7/15/07: Jeff and Bredes Tri Race Report!

Just the quick and dirty details:

Woohoo...survived my second tri! I suppose NOW i can call myself a real triathlete! :) Finished up in about 1:26 and a little change. About 9 minutes on the swim (better then I thought I would do), 47 minutes on the bike (about the same as what I thought I would do) and 26 minutes on the run (better then I thought I would do).

Overall, pleased, tired and ready to train even HARDER for the next one in a month!

but today and tomorrow are a well-deserved break-MacDonalds (yummy) and some drinks as tomorrow is my birthday and I turn 27!!!!!

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Now on to the long awaited details :)

Overall, now that I have had time to think/disect about how Sunday went, I am pretty pleased with how I did. Compared to Try Andy's Tri last year (October-9 months ago, read about it here if you would like: http://houstonrunner.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html), I am in way better shape now.

Just look at these numbers: I had a two minute improvement in my swim this year (although it was pool vs. a lake swim last year...), a 1 mph improvement on bike (damn head wind this year, but I also had a road bike this go around), and a 30 second improvement in the run this year...woohoo (that's really exciting considering that I haven't been running as much as I would like this summer!!!) Those numbers are very encouarging to me. That means not only do I have room for improvement, but at the same time, I AM IMPROVING. And I still have another month until my next tri:)

I didn't have the nerves that faced me at my first tri, which was really nice. I am wondering if it had something to do with the fact Strider Stacie and I had to wait about 2 hours for our time to swim! That was a little irratating. Then, we knew the weather was going to misbehave. It rained on and off HARD while we were in the pool house (indoors). We both groaned...we knew our transition items were totally soaked. Everyone knows how NOT fun it is to run in wet shoes! (oh, and it gets better...)

My swim went okay, I only was passed twice (something I was nervous about for some reason) but I was still panicky-feeling in the water. I had a hard time swimming more then 10meters without stopping or feeling nervous. The whole pool segment to me was just nerve-racking and I wanted to get it over. I need to really get over 'that' feeling though. But it did help me get out of the pool faster.

My T1 time consisted of me draining me shoes. The first part of my bike was in the downpour. Not too bad though, it was nice and cool and I had a nice tailwind that pushed me to 18-19mph during those early miles. THEN the turnaround, lol. I slowed down to anywhere from 14-16 mph. Ughh. It was not fun. Note to self: get aerobars and see if this helps in these times of need, for a comfort AND wind resistant reason...

My T2 was okay, except I dropped my bike. Then onwards to my favorite event-the RUN! mind you, the rain, ohhh the rain had destroyed about a quarter of the run path. It was actually very dangerous (in my opinion) due to the amount of mud/water on certain parts of the course. Maybe next time the course will make 3 loops of the granite loop instead of the muddy park?!

I finished strong with a good 100yard sprint to the finish and ate a few well-deserved slices of pizza. No beer this go around...but I'll get some next time! :) I remember feeling woozy though...and that I never quite felt like I got in a good pace during the race (at any point, except maybe the last mile of the run!) It was a good effort though, and I can't fault that!

Can't wait for my next one...now I have to tackle that extremely scary lake swim though....yikes. Wish me luck!


THE STATS:
15th out of 27 women, in 25 to 29 age group
265 overall out of 380 finishers
swim-9:05
T1-2:33
bike-46.25 (ave 15.1 mph)
T2-1:28
run-26:58 (9:00/M)

TOTAL DAMAGE-1:26.28