We arrived in town around 8:30 Friday night. Our friends, Troy and Kat had arranged for us to stay at Troy's parents house. We preceded to stay up way too late having fun, before finally crashing around midnight, I had been up at 2am so I was more than ready to passout! The alarms went off and coffee started brewing around 5. Everyone quickly made breakfast and we headed out to the race site.
This was also my first race with my new Trakkers team kit and I have to say I really enjoyed showing up to the race site in my team colors!!!!. Saucony makes the kit and it is super comfy and smooth. The water just beads off the material. I knew they made good running shoes, but was pleasantly surprised by the quality of their tri apparel.I picked up my packet, and headed over to transition. The interesting thing about this race series is that my husband and I rack and start right next to each other since we both race the open division. Well, I rack my bike and start to set up transition when the hubby shows up and asks me to slide my bike down so that he can fit in. Mind you there are only two bikes on the rack so there was plenty of room without me sliding anywhere. I told him to get lost..... What nerve!
Here Is My Transition All Set Up and Ready To Go
One thing I have really been working on is nutrition on the race course. I have started using the EFS Products and they are for real. I am loving the liquid shot. It is kind of like a gel, but there is no gelling agent. I think this is what makes it so different. It not only tastes great but it digests easy and keeps you fueled even during the most demanding efforts. I put about 200 calories in my bottle for the bike and it worked out perfectly.
The swim was interesting, it was my first open water start in the open division. I am by no means a swimmer. I was aggressive in the start and had some feet, but let some girls push me around and ended up all alone. About 2/3 of the way through the swim I caught some feet. However these feet did not swim very straight.
I should also mention that my friend Kat was racing the sprint, their start was after ours, but the swim finish was at the same spot. Kat is a VERY fast and GOOD swimmer. So I am swimming towards "the finish" when I feel someone swim over me and head in a different direction. I look up see that it is Kat and I think wow that is odd and mean, but kept swimming. Well, about 30 seconds later the lifeguards were blowing whistles at me as I had swam way off course. DUH, should have followed Kat!!!! Out of the water in 26:45.
I rushed through transition and got out on the bike. I wanted a solid bike and to be able to push the effort the whole time. It was a two loop course with a low grade hill. The first loop was good. I hit 39 going down the hill but my climb was a little dissapointing as I was a little agressive at the start. The second loop brough some rain, slick roads, bike traffic, and car traffic so even though going up I was stronger going down was slower. All in all it was an ok bike. My legs were really tired and didn't want to give me as much as I was asking for. Bike was 1:07 something.
Into T2!!! I was a little scared about this run. I have been known to be lazy here and I knew it was gonna hurt. I managed to push it and ended up running a personal best 43:XX to which I was happy.
Finish time was 2:20:XX. All in all it was fun day!
Probably the thing I was happiest about from my race were actually my transistions. I typically have had very very slow ones. T1 was second fastest female and t2 was fastest female. I have to attribute some of this to trislide. The stuff is amazing! I spray it on everything and you just slide in and out of it, not to mention it's anti-chafing effects.
At Awards
