pretty rapidly, reminding me that I was not a quitter. He always knows the right thing to say. We packed up the car and headed off.
In the days leading up to this race, I had been considering my race strategy. On every other race I have held back a bit on the swim and bike to be sure I had something left for the run. I decided that for this event I was going for it on each leg. I figured the run would be hard no matter what and I might as well make up what time I could in the events that I am strong in.
The course for the swim start was really gooey and gross with this thick black mud. I was off to one side of the pack so that I could make a quick start of it. They must have been standing in all the good sand. I kept picking my feet up because I was afraid that when the gun went off I’d be stuck in the mud. At the blast of the gun, I took off like I was sprinting 50 meters. I wanted to get ahead and avoid having to pass slower swimmers. The swim for the event was 400 yards and I never backed off my effort level. I rounded the first buoy near the front of the wave and stayed there. I strayed a little off course before the second buoy, but quickly got back in line. By the time I reached the end, I had easily caught up with the slower swimmers in the wave that started 5 minutes earlier. The only downer was when I thought I was close enough to touch the bottom at the finish and discovered I wasn’t. OOPS! After a quick flounder, I was out of the water.
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As I ran over the timing mat, I realized that I was beginning to feel like I was going to be sick. My heart rate was 176, extremely high for me for swimming. I ended up walking the rest of the distance to my transition area. I estimated my swim time to be about 30 seconds faster than it was in June. That is fairly significant for such a short distance.
My T1 time was slower than in June, but still around 2 minutes. Once on the bike I focused on carefully passing slower riders going up the hill and getting into my own pedaling rhythm. This event had lots of riders on all sorts of bikes. I was constantly calling out, “On your left!” as I passed people. The last time I raced this course, I paid attention to my heart rate and tried to keep it between 170 and 175. This time I just focused on riding hard and safely. I finished the 11 mile bike leg in 29:45. That’s a pace of over 22 miles an hour and about three minutes faster than my time in June!
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I discovered in T2 that one of my bike shoes did not want to open up. Rather than wrestle with the mechanism, I tried to get it off my foot as it was. Happily, I hadn’t closed them very tightly and it came off with a tug, a quick change of the shoes and I was off for the run.
The run course for this event was a bit different than in June. I think it had a steeper, longer hill. My stomach was bothering me just a bit. I think maybe I was a little hungry. I ignored it. My legs and lungs felt good. The first hill wasn’t too bad. I knew that there would be a flat section after it. I had some ladies pass me from the wave that started after me. I could tell they were from the wave after mine because every racer has their age written on their calf. That was bit of a downer for a second or two. Then I thought about all the people I was passing from the wave in front of me - both on the bike and on the run. I reminded myself that the race was about bettering my time and how somehow else was doing, really didn’t matter.
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On the approach to the second hill I could see runners who had already climbed it on the ridge FAR above me. I knew then that unless there were a lot of switchbacks this hill would be nasty. I was determined that I was not going to walk. It seems to me that once I start walking in a race, I can’t seem to get running again. Okay, so that’s only happened in two of my races, but that’s half; statistically that’s important. The hill was bad. It was very, very steep. My running form was reduced to a shuffle by the time I got to the top of it. I passed many people walking, but I was still running. I recovered on the downhill and kept going.
The next hill wasn’t bad and I was so thrilled when I ran up the fourth and final one. All I had left was a flat section on top of the levee, a downhill and a flat paved section to the finish. I decided I would pick up the pace once I got to the paved section. This proved to be a little too early and I couldn’t sustain it. But I kept running. I recovered enough that I was able to sprint when I saw the finish line. At least it felt like a sprint. I estimate my run time was a little less than 32 minutes. A least three minutes faster than my time in June!
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Overall I was about 6 minutes faster than my time in June. I had been hoping for just a three minute improvement on the run. I didn’t think I would see much change on the swim or the bike. Overall, I am stoked!
