Tri Girl Tri Sprint Race Report!

 All righty, I'm gonna start off with this race report with a full admission: I expected to do well for myself at this race. The few weeks leading up to the event, I set my sights on a possible top 3 overall. There... I said it;-) But then last week I realized I hadn't been doing much biking/swim training since Vineman- which was in mid July! That's almost three mo's ago. So...I sorta chuckled at my cockiness and re-evaluated my goal. I still wanted to go for it and finish strong and get around 1:20 (the winning time last year), and if I do 1:18 I'm stoked (the winning female time from same course, different co-ed sprint tri back in May).

Like I shared, I embarked on this race with two fellow friends, one who I helped coach for this race, and the other who is a runner, and hopped on board the tri express 1 week b4 the race (so all you runners out there wanting to tri a tri...you can do it!). So another goal was to find the balance of supporting my friends, and all athletes doing their first triathlon, and still race my race.


I don't have many pics to share-I know...dork here! But there's a post race pic of us above. The race weather was perfect, and it the it was a more intimate race with about ~500 athletes. The breakdown of the race:

1/2 Mile Swim: Instead of a mass swim start or waves, you started as soon as you crossed the timing mat. This was a new one for me. I had intended to be in the first wave, or go across the mat as one of the first ~20 peeps, but during my swim warm up realized I still had on my wedding rings. So...I had to run up the ~300ft swim ramp to T1 and drop them off. I missed the official race start, and ended up starting ~4 min into the race. That didn't affect my actual time, but it did affect my mental attitude b/c I didn't know who was in the lead or where I stood in the pack. 

But I managed to do the swim (with a wetsuit!) in 14:15- STOKED! I gave myself btwn 14-16 min, so I was happy. Then there was a ~200 ft incline run from outta the swim to the beginning of T1, so it shows my swim time as 15:38, okay, fine I'll take it;)

11 mile bike: 39:33. Beautiful hilly bike course. The roads were closed (always love it when they do that!) and I felt comfortable on my bike. I had an okay bike time, but frankly thought I'd be faster. aw well... 



3 mile run: The run course was 1/3 trail, and 2/3 road, and had a slight incline going out, so you got to run more downhill on the way back. nice. At this point of the race I knew who the contenders were, but I didn't know how far behind them I was b/c of my 'late' start. Also, the run part is where you can actually see/interact with fellow athletes, and give smiles, thumbs up, high fives along the way. So I wanted to keep my mental race cap on while supporting the other athletes. I feel like I did a fairly good job of this. I high fived my friends, and gave several thumbs up to ps along the way. And I came in with a 20:11. 

When I crossed the finish line and looked at my time it read... 1:18:04.  

1:18:04!

Ya better believe I was happy with this time! I ended up being 1st in my age group and 5th Over All. okay, another admission... I sorta thought my time was going to give me a top 3 OA, but not the case as there were some speedy gals! AND the top 2 OA women were 43 and 47!! How cool is that? Yes siree...definitely gives me hope/motivation/inspiration for future tri racing.

 Here's a shot of me with my 'winnings' under the finish line (ya can also see how pretty the day was). 

And I just now realized this is my first 1st AG win in a triathlon. I've placed 2nd and 3rd in others, but never a 1st in a triathlon. So I gotta feel good, because ~4 yrs ago I raced this same event when my twins were only 8 mo's, and I was so inspired/motivated by the AG winners. It became my athlete goal to get there someday myself. Well, I guess I did with this race. so yeah, I'll take it:)


That's my report in a nutshell. Thanks for reading it, and loving to talk tri/racing! I'm off for a bike/swim as soon as I wash one more load of dang couch slip covers!