I did the Devon sprint tri today. My goal was to go hard for the whole race and win gold. My cousins and Aunt came to watch me. I also read an article that said to make your race fast, drink coffee (no sugar or cream, just black) on race morning, so I decided to try it. An urn of Tim Hortons coffee was on hand. It was disgusting, but I toughed it out. I thought "if this makes me win, it'll be worth it."
The morning started out a little chilly and I had to go to the bathroom about four times before I even started the race. Nerves, or coffee? Probably both. The wind was picking up and the sun was hiding behind the clouds. We were all shivering on deck while waiting for our race to start. I was waiting for the clouds to burn off so we could have a beautiful sunny summer day. I wanted to do flip turns for the entire swim, but that didn't work out too well because one end was so shallow and I didn't want to hit my head on the bottom of the pool and the wall on the other end wasn't marked very well, so I decided that open turns are probably the way to go. My swim went well and I kept up my pace for the whole swim. It was an outdoor pool and I was swimming through leaves and the water was very warm; it even smelled. I've come to the conclusion indoor pools are far superior. When I registered for this race, I said my swim time would be 17 minutes (that's how they determine what heat I would swim in). Fifteen laps in 16:50 - pretty accurate! Damn, I forgot to start my watch. I'd have to wait for the results before I would know how I did.
I got to T1 (bike to swim transition) and I was losing my balance. It's not easy going from a horizontal position to an upright position standing on one foot at a time trying to get bike shoes on. I finally got my shoes on and ran to the "mount" line. It felt good when the announcer called my name and number while I was running with my bike (pretty quickly I might add) and said "That girl is in shape". I'd never ran that well with my bike before. That was all fine and dandy until I mounted my bike and wasted a lot of time trying to clip into my pedals - for some reason the clip-in-to-my-pedals Gods weren't working with me. The 20 km ride was an out and back on highway 60. I made sure I thanked all the volunteers along the way because it's getting difficult for race directors to find volunteers anymore, so I like letting the volunteers know they are very much appreciated. 40:50 for 20 km - not too shabby. That must be one of the faster bikes I've had for that distance.
T2 was OK. I always have difficulty keeping my balance after a ride while trying to put on my running shoes, especially since I was riding hard today. I'd like to see myself in transitions - it must be hilarious! My run started out fast and I slowed down (just a bit) once I got out of sight of all the spectators (ha). My run was still pretty quick and I maintained that pace throughout. I pulled in several women, and even a man and passed them. I dug deep because that elusive gold was waiting for me. My run was 26:32 - a respectable time. Next year I'm doing Ironman again so I'm going to have to train - something I haven't been doing regularly this year.
It always feels good to cross the finish line and hear my name being called. Somehow I feel famous, or at least important. I was so happy because I came first in my age group of 45-49 with a time of 1:24:12. My goal of gold was met. Was it the coffee? Hmmmm! My bubble was quickly burst when they were giving the awards to the top three in each age group. They changed the age group to 40-49. I was now also competing against women that could be anywhere from three to seven years younger than me and there were more women to compete against - 8 more. I was now second in my age group - 2nd out of 12 instead of first out of four. I let the organizers know how I felt about that. On top of that, they weren't giving away medals, they were giving away prizes. I guess the up side could be that I know I'm faster than seven women who I definitely know are younger than me! You can check out my results here.
I thought that this was going to be my last tri of the season, but I did so well, I think I'll do another one at the end of August and go for gold at that one too. Stay tuned.
The morning started out a little chilly and I had to go to the bathroom about four times before I even started the race. Nerves, or coffee? Probably both. The wind was picking up and the sun was hiding behind the clouds. We were all shivering on deck while waiting for our race to start. I was waiting for the clouds to burn off so we could have a beautiful sunny summer day. I wanted to do flip turns for the entire swim, but that didn't work out too well because one end was so shallow and I didn't want to hit my head on the bottom of the pool and the wall on the other end wasn't marked very well, so I decided that open turns are probably the way to go. My swim went well and I kept up my pace for the whole swim. It was an outdoor pool and I was swimming through leaves and the water was very warm; it even smelled. I've come to the conclusion indoor pools are far superior. When I registered for this race, I said my swim time would be 17 minutes (that's how they determine what heat I would swim in). Fifteen laps in 16:50 - pretty accurate! Damn, I forgot to start my watch. I'd have to wait for the results before I would know how I did.
I got to T1 (bike to swim transition) and I was losing my balance. It's not easy going from a horizontal position to an upright position standing on one foot at a time trying to get bike shoes on. I finally got my shoes on and ran to the "mount" line. It felt good when the announcer called my name and number while I was running with my bike (pretty quickly I might add) and said "That girl is in shape". I'd never ran that well with my bike before. That was all fine and dandy until I mounted my bike and wasted a lot of time trying to clip into my pedals - for some reason the clip-in-to-my-pedals Gods weren't working with me. The 20 km ride was an out and back on highway 60. I made sure I thanked all the volunteers along the way because it's getting difficult for race directors to find volunteers anymore, so I like letting the volunteers know they are very much appreciated. 40:50 for 20 km - not too shabby. That must be one of the faster bikes I've had for that distance.
T2 was OK. I always have difficulty keeping my balance after a ride while trying to put on my running shoes, especially since I was riding hard today. I'd like to see myself in transitions - it must be hilarious! My run started out fast and I slowed down (just a bit) once I got out of sight of all the spectators (ha). My run was still pretty quick and I maintained that pace throughout. I pulled in several women, and even a man and passed them. I dug deep because that elusive gold was waiting for me. My run was 26:32 - a respectable time. Next year I'm doing Ironman again so I'm going to have to train - something I haven't been doing regularly this year.
It always feels good to cross the finish line and hear my name being called. Somehow I feel famous, or at least important. I was so happy because I came first in my age group of 45-49 with a time of 1:24:12. My goal of gold was met. Was it the coffee? Hmmmm! My bubble was quickly burst when they were giving the awards to the top three in each age group. They changed the age group to 40-49. I was now also competing against women that could be anywhere from three to seven years younger than me and there were more women to compete against - 8 more. I was now second in my age group - 2nd out of 12 instead of first out of four. I let the organizers know how I felt about that. On top of that, they weren't giving away medals, they were giving away prizes. I guess the up side could be that I know I'm faster than seven women who I definitely know are younger than me! You can check out my results here.
I thought that this was going to be my last tri of the season, but I did so well, I think I'll do another one at the end of August and go for gold at that one too. Stay tuned.
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