2 race reports in 1

[btchance]

So I did a sprint triathlon, Buster Britton, at Oak Mountain State Park this morning. I also did a mini-sprint tri 2 weeks ago that I never wrote about, so I thought I would throw that one in here also. (sorry about the length here).

The mini-sprint was the Y-tri triathlon, which was my first one ever last year. It is a 200yard pool swim, 8.3mi bike, and 2 (actually a little less) mile run. For the swim, I have to get more confident in my speed, and put down a faster time. I entered with a 4:30 time, and ended up with 4:35 time, but I caught and needed to pass numerous people, without being cought myself. I almost had to stop a few times or just glide to keep from running into the person in front of me. Problem was that the lane ropes are so narrow, you can't pass except at the wall if somebody waits after you tap them on the foot. The last length is wider (can get 3 people in there), and I sprinted by 3 or 4 people in 25 yards to the finish. Next time, I need to put down about 4:00 for the swim.

T1 was 2:13 - okay transition, went without socks - still need to get faster with getting my feet into my shoes while wet.

Bike - 32:38 for 8.3 miles. And as one guy said as I was spinning up a hill in granny gear - you forget just how hilly the center of this course is. Nothing too fantastic or horrible on the bike - just an average to slightly below average ride.

T2 - 1:07, the fastest one in my agegroup, I'm starting to get this one down cold - helped to have 2 friends who had already finished (yes, they are little speed demons), yelling / cheering me on as I ran out. (you have to make a circuit around the transition area - to make it more fair for distances, so the people at the entrance/exit don't have an advantage over people at the back corner.

Run - 18:49 - the distance is supossed to be 2mi, but I think it is shorter - I know I wasn't running below a 10min mile. You had to run down a long, gradual hill then back up it. I had to walk a bit at the bottom of the hill around the aid station while on the flat, but ran the rest of the course. Once again, had the same friends cheering me on during the run.

I had to sprint the last little bit to make my goal of finishing under 1hr - end time was 59:34; last year was 1:07:25 - so a good improvement. Fastest female at the race this year was 46:33. Here are some pics from the race - the bike ones turned out nice, but you can tell how annoyed I was coming out of the pool. http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_...5&PWD=&BIB=178

[Tri Girl]

AWESOME report Btchance!!! You knocked 8 min. off last year's time- AMAZING!!!!!! Way to go!! I love the pictures. The bike ones are very pretty with the flowering bushes in the background. You look comfortable and relaxed!! Glad to hear the race went so well for you!!!

You told us about the mini-sprint- but what about the race you did today? How did that one go?? (unless I'm confused and reading wrong- I do that sometimes ).


I know what you mean about the swim. I think some people have no clue and just put down any ol' time- then you have to wait on them. grrrrrr.... One woman at a tri I watched last year said to someone- I put down 6 min for the swim- is that fast? (it was a 500m swim- yeah lady- that's olympic fast you knucklehead).

[btchance]

Okay - the one today was the Buster Britton Sprint triathlon - 400yard OWS, 12.6mi bike, 5k run. I haven't been able to get much training in over the past month due to personal issues, so I knew this wasn't going to be my best performance, so I went out to have fun.

This race was a story of the good, the bad, and the ugly, plus the word of the day was HILLS (and more hills).

I had to get up at 3:15 this morning to drive to the race venue, which was at Oak Mountain State Park. This race was the AL state qualifer for the Best of the USA amateur competition, and also had the XTERRA SE championships being run this weekend, so it was definately a bigger race than I had expected.

