This morning was my second sprint distance triathlon, and the first where I got to compete in all three events. If you’ll recall, the swim in the first one was canceled when the wind and waves capsized the safety boat. Last night I was concerned that the swim was going to be canceled today as well when I learned the lake tested high for E. coli the day before. Fortunately the levels were lower this morning, so we were allowed to proceed. I was pretty happy with my swim time (10:20 for .25 mile) considering it was my first time swimming in a crowd and sighting a buoy. Lifting my head served to slow me down, but I came in under the 15 minutes I thought would be the max for me to finish. I was also pretty happy with my bike time (35:13 for 9 miles) considering I had just gotten my bike 5 days before the race. With more practice on the shifting (like when and how) I should get much faster times in future races. The event I was least happiest with was the run (33:25 for 3.1 miles), but then I knew this was going to be the case. It has always been a struggle for me, and something I’m going to have to work harder at improving for my next event in order to move up in the rankings. I came in 145 out of 206 racers and 4th in my age group. The 3rd place winner beat me by about 1.5 minutes thanks to her faster bike time. The thing that’s got me a little confused and that I’m going to have to figure out before next month is how in the world it took me longer to transition from bike to run than it did to transition from swim to bike, especially since I didn’t have to switch out of biking shoes into running shoes. I was 128/206 in T1 and a whopping 152/206 in T2. I must have been slow running my bike to the rack. Lou and the girls came with me to cheer me on and it helped a lot to know they were there and wishing me the best. Afterward we hung out at the beach with some of my tri club friends and chatted about tri’s, vacations, and Facebook. What a great experience and one I’m excited to repeat soon. I’m already signed up for a woman’s only tri in September and am seriously contemplating slipping another one in for mid-August. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, here’s some pics of the event.
A man, his wife, and their gorgeous firestorm life
