Well.. my “slacker tri team” training paid off, and I finished my first triathlon yesterday… I’m a bit sore, but really happy I did it. (supposedly tomorrow i’ll experience more pain) The weather was excruciatingly hot.. it was in the 100s all day.. I did almost what I expected… I finished in 3:48:04, 1866th overall, 224th out of 251 in my division. I was looking to do 3:30 (30 minute swim, 2 hour bike, 1 hour run), so I did close to that..
As I learned in my first open water swim a few weeks ago, I do NOT swim in a straight line. I kept veering off course, getting kicked in the head as I cut across several (faster) swimmers’ paths. For the first leg of the swim, I was so pumped up that I was going all out (staying near the front of the pack), and ended up tiring myself out by the first turn. I had to flip onto my back for a little elementary backstroke whilst I regained my composure for a few minutes. After I resumed a more sane pace, I was able to finish out the leg freestyle.
I was really happy with my bike portion — thanks to my brand new bike computer, I was able to see that I hit a max speed of 43.5 mph.. that was soooo fun.. and, my turtle horn was quite a hit with the fans. The bike was definitely my favorite part, though I think I need to see if my bike really fits me properly. Granted, I’ve only logged about 25 miles prior to raceday on this bike…
The run part was the worst — I wouldn’t really call it a run.. more like a run/walk.. I’m actually quite surprised that I actually had 12 minute miles. I was quite delirous and I was making little deals with myself the whole way like “ok, the faster we go, the sooner this is over” and “ok, run to the next hill, then we can walk” (who is this “we” anyway?!?). I also tried to pace myself with some of the various other racers, so thank you camelback-guy, thank you big dude in a too tight race suit, and no thanks to the really cute girl that just flew by as if it wasn’t the last leg of a grueling triathlon in 100 degree heat.
Oh.. and one more thing… why is it that at the end of the race, they put a “false end”.. meaning this.. I’m running for (what i thought was) the end.. and.. it TURNS.. and there’s like another 200 yard gauntlet for you to run through.. and here’s what sucks, you’ve already given your all to get to what you just thought was the end, and now you’ve got another frikkin 200 yards to run, and it’s full of people watching, so if you stop to walk, they all get to point and laugh. so, what do you do? you keep on running. and it frikkin hurts. but they did give me a nice medal at the end. yay!
Actually, I lied about the worst part. The worst part of the day was the walk back to the campsite after the whole thing was over. I mean, honestly, it’s not as if we hadn’t done anything all day. The campsite was over a mile from the finish, and uphill about 1,000 feet. Add the 100 degree heat, carrying all of my gear, and my bike and you can imagine how frikkin annoying that was. They should really put in a chairlift or something.
Anyway, I’m already looking for the next tri.. I figure I already have all this equipment, so why the hell not. Maybe i’ll train harder next time.
