Sprint Triathlon Race Report

Here it is, several days later, and I'm still high from this race. After I post this I'm going out for a run - I'm missing having a training goal but looking forward to seeing how it goes.

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I’m a morning person, but getting up before 5 on a cold grey day is a challenge even for me. Nevertheless, we got up and managed to get going in time to get to the race site by 6:30. Everyone recommended arriving early so you can get a good spot in transition. It turns out I probably didn’t need to be that early, but given my pre-race nerves I don’t think I could have let myself arrive any later.

After getting my race packet (swim cap, timing chip, and race numbers), I found a volunteer to mark me. Getting my number marked on my arms and leg, and my age on my calf, made it all feel real. It was fascinating watching women getting ready and looking at their ages. In a few cases, I was wildly inaccurate in my estimation of a woman’s age. One woman who I would have pegged at 32, based on her physical appearance, was marked with a number 47. Her face did actually look her age, but she was incredibly strong, and held herself like someone much younger. They grouped the older Newbie wave together in the transition area, so I was surrounded by other women my age. Many of them had clearly remained in good physical condition all along, but many more looked like me: women who had woken up sometime in their 30s or 40s or even 50s and decided they were going to get in shape. In terms of strength and fitness, I looked like I was right in the middle of the group, which is what I had expected.

Setting up transition was easy and then I had lots and lots of time to wait. I had a banana, people watched, and talked and talked again about my strategy and expectations for the race. Everyone was incredibly friendly and interested in talking triathlon.

Eventually it was nearing 8:00, and the race directors gathered us together for a short talk then we walked, in our waves, to the start area of the swim. The older Newbies were the last wave, so we had to wait about half an hour before our start time. Every five minutes a wave would get into the water and start out. We clapped and cheered for each wave. Then I’d watch the swimmers, trying to figure out what it would be like when I got in the water. The really good swimmers were amazing. They shot out, so much faster than I can swim that it didn’t feel like the same sport. But in every wave I saw women doing the breast stroke, the back stroke, even holding onto the kayaks for support. I knew I could do the distance, I just didn’t have any clue how long it would take and how tired it would make me under race conditions.

By the time I got into the water, my toes were freezing. The water was warmer than the air, thankfully. Once we were all loosely gathered, they started the countdown, the bullhorn went off, and we were off. I completely forgot the advice to wait a few seconds before starting, and took off with the great mass of swimmers. It turned out not to matter, because the fast ones pulled ahead immediately, leaving me toward the back of the middle of the pack, right where I expected to be. I had planned to do as much crawl as I could do, and do the rest breast stroke. That wasn’t actually how it turned out. I did a little crawl, but as soon as I needed to breathe, I breathed in some lake water, coughed, and switched to breaststroke. I could not get my stroke right. My rhythm was completely off, and I was going far slower than in practice. At the same time I was breathing hard, and my heart rate was up. I switched to sidestroke, and found that I could control my breathing better and actually went faster than I could go with my out of rhythm breaststroke. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how to avoid people’s hands and legs, and periodically choking on unexpected waves. I did my best to stay to the outside of the crowd, which worked pretty well except when swimmers cut across the pack to go hang on a kayak, or swam across my path unexpectedly. I spent most of my time doing sidestroke, with a few attempts to use crawl to speed up, and breaststroke to see if I could find my rhythm (I never could). I wasn’t so much tiring myself out, as just feeling like it was taking forever and I was getting nowhere. It turns out that it was only 13 minutes, not forever. At last I saw the last buoy and the chute that headed toward the shore. When it got too shallow to swim I stood up and started walking out of the water. As soon as I hit shore, I started jogging toward the transition area.

