I found the key to feeling good about a race is to go into it with low expectations. REALLY low. I only signed up for this race because back in May, I was pestering my sister-in-law Sarah about doing a triathlon. She had been talking about doing one for a couple years, but so far there was no doing. So Sarah said, get on the computer, find a race and let's sign up! She wanted one later in the summer to allow for some training and was more in favor of a woman's only race. Outdoor Divas fit the bill. The only problem with it was it was only a week after the Boulder 70.3. But no matter, I said, we shall triathlon anyway!
So as I mentioned in the 70.3 report, I finished that race, then took a 7:30pm flight to Maryland. Once there, I drank beer, leisurely swam a couple times, experienced a few days of DOMS* and then had a connecting flight back Saturday, getting home around 8:30 pm.
I did not have high hopes of "racing" and kept reminding myself that I was Completing An Event. One nice thing about WithoutLimits races is they start at a much more reasonable hour of 8:00. I got to sleep in until 5:15, and left the house a bit after 6:00. In an astounding bit of coincidence, Sarah and I pulled into the parking lot at the same time.
I started in wave 3, going off around 8:30, Sarah was wave 2, about 5 minutes earlier. I think I noticed being at sea level for a week most during the swim. I felt that I was gasping for breath more than usual. I took an inside route (this counter-clockwise course also favors my left-side breathing) and missed most of the traffic. I think I passed most of the girls in wave 2 somewhere in the lake.
Look, another getting out of the water picture! It looks like there is fat oozing out of my wetsuit, but if you look carefully, there is someone directly behind me. Plus, my zipper is still mostly zipped up and I assure you my wetsuit is not ripped on the sides. I do, however, not have an excuse for my expression.
Sarah was in transition when I got to my bike and I was so happy, I know she was most worried about the swim. I hopped on my bike for the first time in a week and started hammering. My legs did not feel fresh and perky.
One problem with this course is that the 12 mile bike consists of 3 loops. There were about 500 competitors, with a wide range of skill and fitness levels. The end result being that by the 3rd loop, it was very congested. I was passing 4 women at the same time and I saw some sketchy behavior out there, like women passing on the right. No one passed me and even though my legs felt like jelly the whole time, my bike split was 2 minutes faster than the Summer Open Duathlon debacle, and my average power was 12 watts higher.
I started the run a bit hesitantly. Legs felt tired, but not weird tightness or cramping. There weren't too many girls out there yet and I only saw one women in my age group pass me. She ran 4 minutes faster than me so there wasn't a chance that I could try and hang on. It was hard to judge how I was doing since my age group had been split into two waves, the second going in wave 5. Somehow I managed a 28:35 5k, which after the 70.3 disaster I was pretty happy with.
Swim: 14:12
T1: 1:27
Bike: 33:58
T2: 1:08
Run: 28:35
Total: 1:19:19
5th AG (out of 105)
31st overall (out of 477)
I ended up only :25 seconds short of my PR on the course, and considering how beat up I felt I was pretty happy with that. See, lowered expectations! I'd like to really hone in on some speed workouts in the next 6 weeks and tackle this course for the last time this year at Oktoberfest and hopefully shave off a couple of minutes (crap, you see what I'm doing? I'm raising my expectations).
And, of course (and there was never any doubt) Sarah finished too. Yay Sarah!
*DOMS - Delayed-onset muscle soreness. Not to be confused with instant-onset muscle soreness. And oh yeah, it's possible to have both at the same time.
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