The Race Report

Well.... It was awesome! Of course. I haven’t posted the race report yet because I needed to process the event mentally & when you’re gone most of a weekend, it takes some catching up with “regular” life outside the race. Then at my first opportunity to write, I was interrupted with a reminder for my son’s high school Open House which I had forgotten. But being that he is a freshman this year & we’re in a new state: gotta go. So sit back and enjoy, it’s a long post here.

So Saturday I made the drive down to Austin, where I have not yet been. The drive was beautiful & in the car I listened to Lance Armstrong’s “Its Not About The Bike” audio book I had picked up at the library earlier in the day. Good book if you haven’t read/listened to it. Anyways, there were lots of mentions of Austin and hills & I started to get a little concerned because I am not a hill trained girl. But I was already on the way, money was paid & plans made, so hills or not: here I come! I got a little turned around in downtown but eventually found Jack & Adam’s Bike shop & picked up my race packet. On to Pace Bend Park where I would camp.

My campsite was right on the water in Mudd Cove area of the park as I wanted to camp near the race start/finish so I didn’t have to exert extra energy going to & from. It was beautiful & peaceful. I setup camp. Grabbing my camera, I drove the loop I would be riding on my bike and realized it was much hillier than I was really trained for, but oh well, I was here & I was going to have to just do my best. I found some great cliffs, coves & sunset shots & then went back to camp to get my bike & explore some more. I had dinner after the sun went down & then moved my chair and table into my tent to escape the bugs and read running & biking books from the library before trying to get some sleep. I had forgotten my pillow so I used my transition towel for a pillow. Nobody gets good sleep the night before a triathlon, so I wasn’t too upset about the pillow.

In the morning I woke early. I took advantage of the fact that I had camped and was already there so I went right over to transition at it’s opening at 6am and racked my bike in a nice spot near the front and setup my transition area. Then I went back to camp and had breakfast and got the rest of my stuff ready. I stretched out, swam a bit in the water and eventually the pre-race meeting happened and then the first heat was off.

I was in heat 3 (women 25-34, yellow caps again). I decided to start off in the front this time, feeling confident and relaxed. Hey, I’ve done this once, this should be easy I was thinking. Well, I learned that each race is unique and there’s always a challenge.

The swim was difficult. I was bummed about this because swimming is my favorite discipline and it’s where I feel the strongest. Because of all the rain this year in Texas, the water was murky green with almost no visibility past my arm’s length. This stressed me out but I tried to get in a groove anyways. As we rounded the first bouy, I was hoping to find my groove, but we were heading straight into the glaring sunrise and sighting was nearly impossible so I kept having to pause for a bit. Sighting is very important in open water swimming because there is no black line on the bottom to follow as in a pool, so you have to swim with your head up for a bit to check your bearings and adjust as necessary. Well, by the time I rounded the second bouy I realized I wouldn’t be getting my groove so I just muscled through. T1 (the swim to bike transition) went well and quickly I was running with my bike up to the road for that leg.

The bike was difficult. I have what I call a “Costco-special”. It’s heavy, not aerodynamic and has fat tires. But, it’s what I have and I’m not going to let the lack of perfect equipment stop me from competing in something I am really starting to love. Additionally, the course was quite hilly, more than I expected and more than I was ready for. Again, wasn’t going to let that stop me. There was one hill that on both loops I had to walk up it. My heart was just racing and I wanted to save my legs for the run. At first I felt ashamed walking on the bike course but I remembered the stories of triathletes who somehow still have the will to continue even when their body is giving out and they have crawled to the finish line. So again, I wasn’t going to let this little (big) hill stop me. I finished the bike course in longer than I anticipated but feeling pretty good. T2 (bike to run transition) was quick and I was ready for it.

The run is what I’ve been working on since my last triathlon. The last triathlon I literally gave it everything I had and was probably pretty close to crawling across the finish line. My max heart rate is 188 and while in the bike, I had already reached the 180s. I spent most of the run worrying about my heart rate and trying to get it to come down, which it never did much because I had been exerting so hard for so long. Since then, I’ve been doing a run/walk progressive routine to build endurance in running. I could tell it paid off. I had my strategy this time and I would run 1 1/2 min and walk 2, the whole distance through. My heart rate did not even get to 180 but twice and that was in the last 1/4 mile of the entire race. I finished strong, running and I felt good. My time was 2:01:09. This was 1:09 over my time goal, but I felt with the great progress with my heart rate, who cares about a minute? I’ll get it next time.

So, it was an awesome time! Hard no doubt, but really fun. I love working my body really hard and testing it’s limits. I’m seeing the results that as I train it more, it can do more and it really is amazing. Oh, and I burned 200 less calories on this triathlon, even though I felt I had to work harder. Progress, progress. My next triathlon will be in 3 weeks.