Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Tri No. 1- A Success

This weekend was the first tri of the season for me, and I am very excitedly looking forward to number 2, which is in Wisconsin in July and my friends and their friends who will become my new friends are coming in from Omaha and Michigan to participate. Now THAT'S going to be a blast.

I improved a lot on this race, though I'm not quite sure how, and I feel the need to break it all down for ya. So here goes.

Saturday:

I arrived at the expo in the pouring rain. Before I even picked up my race packet and freebie shirt (which is SO cute by the way) I went to a Kiefer booth (they sell tri accessories) and scored myself a new singlet and tri shorts for $40. For those of you who don't know, Tri accessories can be VERY expensive. The singlet alone should have cost me about $50, but because it is 'last year's model' I got it on clearance, much like I did last year. I love shopping clearance aisles. I don't care if it was last decades model. It functions the same, but the color scheme is different. That is a nonissue with me, because you don't really do these things as a platform for a fashion show.

I also got this really sweet running hat with a built in sweatband that says "Tri Diva" on the front. You can find more cute stuff here: http://www.tridivas.com/boutique-new/index.php

I also got a new cute shirt just for the fun of it. If you want to see it go here:
http://shop.whoohagear.com/category.sc;jsessionid=7246FC4FD435959F0528502251D4395F.qscstrfrnt03?categoryId=5 I bought the black t-shirt, but you can read what it says better on the pink tank top. I actually liked about 4 of their shirts, but chose this one to remind me when I want to be tired and not do something. It's a good inspiration.

Anyways, I finally got my body marking, which you could see from a mile away the old guy made it so huge and went to a 2nd birthday party for one cute as hell little girl. I went to bed around 9.

Sunday:
The big day. Wake up around 4:15. Get dressed in tri gear, along with sweatpants and running jacket. Make peanut butter toast (2 pieces, sprinkled with wheat germ, a tri routine), make coffee, pack bananas and protein bar (I prefer Balance Bars in the cookie dough flavor) and get out the door by 4:35. Drive one hour to the high school parking lot. Ride my bike the 1/2 mile to transistion and begin setting up.

The Swim: 1/2 mile, 13 minutes. I was an orange cap, wave 18. I started at about 8:09, and even though the race was borderline wetsuit illegal as the water temp was 77 degrees, I decided to wear my wetsuit because I am considering going to Omaha to TRI an olympic distance event, in which case I will NEED the wetsuit and along with that, the practice of getting it off quickly. I banged out the swim in 13 minutes, which as an actual swim time is inaccurate. First of all, this is an "M" shaped course in a quarry that goes to zero depth, so when you go around the 2nd and 4th bouys you have to stand up and run around them or your hands drag on the bottom. Secondly, your time doesn't stop for the swim and start for the transition until you are completely out of the water and have run up a sand hill to cross the timing mat. I'm just sayin'.

The swim for the first time ever annoyed me. I was going so well that I literally ran into the group that started 4 minutes before mine did, and several of them had swim buddies. Now, I'm not sayin' anything bad about the swim buddies. These women are here raising money for a good cause (ovarian cancer) and doing a good thing for their bodies. But they took over the "lane", and getting around them was like dodging bullets. They needed to pull over to the right and let the faster swimmers through. At one point during the swim though, I felt so awesome in my wetsuit that I realized that I wasn't kicking, (or at least not very hard) and got pretty pissed at myself. Imagine how much faster I'd be going if I consciously put effort into that kick! Good thing I have a very strong arm stroke!

Transition 1: Took me a total of 3:47, which needs to get better, but it isn't so bad since I was futzing with a wetsuit. Plus, I had a hard time getting my biking gloves on wet hands, note to self for next time. I was smart this time and REALLY cleaned my feet off, because last time I didn't and there is nothing worse than running with sand stuck on your feet.

Bike: 13.8 miles in 44 min 15 seconds. Not bad, but I need to tighten it up. I'd like to do it in 40 minutes. The only thing that bothered me here was that some ladies were out for their Sunday rides, and not keeping to the right. I yelled "ON YOUR LEFT" more times than I can count. I read the rules; no drafting and stay on the right!

Transition 2: 1:40, next time should be a minute, or at least less than 1:40 since all I had to do was rerack my bike and get my race belt on, which you can do as you're moving.

Run: 5k (3.1 miles) in 28 min. 17 seconds. This happens to be my best run time after a triathlon ever. I felt really, really good, but I also decided that instead of sport gels, I'd try these samples of energy chews that I had. They are caffeine and vitamin B all rolled into a chew tablet, and was either the best thing I've ever done, or the worst, because at the 2 mile mark I checked my heart rate and it was about 184 beats per minute, so I decided to NOT have a heart attack and I walked for 1 minute to regulate that a bit. I didn't FEEL like walking, but I didn't feel like dying either. My biggest problem with the run is that I cannot sprint at the end. 3 ladies from my age group passed me right at the very end, and that has pissed me off enough to want to do better next time. I just don't know how to get that extra push, so any advice on that would be great.

Total time: 1 hr. 30 min. 57 seconds. Extremely slow compared to the lady who won in 1 hr. and 1 minute, but my guess is that her training regime does not revolve around 3 small kids. So I'll take my time, but try to do better next year. If I want to compare apples to apples, I guess my goal for next year is UNDER an hour and a half. I can do it. I hope.

Next Up: The Trek women's Tri with my gal pals. http://www.trekbikes.com/women/

It's going to be a hoot!

2 comments:

Nicki said...

Thats awesome! I admire people who can run, and enjoy it. I can't run at all unless maybe I'm in grave danger and have an adrenaline rush! My lungs just aren't tough!

Keri Speidel said...

Way to go! I was wondering how it went! Love the gear, might have to splurge!