Weekend of Racing Complete

My weekend of racing is complete! While we had to get up around 5 am both mornings (and in turn be in bed by 9 pm both weekend nights), I really enjoy the active lifestyle and spending my weekend competing.

Yesterday was our first triathlon of the season: the Lake Pflugerville Sprint Triathlon. We woke up the hear the wind whipping around outside. Of course. The wind has just been brutal lately. The triathlon, obvious by the name, is held at Lake Pflugerville which would mean for a tough, windy race as there is nothing out there to block the wind on any parts of the course. I honestly didn't have many goals for this race other than to have fun. I hoped to use it as a gauge of my triathlon fitness to see where I'm at, in hopes of improving before our next triathlon on July 10 (Couples Tri).

Hot, windy weather greeted all those who were to take part in the triathlon yesterday morning. The lake was chopping away and I knew I would be taking in my fair share of lake water on the swim. My wave didn't start until 7:57 so after a lot of waiting around, it was finally my time to go. I planned to use the swim as a warm-up with my main goal of not swimming off course!! The swim wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I had practiced swimming in the lake earlier in the week when it's been choppy, so the choppiness and subsequent intake of lake water did not freak me out. I sighted off of other swimmers and stayed surprisingly pretty much right on course (which is a huge feat for me as I usually swim at least 100m wide of the buoys...I know).

Glanced at my watch coming out of the water and was right at 12 minutes for the 500m swim. Much better than I expected and a good swim for me. Headed to transition to get ready for the 14 mile bike. Unfortunately, I am always super slow in Transition 1, and I might as well as sat down and had a picnic. I really need to stop dilly-dallying so much in transition and wasting valuable time.

Got on my bike and the first mile was great; down-hill with a tail wind. Had the entire race been this way, I would have had a rock star bike split. Unfortunately, we turned into the wind shortly after the one mile mark and from there it was pretty much a suck fest. I am not a fan of biking in the wind (one reason why I haven't biking much is because it's been so darn windy) and so I wasn't prepared for it. I had trouble finding a consistent rhythm and getting in the right gear. I stayed in my big ring the whole time, which probably wasn't the best choice going up some of the hills into the wind. I kind of just forgot to shift. Oops. I wasn't passed by very many people (the benefit of starting in one of the last waves), and I was even passing some people (okay, most of them were on mountain bikes). I rode as hard as I could with the wind but my watch had me at about 48 min coming in for the bike which is about a 17.5 mph average...and about 3 minutes slower than I wanted to be. Oh well.

Tried to make a speedy transition and get to running. The run is my favorite part of a triathlon -and my strongest- and, I knew I could make up some time and move up a little in my age group with a good run. The run is 3 miles, which is one loop around the lake. I didn't wear my Garmin on the run, only my stop watch, because I wanted to run by feel without worrying about how fast/slow I was going.

Off I go. Oh wow. I thought the wind on the bike was bad. It was about 10 times worse on the run. We either had a nasty cross wind or an evil head wind running around the lake. But, everyone was struggling, and I began passing a lot of people, including several girls in my age group and finished the run in 19:50ish (6:36ish pace). As disappointed as I was in my bike, I was ecstatic with my run.

My watch had my total time at 1:23:36. Not as good as last year, but 18 seconds better than my 2009 time and in tougher conditions. I didn't do a good job of keeping exact splits...assumed that the timing company would do this. I anxiously awaited results so I could see my exact swim/bike/run & transition splits, but it took most of the day before results were posted.

And, when they were finally posted, all they had were overall times. For some reason, the timing chips did not register individual splits for the swim/bike/run. Major bummer. And somewhat unacceptable in my opinion. As a race director, I know how much these timing companies make on timing these races, and for them not to do have results available within an hour post-race and then not to have complete results at that...that doesn't sit well with me. I also feel bad for the race director as he will take a lot of heat for this, and it's certainly not his fault.

Anyway, my official overall time was 1:23:37. I was 16th female overall/298 and 5th in my age group. While I have a lot of work to do - particularly on the bike - I feel pretty pleased with my first triathlon of the season.