Last night i had my first tri. It was a super mini tri (250/6mile/1mile) i didnt want to do anything too big my first time out as i wanted to focus more on the event itself, transitions and open water group swimming.
Well, the swim kicked my butt! It seemed like it lasted forever! I knew i had to make up time on the bike leg. T1 went well, and off i went. I hammered the bike leg. I was passing a lot of people, and this guy and i battled the whole second lap, which was good as it pushed both of us. T2 was fast, less than a minute, and other than some minor calf twitches at the beginning of the run, i did well (for me)
I had started my Suunto watch at the beginning, and was hitting lap at each transition to get an idea of what i'd done. When i was running, i looked at my wrist and thought i must have messed something up, and it seemed the time was a bit too short. When i finished, even sprinted to the end, i checked my wrist, and it read 43:46. I went through my laps and could not believe the swim was only 8:30! It felt like an eternity!
Preliminary postings at the event showed me 27th overall. Today's final had me third in my age group at 43:17, with 7:30 swim, 2:07 t1, 22:34 bike, 00:57 t2, 10:08 run. I had the fastest bike leg of my group, and i think i should have been 2nd as the gal in 2nd shows a bike leg of 15mins which makes me think she only did one lap, not two, since NO ONE, not even the strong guys got less than 18. Her overall time was 42:10 so i'm pretty confident that was the case. It was a pretty lose event, not real strict.
At any rate, i was pretty pleased with myself it was hard, fun, incredible! I only almost threw up once on the second lap of the bike leg, as i was really going all out to make up for the swim
I will certainly do this again. Im meeting with a trainer Friday to work on my swim (i had a 3 pack of personal training, and have some left), and I'm seriously considering an open water swim clinic next Tuesday. Ive got the bug!
Just had to share - people at work think Im crazy working all day, running a tri, then doing bike to work day!