2011 Skeese Greets Women's Triathlon Race Report

I had been looking forward to Skeese Greets Triathlon as my first race of the season not just because it was my first race, but because I've been feeling really strong lately and I wanted a good benchmark for how my training has been going lately. I knew my bike was a little lacking, but I've been feeling so strong on the run, I just decided that my strategy would be do have a solid swim, hammer the bike and then put my running skills to the test. It's a short race and I didn't feel like I would need to pace too much.That was the plan anyway. 

Pre-Race

Before the race, things went smoothly and I found friends to hang out with. Emmaline was excited to be in her new (cheap) stroller for the event and was ready to ring her cow bell. I was in a new age group this year (35-39, even though I'm not yet 35) and I met up with Amy Bush, also in my age group and we lined up together. 

As we waited for our swim wave, "Push It" (Salt N' Pepa) came over the loud speakers and Amy assured me that this was a good song to get stuck in one's head for a race. I figured it was better than The Wiggles and I was running out of time to get anything else stuck so I went with it. 

Swim

The swim was fairly uneventful. I felt fairly steady, but had trouble finding a suitable person to draft off of. I couldn't get on Amy's feet as we had become separated and there were people between us. 

I made the turn and finally passed the lady in front of me who I was trying to draft off of, but was to slow. Then I began running into people from the wave before and a few from the wave before that. The last bit of swim was really congested and difficult to navigate. There were green caps everywhere. Finally I made it past and out of the water into transition. 

Bike

I grabbed my bike and headed out onto the course, right behind Amy. We made it up the first hill and I kept her in my sight. Suddenly I realized I was going to pass Amy. As I passed her, I shouted out, "Push it good!!" 

 I pushed hard and was doing well and after awhile Amy passed me back and quoted another line from "Push It." Again, I kept her in my sight pushing myself hard. Just then the hills started. And the sun came out. And the wind began to blow harder. And a large clump of other people from our age group raced past. 

I just kept pushing hard, keeping Amy in my sights and eventually passed her again, singing another line from the song as I went by. More hills and more pushing. And then I passed Amy again. After that, the road got really rough. I kept worrying I had a flat. I didn't remember it being so rough.It was really uncomfortable to be in my aero bars. But sitting up wasn't much better.  It wasn't long before Amy was passing me again. This time she commented on the crappy road and we commiserated for a second as she passed. 

Again, I kept her in my sight, but I wasn't able to catch her again and I headed into transition close behind her. 

Run

I headed out onto the run and I was feeling pretty good. I knew I couldn't stick with Amy for the run, but I figured I could do pretty well. I felt pretty strong for the first quarter mile or so, then I started to run out of energy. It wasn't that I was bonking or needed hydration or nutrition or anything, I just didn't have enough left in my legs to keep pushing. I tried to adjust my form. That didn't work. I tried to pick up my cadence. No dice. I tried everything I could, but I knew I was slowing down. I thought perhaps once I got to the top of the hill and turned around, I would run much faster back down. Nope, not really. 

Luckily, it was only a two mile run, but I knew my pace would be similar to last year and that disappointed me greatly because I know I'm a much stronger runner than I was last year. So my pace was actually slightly slower than last year. Clearly hammering the bike wasn't a good plan. 

Really, though, I had fun leapfrogging with Amy and I had fun on the bike so I don't know that I would have changed it. I think the swim was long because my time (along with everyone else's times) was slow. 

Overall, though, I did well compared to others. I was 11 out of 75 in my age group which is a fairly high finish for me. At first I chalked it up to the new age group, but I looked at my time and where it would stack up in my old age group and in that group I would have been 14 out of 85 and out of all participants I was 43 out of 456 which I think is also a good showing. So really, it's not the age group. I guess all things considered, it was a good race for me, even if my strategy wasn't completely sound. I guess I need to work more on bricks and continue training the bike so my legs aren't so dead at the end of the bike. 

I'm racing again next weekend and while it's still a sprint, the distances are all slightly longer so I will definitely need to pace better. 

 Overall time - 1:09:07 43/456

300 M swim - 8:04 2:41/M

T1 - 1:20

11 mile bike - 38:49 17.2 mph

T2 - 0:52

2 mile run - 19:59 10:00/mi