Getting ready, I must have looked comical/pitiful pumping up my tires (hate my pump - for my road bike I have to almost sit on the stupid thing and jump up and down on it to get it to work - no problem with the MTB, though), because some guy came over and did my back tire for me (sweet of him). At the transition area entrance, there are people there making sure only racers go in. To help with this, we are given arm bands to wear. Well, I was carrying all my crap up there, and for some reason the lady decided that the wrist band wasn't enough (it was on the other side of the transition area and at other races) - she had to see our actual race number. Well, of course that is buried inside my bag, and there was no place to prop up my bike so I was trying to coordinate myself (on a sloaped road), to dig it out. My bike started to fall, and I had no hands, so used my right foot to catch it out of instinct - mistake - I cought it on the big chain ring, and ended up with multiple curs on my foot and ankle with grease inside of it (I was in flip flops at the time). Tried to clean it out, but the chain grease seems to be embedded (sp?). Nice and sore, but still functional.

This was my first OWS of the year (no practices even), so I took some extra time and swam part of the course, then did some drills to help relax. It helped because during the race I felt no anxiety. It was a 400yard swim, which I did in 9:09. Now, this was supossed to be 400yards, but with my fantastic navigational skills I'm sure it was more like 450, maybe even 500 . I was sighting, but every time I sighted, I overcorrected myself. It became a tale of - oh, I need to go to the left slightly - crap - need to go back right - and back and forth I zig-zagged. At the end, I almost got stepped on by another racer. I was swimming in as close to shore as I could get (ie, standing up when my hands touch the bottom). My swim coach from last year told me it was faster, and it seems to be for me. Well, the othe guy didn't seem to agree, and I almost got stepped on (felt his foot brushing against me as he was stepping down.)

T1 - there was quite a run from the beach to the bikes, and with my tender footsies and rocks, it took me a while. My time was 3:50. I was fairly efficient at the transition, but wore socks and used my camelbak for this race, which adds some time.

Bike - 52:59 over 12.6miles. All I can say is that this course was HILLY!! No huge 3mile climbs, but alot in the 1/4 - 1/2 mile range, with less than 1mile of flat over the whole thing. You come out of transition and go down the first hill then have to make a 90 degree right hand turn onto the main road, or you end up in the golf course. Haven't heard if anyone did that this year, but usually a couple of people end up there every year .

It took me a couple of rollers to find my climbing legs, but once I did, my climbing went great. Throughout most of the bike leg, it became a story of me passing a number of people going up hill, then most of those come flying by me on the down hill - repeat at next hill. I've gotten much better at descending, and on this course, you could fly down the hills without having to break because the road curves in such a nice manner. But even with me using my momentum over the top, pedaling until I max out my gears, and getting into the best tuck I can do, I still get passed. I know I'm relatively small, but I'm not exactly built like a climber. I mean, I'm only 5'2" and 123lbs, but I have the butt and thighs of a sprinter, not a climber - they just don't work the way they look.

The only interesting thing on the bike was going up one of the hills - I needed to scoot over about a foot to pass two guys, and the people coming up behind didn't call out. Of course, as I was starting to move over, one of the guys I was going to pass decided he couldn't go up the hill straight and started weaving. As I started to make a more extreem move, I spotted the other guys out of the corner of my eye and had to almost stop on the hill to avoid them. Well, I was still in my middle ring at this point and had been planning on going into the granny to spin up it. But since I was in the middle and almost stopped, I just stood up and went to power it by those two. Well, this worked better than expected and I just kept climbing standing up and ended up passing those two, plus the other guys that had come up behind me. Of course, the best part was how fast I went by these macho guys on their fance tri bikes

T2 - 1:21 - efficient, got in and out.

Run - 5K in 36:10. Once again, multiple hills on this one. It was getting hot by now but luckily most of the run was in the shade and plenty of water stations to douse myself with water at. The time wasn't great, but I did accomplish one thing that I was wanting too - I ran the entire 5k without walking. Now when I'm training, I can run 8miles at a faster pace without walking, but for some reason, I have a mental block at tris where I always end up walking part of the run, even if I didn't need too. Hopefully this will help me get through it.

Overall time was 1:43:34, which was right about my goal time. I don't have any pictures at this moment, but will post them when they get back.

