Hello All,
Thought I’d share my first race experience with everyone. Sure am glad to get that out of the way:) I was pretty nervous the entire week leading up to it, and the morning of also.
I did Uvas last year as a relay member and it was such a good experience that I thought I’d do it again this year in its entirety. Last year I only got in the water about 3 times before doing the swim portion of the relay and our team was still pretty competitive so I figured this year with some training I would do pretty well.
Everything started off ok, perfect weather. Water temp was 65 degrees. I was totally comfortable in my sleeveless wetsuit though I think I might want one with sleeves in the future for the added advantage. The swim start was pretty calm, as I was in the second wave (M25-29) right after the elites. Only about 12 people in the elite wave, maybe 20 in the M25-29.
The first portion of the swim was directly into the sun, unfortunately. It was slightly dificult to see the buoy, but not impossible. I felt pretty good in the water, having warmed up 500 yards or so. Hit the turn around and swam towards and then up the ramp. Pretty un-eventful:)
Transition went pretty well as I had my new tri shorts, top and number pre attached. Just stripped the suit (pre greased with pam) popped on socks, shoes and helmet and ran off. At this time I noticed a distinctively bad fog on the face of my HRM, and the fact that it wasn’t working also caught my eye. Ug, I had planned on racing the whole way with the monitor and was pretty dismayed that it crapped out on me. I guess they really mean it when they say that water proofness (is that a word?) is no longer guaranteed after non company battery changes. That sucks. At least it was a relatively cheap SI model. Polar 720 in my future:)
I’d never done a swim bike brick in any of my training up till this point and was pretty pooped on the bike for the first 2 miles or so. Caught my wind and then started trying to pass, and keep from being passed (the latter more than the former, of course). The bike course was 16 miles long with only one major hill about 1 mile in length. Fairly steep though. People may look down on triples, but I was really glad I had on at that point:) After that hill it was about 4 more miles to the transition area.
Of course, I’d never done a bike-run brick before either so I wasn’t really prepared for how bad my legs felt during the first 1 1/2 miles of the 5 mile run. And since my HRM was kaput I was having a hard time gauging my effort level. I did have my forerunner for the run portion which helped me out a bit, but as any forerunner owner knows the pace feature is spotty in it’s usefulness at best.
Drank some water at miles 3 and 4 on the run, had to pee pretty much the entire time, from the start of the bike. Not the greatest feeling in the world.
At about 4.75 I was passed by someone. I looked at his right calf and saw the dreaded “28”. He was in my age group! I think at this point that I had not ran as hard as I could have for a 5 mile race. I paced him till about 200 yards from the finish and then just built from there to a sprint at the end. Now THAT felt bad.
Overall I’m VERY happy with my experience at my first triathlon. I think I have lots of room for improvement on the bike and run. Need more miles in the seat more than anything else. But still, solid:)
If anyone else was there I’d love to hear their experience. J and A productions really does put on a great event. The food was awesome:) My only complaint would be the skimpy goody bags:) But, the shirts were nice!
Looking forward to a recovery week,
Sean
16:43 for the swim, 47:51 bike, 33:49 run for a 1:38:24 total.
Results here from anyone interested:
http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/52781_60273_2004.html