We got to the race about an hour and a half before the race start, racked our bikes, and checked in. I had my second breakfast and relaxed for a few minutes. After setting up my transition, I started my warm-up and was ready to go.
I decided to wear my wetsuit this race because I need to get practice wearing it during races for when I really need it. The water would have been perfectly comfortable without it.Coming from a swimming background, I'm used to having the extra mobility in my stroke sans wetsuit, so I'm just not 100% comfortable yet. And since this is an expensive sport, I've only sprung for the full wetsuit, no sleeveless or speedsuits (If anyone is looking for triathletes to sponsor, I'm available...)
At race start, I sprinted out about the first 100 yards or so and then settled into a comfortable rhythm. I thought I did pretty well at sighting and staying on the course and finished the 1.5 K swim in 24:56. I still want to shave a few minutes off my swim time, but that will have to wait for the next race. Unfortunately, I've been having really bad allergy induced asthma over the past few weeks due to a combination of inflamed lungs from pets and a bad allergy season in general. Throw exercising in on top of that and it doesn't feel so great. I didn't have any emergency issues, but I felt as if I wasn't able to get normal breaths in almost instantly during the swim. It lasted the entire rest of the race. It was not very comfortable and it definitely doesn't help the speed situation.
I don't know my transition time (I think transitions are combined in the overall bike time). I had my shoes on my bike already, so after taking off the wetsuit, putting on my helmet and sunglasses, I was ready to run to the bike out and hop onto my bike. I knew there were two women ahead of me thanks to all of the amazing people at TBF who told me as I headed out.
I caught up to the one woman about 10-15 minutes into the bike. I still had no idea where the first place woman was. I forgot how rough part of the road is out there, causing my legs to vibrate as I pedaled quickly. It definitely adds an extra element of fatigue to the muscles. I had one Gu Energy Gel about 1/4 way through the bike and one within the last mile of the bike to get ready for the run. There were a couple men who kept trading off with me. I was trying to get ahead of them because USAT rules say you have to back off out of the draft zone of the person who passes you before you can pass, which means slowing down every time if they aren't able to hold the pace after passing. Overall, I felt pretty strong on the bike. I came out with a decent time 1:11:03 for 40 K.
I took my feet out of my shoes between speed bumps coming back into the park, dismounted, and threw my bike back onto the rack to put on my running shoes. 10 K run left. I kept a steady-hard pace during the run, but this is where the breathing caused the most difficulty since proper breathing technique is very important for running fast. I saw the first place woman a few minutes ahead of me right before the 3 mile mark. She really had a killer time in those last few miles since she put several more minutes on me with only 3 miles left! The run course is a fairly challenging trail. The heat is known to be brutal on the red clay parts, but luckily the weather was great, so I did not feel the heat at all. I tried to give it a final push in my last few miles, but didn't quite get what I wanted out of my run. My 10 K PR is almost 3 minutes faster than I was able to do during the race (47:51 race time), so I was honestly disappointed in that.
My overall time was 2:23:51, which was still an overall PR by 18 seconds, so I can't complain about that! I was 2nd in my age group and 3rd overall female. Great job to all of the athletes out there for getting it done!
Thank you to TBF for putting on another great race, Coach John at Total Intensity Sports, and Gu Energy Gels, and of course all of my family, friends, and teammates. Tri for Real #2 is coming soon with a PR that still needs to be crushed.
