SheRox Triathlon

The primary reason I've done this race the past two years is that as a mentor, I get my entry fee comped. And when you are looking at nearly $100 a pop, that's a good deal. But I think I may keep doing it because it's so nice not to race in Boulder all the time. Racing at home, I get my butt kicked, every time. People in Boulder are scary fast. But it turns out that compared to the average woman, I'm a decent triathlete. And I like feeling good once in a while.

I had a few goals for today:

1. Win my age group (yes! by over 6 minutes!)
2. Go under 1:20 (so close, 1:20:19)
3. Enjoy the day (eh)
4. Top 10 finish (13... close)

And my race report - The swim went ok. I was in wave 2, 4:00 minutes behind the first wave. I caught the bulk of the first wave about 2/3 of the way threw. If anything, the swim was hard because I'm used to swimming with a lot of people around me. Once I got by the first wave, we were very spread out. I think someone shouted at me that I was 16th out of the water (I was 20th overall, but there were some very fast gals in their 40's in a wave behind me). The timing mat was clear up at transition, which was up a very big hill. My watch said my swim was 16:30 at the lake shore, but my official time with the jog was 17:28.

My bike was ok. I kept reeling girls in but my legs felt flat. It might have had something to do with not really training for this race. I had done a Stroke & Stride aquathon Thursday night (1500 meter swim, 5k run) and a 20 mile ride on Friday. I spent Saturday morning in the sun timing a swim meet before doing my 45 minutes pre-race workout. Where was I? Oh yeah, my point - I wasn't exactly primed and ready for this race and I could feel it on the bike. Plus, this is a challenging course. It's all hills and they are just steep enough that your legs are burning by the top. I got passed by one girl, right at the end. She dismounted slowly and I tried to repass her, but she was going to the left and I was going to the right and I cut her off and our bikes got locked. And I was so addled that I didn't apologize (but I did later on the run).

And the run was ok. If the course wasn't short, I got a new PR - 26:40. But of course, when I do well, I figure that I had to have some help (my Stroke & Strides 5k was 27:40).

While this race failed my social needs (no D3 or TriBabes out there) I did get to meet up with an old classmate Hannah, doing her first triathlon. I went out with her again on the her run and it was fun to fulfill some mentoring duties and catch up.

Weekly Totals:

Swimming: 9104 yards (swimming meters messes up my round numbers!)
Bike: 66.5 miles
Run: 11.5 miles

Total: 9:30