This may be the last tri for me for the year - I'm hoping to do a couple in August, but my schedule for school was completely changed and I had to cancel my Olympic tri in July and can't do my back up Olympic in September. I have no idea if I'll be able to do any training in July - if I can, I'll do something in August. If not, this is it until my 1/2 mary in November. We'll just have to see.

Oh, and my ankle/foot is starting to swell some, and there is still chain grease embedded in it. This after cleaning it before the race, doing the swim, cleaning it before going home, and again at home. Now I just hope it doesn't get infected.

[Tri Girl]

Oh man- you had a tough race today! I don't think I could've made it with all the hills on the run and bike. I'm a hill weenie- big time! Sounds like you climbed like a demon and put a hurt on some macho men (insert Village people song here). Nice racing today- so very proud of your effort- and you ran the whole run. WOOHOO!!!!
Congrats on two great races!!! Glad to hear you saved your bike from falling and gettting hurt, but sorry that your leg/foot became a grease infested wound... take good care of that!

Hope you can get more races in this season, but if you can't you know you had two amazing races in the books!! Congrats!!!!

[Deborajen]

Great report! Sounds like a tough race. Those long hills take a lot out of you, not to mention all the other challenges you were up against. Don't know how you can do those open water swims. I'm not too much of a swimmer - took lessons as a kid and went off the diving board, etc., but I don't like being too far from the edge and not being able to touch the bottom. Good job pulling off the OWS without a real practice this year. And great job making your goal time overall!

I've been thinking about doing a duathlon this year (my first) but I might have a scheduling problem, too. There is finally a duathlon that was just scheduled in my area in July but we'll be out of town then. There aren't a whole lot of duathlons in this part of the country - we'll wait and see.

Deb

[beetle]

Great reports. They will be fab to keep for your diary.

That is terrible about your foot, what a bad start to the day. It obviously didn't dampen your spirits too much though. Loved hearing about your climbs though - that must have put you on a big high!

[eclectic]

Now that I have completed my first tri My hat is off and I bow to you for doing the entire run w/o walking AND doing it on a hilly course

GREAT job!

[wildstreaktn]

Way to go Btchance!Sounds like you did some overcoming of a lot of rough and had a couple of good races.That's great for having little training time to prepare.And running the whole way,my hat's off to you!!!You Go Girl!!

[HappyAnika]

Congrats on both races, esp. running without walking on the sprint! Thanks so much for writing the reports, I looove reading them! Good luck on finding time to keep training, and take care of the foot!

[btchance]

Thank you ladies. The OWS was definately helped by the lake being one of the clearest you could ask for (I could see the number on the person I was swimming next to, and no, we weren't hitting each other) and getting almost 20min in the water before the race. It was great on the bike being able to pass people on the hills, hard though when they passed me on the downhills. All I know is that I saw more people walking their bikes up the hill in this race than I have seen in all my others combined. For the run, I hope that I have crossed a mental barrier, we'll see in the future.

One addm to the bike story. Near the end, I heard a hiss and immediately thought I had a flat. Well, it only lasted for a few seconds and I never felt anything wrong with the bike. Well, once I got home, the rear tire was completely flat. Glad that didn't happen during the race. Weird part was, though, that after I had that tube out I decided to put some air in it and see where the hole was. Found it immediately with the hissing noise, then it stopped and held air again. Not sure how that happens, but it helped me out during the race.

As far as my foot goes, it still has black gunk in it even after cleaning it multiple times, it's a little puffy, but not too bad and not very painful. I ran on it tonight and it seemed okay, let's hope it stays this way.

I have to say it was nice being able to get out there and do those two races with some good friends I have made along the way. It really helps when your personal life gets crazy. (A family member with mental illness came very close to commiting suicide the week before the first race and has been in the hospital since, and needless to say, my mind has been on family issues, not on tris. Hence, alot of the decrease in training - but hey, all those base miles gave me enough fitness to go out there and have a great time racing)

Thanks for everything ladies!