250 yard swim
4 mile bike
1.4 mile run.
The race was an excellent opportunity to round up my gear and go! I was sooooo excited and nervous about the race, much, much more than I thought I would be!! I used a checklist given to me by a member of the swim team to round up my gear the night before. I fretted that I might forget something, but I didn't. Everything was just perfect. With three disciplines and two transitions, I worried that I would forget to do something, but I didn't. Well, I almost forgot to get bodymarked, but my helpful husband who came along reminded me. The pettiest things confounded me. I couldn't figure out how to get the race number on the race belt until I saw someone else do it. Once the race got underway, everything more or less fell into place.
Swim 5:18
I was seeded at the beginning of the race, and was the 36th person in the water (out of about 280). I found it really challenging to get in the water and go. Unlike a swim meet, we had no opportunity to warm up in the water and I had to get in and start swimming fast. The snake swim format of touching the wall on both sides of the lane marker plays into my bad habits. When given the opportunity, I'll hold onto the wall and take a few breaths. This gives me the opportunity to rest as people bunch up in the middle of the swim...but then we spread out, so it went well.
As I swam, I couldn't help but think that the swim team was great preparation. The race was almost like swim practice in which there's the intimacy of having 7 co-ed people in a lane and all the splashing that ensues. The swim team is also a great introduction to swimming as a contact sport as I sometimes accidentally hit other people and they accidentally hit me. Nobody complains. In the race, there was one guy tapping my toes, and of course I tried to swim faster, but I thought he should just back off a bit.
T1
Took really long....way too long. The transition times weren't reported, but it can be surmised from the overall time. I wore my crocs into the pool area and put my cochlear implant processor in them. A friend suggested that I put them near where I come out of the pool, but since I couldn't tell where I'd come out, I had to ask permission to walk across the pool and get it. I also expected this transition to be lengthy because I spent time putting on my socks and tying my shoes and generally assembling myself. Should I put on the race belt now, or later? I clipped and unclipped the belt. Sunglasses on or off? Let me decide. Next time, I'll make a plan and stick with it to avoid making all of these decisions mid-race.
Bike 21:18:00
Flat and fast, but for me very slow. Cycling is my weakest area and many people who were next to me in the swim passed me. I'll have to work on this. As I came back into transition, I also remembered to put my bike in lowest gear to generate leg turnover for the run.
T2
Much faster because I simplified things by using my running shoes for the entire race. But for the most part, the race was an opportunity to experiment and try things that I might do in the future.
Run 12:56
I started out behind a 61-year-old gentleman -- the oldest person in the race -- although I didn't stay behind him. I was surprised by how tired I was at the end of the short-distance race.
And then in 39:32 minutes, it was all over. I finished in the middle of the pack in my age group. I had a great time!
A sherbet green bike is really easy to find in transition!
3 comments:
I also participated in the 2008 Manassas Mini Tri. It was my first ever triathlon and I was also quite nervous.
I'm 39 and I swam competitively in High School, but I haven't been in 'swimming shape' in many years, so I was worried that the swim leg would exhaust me to the point of being detrimental to the later legs of the race.
The swimming leg for me was COMPLETE CHAOS! I timed myself a couple of times earlier in the week at my neighborhood pool and came in at around 4:20 each time. I put 4:30 as my swim time when I registered and figured I would just leave it there. I wound up with starting #371 - probably 20 or so people behind you.
I started touching people's toes pretty much right away on the first length and I think I passed at least one person in each length of the snake swim. At one point I went in between two people. I think it would have been better to start people at 10 second intervals, but it would have obviously lengthened the race - and there were a LOT of people who need to get moving.
Another observation - several times there were people kind of milling around at the ends of the pool before ducking under the lane marker. I felt a little bad, but I just totally ignored whether or not anyone was there and just plowed ahead. I think I must have inadvertently pushed or came close to several swimmers while doing this - but I really didn't want this 'traffic' to slow me down.
What really amazed me was that since I was constantly worrying about passing people, dealing with traffic at the ends of the pool, etc. - I wasn't thinking at all about how much more remained to go at any given time. Then, before I knew it I was on the last length. I couldn't believe it went that fast! It was the strangest feeling because when I was timing myself earlier in the week, in my head I was all too aware of where I was in the swim as I was counting down the lengths to go and, bringing back High School swim team memories, feeling the pain as the lengths went by at what seemed to be very slow pace.
When I got out of the pool and headed toward the first transition I wasn't that tired, but I was quite disoriented. I had a hard time finding my bike. I had earlier thought to walk down what I believed to be the path coming out of the pool to the transition area, but it turned out that they made us take a little sidewalk down the side of building instead, so my bearings were all off. I probably wasted 10-15 seconds just finding my bike - grrr... If I hadn't been so disoriented I probably could have figured it out more quickly.
Once I got to my transition area I got ready pretty quickly. I had practiced the first transition the night before, so I had a set order of of things to do (shirt and helmet first while I wiped my feat, then socks and bike shoes). I took Ina's (the race coordinator) advice and folded my socks in a way that would make them easier to get on when my feet were wet - that was a great tip!
The bike route was pretty flat and I kept a pretty fast pace. I had obsessed the week before the race about getting aero bars on my bike. I ordered them and they arrived on Friday, but when I attempted to put them on my bike I unfortunatley found that the most important bolt on the assembly was completely stripped, so I had to send them back to the retailer. During the race, however, I passed several people who had bikes with aero bars - how ironic!
The transition from bike to run was pretty painless, but the run itself was painful, at least at first. I studied the splits chart from last year's race and saw that most of the people who did well in the race had outstanding run times - considering its the last leg of the race - times like 8:30 or less for 1.4 miles. In the week preceding the race I timed my self on the treadmill after having completed about 35-40 minutes of a spinning class and found that my time was around 10:20, which I knew wouldn't cut it if I wanted to place in my age group.
Although I was definitely feeling fatigued, I tried to keep a faster-than-comfortable pace in the run because it was so short - you can always catch your breath after the finish line right? As the run went on, I started to feel a bit more comfortable with the faster pace and, at that point, picked it up slightly again. I passed several runners along the way which gave me a boost. As I approached the finish like I saw the time clock and realized that I was probably going to post a better time than I had expected, and this gave an extra reason to sprint to the end - which I did. It took a few minutes to catch my breath afterwards, but I felt really good about the race and my prospects for placing.
In the end, I placed 3rd in my age group and 18th overall with a time of 28:02. I was shooting to break 30 minutes, so I was very pleased with my time. After this satisfying first experience, I'm ready for more! I plan to do the South Riding Triathlon - which is longer than this mini - in September. Perhaps I'll see you there!
- Jeff Davis, Fairfax, VA
Wow! That's about the shortest tri I've heard of - but it's a tri! It counts!! Well done!!
Well I am 52 and "training" for my first tri. I missed 09 in manassas so I guess I have to wait for next summer but these 2 stories have just made me really happy at a boring day at work.
Post a Comment