I thought my first transition went well, but it turns out it took 2:43. I can make that faster with practice. I could have run faster from the swim, and I was pretty deliberate about getting myself ready to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I put on my helmet first, as everyone recommends, then pulled on my socks and bike shoes. Next time I’m going to bike sockless, especially if it’s a grey day. It’s really hard putting socks on wet feet, and my feet never did dry all the way. If I had gone sockless until the run they probably would have dried in the shoes and the run would have been a little more comfortable. Once I was set I ran my bike to the mounting area. I had good hustle getting out of T1. My competitive juices were up now that I had conquered the swim, and I couldn’t understand why so many women were walking their bikes.

As soon as I got on my bike, I took off fast. The course starts on a slight uphill, and a lot of riders were taking it slowly. I didn't. I pushed hard, as soon as I was pedaling. I was starting out tired but pumped up, and raced up that first hill, then went as fast as I could down the other side to the park exit. After leaving the park, the course has a fairly steep and long uphill section. I was mashing up the hill fast, passing lots of riders, including one woman who had been walking the hill and was getting back on her bike as I passed. I told her that this was the worst climb of the course, and responded “really? I love you!” Of course, worst climb does not mean only climb. The course is a typical New England ride – none of it is truly flat. But compared to my 10 mile commute, the hills were nothing. It is a beautiful course, although I barely saw it. I was deeply in my head, biking fast and aggressively, taking the down hills fast and hardly slowing on the ups. For part of the course I was trading places with two other women, both marked with 44 on their calves. It was fun to compete against them, and probably helped me keep my speed up.

As we came back into the park, we were biking past people doing their run. The last leg of the bike course is a long slow uphill. Even though I still felt great and was doing fine on the hill, it was a little intimidating to realize that I was about to get off the bike and start running. I shook off the fear, and focused on ending fast on the bike.

At the end of the bike course you have to dismount and walk or run your bike back to the transition area. Once again, I ran through this part, so pumped I barely noticed Dusty waving at me, or any of the other people around me. I really needed to pee, so I took the time to do so after getting on my running shoes. Even with the port-a-potty break I only took 2:03 for T2. Then out I went for the run.

Every warning is right. When I first started running, my legs felt weird. Not tired exactly, just tight and wrong. Someone on the sidelines cheered me on, and promised that my muscles would loosen up soon. Even though I’d heard that before, it felt good to hear it when I needed it.

I was running next to a couple of other women, and noted to them that I couldn’t figure out what pace I should be doing. I couldn’t tell if I was tired or not, or how long I had until my legs gave up. Another woman running fast past us told me that I’d find my rhythm soon. She was right. I couldn’t tell at all whether I was running fast or slow, but I found a good pace, that I felt I could keep up for a while. There were water stops at miles 1 and 2, and at each one I walked just long enough to drink a Dixie cup of water. I can’t run and drink at the same time, at least not without hurling. Other than that, I ran the whole thing, at a very steady pace. The run course snaked through the park, and eventually headed back toward the start area. When I could see the end, and there seemed to be about half a mile left, I noted to the woman running with me at the time that according to my race strategy, this was where I was supposed to kick it up for the last bit. As she started to laugh I did too, and said my hope now was to keep myself from slowing to a walk. It turned out that although I couldn’t actually speed up until the last hundred yards, I didn’t need to slow down any either. As I got to the very end, I kicked it up a little, and hurled myself through the ending arch.

That felt so good! The time clock said 2:03, and I knew it was tracking time since the first wave took off, so although I had no idea of my actual time, I knew it had to be under two hours. I had been hesitant to set a real time goal for myself because I didn’t know how to judge how I’d do in race conditions.

My expectation had been that I’d finish at the back of the middle of the pack, and my hope was that I’d do a little better than that. I did far better than that. My overall time was 1:27:53. My finishing rank was 252 out of 611 finishers, or just out of the top third. I also managed to PR in the run portion - my 5K time was my fastest ever by several minutes.

The entire race was incredibly fun. I loved hustling through the transitions, racing up and down the hills on my bike, realizing that I could in fact run even after doing everything else. I can't wait for the next one!