First Tri of the Season

I think Summer will be my favorite time of year forever, especially now that I've been bitten by the tri bug and there are tons of races each month! I have committed to two more: the Wurst Tri Ever in August, and the big mama Austin Tri in September.

This past Sunday was my sophomore experience at the Danskin Women's Triathlon and it was SUCH a different experience from the first. I was really annoying and kept saying "last year...." and comparing the races. First of all, we got there JUST as the transition area was closing, then had maybe 30 minutes 'til our respective waves took off and even then quite nearly missed them. This year I committed to partaking in some Clif Gu shots, which I have to say weren't all that bad. I had one before the swim and one during the bike, then I couldn't find my third between the bike and the run until AFTER the race. Burn on me.

The swim was SO difficult this time. I don't remember it being so hard to catch my breath - I expected the adrenaline rush at the beginning but even halfway through the swim I struggled to catch a deep breath. As much as I love swimming, I really didn't feel good about this swim. I felt different about a lot of parts of the race - like when I ran all the way (uphill, mind you) from the swim to the bike transition. That was when I was like "hey! I'm stronger!" and I thanked myself for those months of training even when I didn't want to. The bike - oh my. I only remember there being two really wicked hills on the course. My memory is completely jacked,  because the course is like a rollercoaster! The good news though was last year I walked two hills, but this time I walked NO hills. I also have about 50 more gears on this bike than I did on my old bike, and blasted down the hills as well as up them. The bike-to-run transition was killer again. My legs are just absolute jelly when I get off the bike. I have a plan to work on that over the next couple months - adding leg strengthening exercises, do some 5Ks, work bricks more diligently. 

So, here's my time & transition breakdowns:

Overall Rank: 1241 of 1976

Class Rank: 159 of 218

Swim: 00:22:46

Swim Rank: 596

Transition 1: 5:01

Bike: 00:49:32

Bike Rank: 975

MPH: 14.5

Transition 2: 3:33

Run: 00:46:09

Run Rank: 1664

Pace: 00:14:53

Final: 02:07:03

I'm surprised I did that well on the swim considering all the breathing problems I had. The breakdown clearly shows the areas I have to work on - the first transition, the bike, but especially the run. My goal for August is to shave some time off the bike time, but especially the run. I know that everything depends on the biking course, and knowing NB it'll be nothing like Austin, but still. I'm just really glad that I came in close to 2 hours - I wanted to beat last year's time of 2:30hrs and I did! Go me.

Afterward, I didn't feel nearly as spent as the last time...I mean, I was exhausted, but I didn't sleep for hours and hours. Instead, I went to Home Slice and Hey, Cupcake! with my cousin, then napped for about an hour, then dug into some barbecue. Yesterday I was overall pretty tired and moving slowly due to a sharp pain in the outside of my right foot but today I woke up at about 7am and am slowly working out the residual kinks. I think getting a massage immediately after the race also aided in my recovery.

SPEAKING of recovery, I've decided to put triathlon tips on here, just little notes of what I've learned along the way.

TRIATHLON LESSON #1: If you have clips, practice clipping out. A lot. This leads us directly to...

TRI LESSON #2: If you go biking two days before your tri, don't clip out on your right and then try to make a left turn in gravel.

So yeah! One down, two to go in this glorious season of tri, tri-ing again. Next up in August will be my very first co-ed race, and I am excited not only for that but also because it's going to be in fabulous NB!