Yep, 2 weeks in a row I chose to abuse myself with that thing called a sprint triathlon. This tri was the same distance, but very different course. The Downtown Columbia course was a 3 loop bike course with rolling hills, and the run was rolling hills. The pool was long course, but still 500 meters. The bizarre part was that this race doesn’t start until 1:30 pm . . . I mean what do you eat?! I just prayed my tuna fish sandwich didn’t come back up while racing:)
The morning of the race was spent racing around and packing for me and for Addison. Raly had agreed to watch Addison for me while I race, which is such a HUGE favor since she already has twins the same age as Addison and a 5 year old. Just call her superwoman. I had to work on Saturday so it was really nice to be able to atleast have Addison w/me on Sunday. The morning was dreary and wet, and the afternoon didn’t get any better. I had virtually no warmup as I didn’t want get on the bike in the rain and be cold, and the same thing with the pool. I had no urge to get in the pool to warmup to only have to get out and freeze standing in line to start. It was nice to look up in the bleachers and see my little man as I anxiously stood in line waiting to start the swim.
The swim was long course, and they were sending 2 off at a time. The guy that went off w/me was nice, he pretty much passed me in the first 10 meters. There’s a boost to my ego:) I just told myself to remain calm, use it as a warmup, and gradually get into a groove. I did exactly that. Not one more person passed me, and I did a ton of passing other people. I was even more happy with my new Hydrobat Barracuda goggles, they didn’t leak one bit and made for a great swim. I felt good as I came out of the water, and was pleasantly surprised to see a 9:10 on my watch. That was a 10 second improvement on the week priors swim (out of pool time), and I’ll take all I can get! The mat time was slower than last week, but that’s just b/c we had to run farther to get to the mat.
My transition went accordingly and I didn’t fumble as much as the previous week. I ran out w/my bike praying I was in the appropriate gear to start . . . instant hill at the beginning. Sarah had ridden the bike course and had warned me that it wasn’t flattening out after we turned off that hill, so I just tried to spin it out until I could see the stop sign for the next turn. I reminded myself that it was a sprint and supposed to hurt, but truthfully, this bike was all technical. The turns weren’t bad, but b/w the traffic that didn’t listen to the police and the pedestrians that decided to play frogger it was all about not hitting things. Or being hit. I was so happy to have my new Zeal Slingshot sunglasses on, they were perfect for the overcast rainy day. I’d hoped to have around the same bike time as the week prior, and as I hit the 3rd loop I knew it was going to be close. I pushed as hard as I could and tried to ride aggressively yet safe since the roads were wet. I slowed as I saw transition and looked down at my watch, I came in a good 25 seconds faster than last week!! Now here’s the true test, rolling hills on the run.
The 2nd transition went well, and I just tried to be quick. I headed out on the run telling myself to really work, but don’t take the first hill too fast since it was a longer incline. I really tried to focus on my form and put all my effort into it. Mile 1 seemed to take forever, and I refused to look at my time. Go off effort, that’s all that matters. That’s what I kept repeating hoping that I’d just give it my all. The 2nd mile didn’t seem so bad probably b/c part of it was downhill, but I was dying. I hoped the last mile would be easier, but as we climbed stairs and had another incline I realized I just needed to dig deep. Thankfully, the last part was downhill. I crossed the line at 1:03, a minute faster than the week prior.
I ended up placing 7th overall female and 2nd in my age group. I’ll take it! A good hard effort on a course I wasn’t sure these legs could really work with is a great day. I think Forrest has a lot to do with that, he has given me back some consistency in training that I desperately needed. Thanks again to Raly for watching AJ!
