I did my second sprint of the season this morning. For some reason I wasn’t all pumped up before the start like I usually am. Maybe because this is the third year I’ve done this race, or because I’m still recovering from getting my wisdom teeth pulled out a week ago and my body has been feeling run down. Anyways, after a nice 5 minute bike ride from my house I was at the start. This race is nice because it’s so close to my house, is at the pool that I usually swim in, and I knew a lot of people competing. I helped some friends, who were doing their first race, set up transition and then headed inside to the pool deck.

I lined up with the 15 minute swimmers and waited. People kept asking me how I looked so calm…I guess I just wasn’t really there. The pool swim was 10 laps in double wide lanes for 740 meters. Nothing too exciting on the swim, it felt really good and relaxed. So relaxed that I wasn’t paying attention and started doing an extra lap until I heard the lane counters yelling “white cap! You’re done”…I had to stop and remember what color cap I was wearing as it was given to me before I hopped in the pool and there were five colors to chose from. That probably added another 20m…oops.
Swim time 14:26 (1:57/100m)

My focus for this race was transitions as I was ridiculously slow in transitions last year. Unfortunately the race results don’t have transition times separated, I think they were both added to the bike time, either way they felt faster.

The bike went well, though I felt like I was working really hard the whole time, and my legs felt it on the run. I think I was passed by two guys and a girl on the bike, though that doesn’t really mean very much with everyone starting at different times. It was a four loop course that was advertised as 20km, but was actually closer to 18km.
Bike Time 38:39 (31km/h 19.3mph) (includes both transitions?)

Then the pain began. Well, there wasn’t a whole lot of pain I guess…just sick and sluggish feeling. The run heads straight into a trail and up a hill from transition, and then more hills. I didn’t feel like I had any sort of rhythm or pattern to my breathing until half way through the run. I was disappointed that I let myself walk up a couple hills…but I just couldn’t get the breathing under control. Oh well.
Run Time 30:46

For a total of 1:23:51 good enough for 11/18 F 20-24

My goal for the race was 1:25, which I obviously beat, and was 4ish minutes faster than last year, but I’m still disappointed. I guess just that I felt so bad on the run. Oh well. I’m going to be out of town away from my bike for the month of June so I’ll focus on the running and be back strong for the Olympic race I have planned in July!