Semi-relevant background note: In 2007, I raced the Triangle Triathlon as the bike leg of a relay team. It was my first triathlon experience, and I was using it as a training stepping stone to my first solo effort. My relay team did well (3rd overall), but I had a lot of unreasonable anxiety about the event. Turns out that I was pregnant, and my hormones were just out of control. So, I put my triathlon career on hold a bit as I’ve detailed in other posts, but I vowed to one day complete the Triangle Tri on my own. Last year I did just that, and this year I did it again.
Race report proper: I went into this race well rested (unusual) and generally well prepared. I say “generally” because I know that I could have done more training on the bike leading up to the race and been smarter on the bike during the race, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
First, the swim (last year’s time: 21:36; this year's time 17:35)
Totally rad improvement, right?! I feel so happy about this. I’ve been swimming 3 times a week very consistently for the last few months (up from twice a week over the winter), and I am so much more comfortable in the water. This is especially remarkable considering that the water temperature in Harris Lake was a balmy 90 degrees on race morning (note: that was 12 degrees warmer than the air temperature). So, I knew that I needed to be even conservative than I normally would be in a tri swim (this time was 8 seconds slower per 100m than my wetsuit-legal Ironman swim, for example). The water was definitely warm. It’s so weird to feel sweaty coming out of the water, but I totally was—sweaty and red like a boiled lobster. Still, I felt like a strong lobster, and I was totally ready to head into the bike.
The bike (last year’s time: 59:13; this year's time 1:02:06)
Not so rad here. Don’t get me wrong: I think that averaging 17 mph is pretty cool, but clearly I can do better because I have. I attribute my “decline” primarily to the fact that I went on a whopping three actual outside rides before this race. I did the rest of the “rides” on my indoor bike. To my credit, though, the reason for this was that I just got a new bike fitting, and I really couldn’t ride before that because my bike was so wickedly uncomfortable. The other issue for this race was nutrition, and here I just made a rookie mistake. I made a game-time decision not to bring Honey Stingers on my ride. I’m not sure why beyond the fact that I had to take my bike pouch off my bike to put it on the car rack. I took off the pouch, said “I won’t need this it’s only a 17 mile ride,” and tossed it aside. Well, at 10 miles into that ride, stomach growling, I really missed that pouch o’ Stingers. And I had to make the call to hold back a bit on the bike to conserve energy for the run, since I could feel myself fading. Still, once again, I felt pretty strong (and comfortable!) during the ride otherwise. I didn’t even get what I call “the googly legs” getting off my bike to head into transition
Finally, the run (last year’s time: 28:31; this year's time 26:32)
Again, so jazzed about this. When I came intro transition off the bike, the first thing I did after grabbing my race number was dig the extra package of Honey Stingers out of my race bag and chop five. This calmed the belly a bit, even if it did add to my transition time. Aside: My transitions were basically the same as last year, but T2 was 30 seconds longer. I ascribe this to the Stinger saga, but I also have to admit that I didn’t practice transitions at all.
The run for this race is a little strange because it’s mostly trail-ish: grass, well-packed gravel/pine straw, some mud. There’s a substantial hill near the mile 2 marker that I suspect feels more substantial because it’s at the end of a July triathlon. And while I was certainly tired and ready to be done, I was also certainly not demolished. This feeling (or lack thereof) makes me almost as happy as the over :30/mile time improvement.
Overall, then, with the longer bike and T2, I took just over 2.5 minutes off my total race time (1:50:28 this year versus 1:52:52 last year). This put me 82/151 (vs. 93/164 last year) for women overall and 23/29 (vs. 25/33 last year) for my age group. This middle-of-the-pack finish doesn’t really bother me (well, not too much) though because I think this race has a really fast field. The top times for women in each leg were 11:17/46:03/20:30 (wow-za).
Takeways: Practice pays off, so I should probably keep hitting the roads every weekend on the bike (the trainer will just have to do for during the week because that’s all I can give cycling right now). Also, it ends up that a good bike fit kind of is like couples therapy for the bike and rider. I don’t hate my bike anymore. I actually even feel some affection for her again, and I suspect that our relationship will continue to grow as we train for the Finish Strong Aqua bike in September.
Finally, I need to stick to my nutrition plans no matter what my car bike rack tries to make me believe. Sheesh.
No comments:
Post a Comment