travels, races, and other musings

My First Triathlon I did it! All in all, it was way way easier than I thought it would be. I'm extremely happy with my results. I had three categories of goals: good, better and best. I did the "better" time for my swim and "best" time for both run and bike. Yay!! My transitions were a little long, but I had a long way to go to get to and from the bike in/out so I wasn't surprised. My final results: Swim 11:10.3 - pace 2:48/M (78th out of 210 men and women) T1 5:14 Bike 24:26.8 - pace 15.2 mph (108th out of 210) T2 4:09 Run 36:41 - pace 11:45/mi (150th out of 210) Total time: 1:21:42 (122nd out of 210) Pre-Race We got on the road a little later than I would have liked. In the end that was fine because they started my swim wave later than originally scheduled. We found some free parking, although it was a bit of a walk and headed for body marking. My race number was written on both upper arms, both hands, and both thighs. My age (at the end of t...

My First Open Water Swim  My morning began at 6:15 AM. I ate a quarter of a pear, quarter apple and a small protein smoothy. My friend Tom (who has been helping with my swim coaching) arrived at my house at 7 AM and we set off shortly thereafter. We arrived at the race site (Mansfield Dam Park) at around 7:30 and picked up our race packets. Then we walked a long way into the park and to the water. We milled about, checked out the course (two 400 meter laps) and picked up our timing chips. The timing chips are about the size of a quarter. In a running race, you affix the chip to your shoe with a little plastic tie. In a swim or triathlon they use a velcro strap around your ankle. I put mine on pretty tight because I was worried about it loosening when it got wet. As it would turn out, the timing chip was my achilles heel. More on that later, though... Around 8:15 they started herding everyone down to the water. We each had our race bag with our number on it so we could walk do...

I woke up at 6:00 this morning to run the Daisy 5k. Still battling a cold, I rolled out of bed, donned my running gear and headed downtown to run in the longest running (no pun intended - running as in number of years) 5k race in Austin. I arrived about 30 minutes early, picked up my timing chip and made a final pit stop before warming up. They got started a little late because of some road blocking issues. A little after 8:00 they started all the chip timed women (my group). Five minutes or so after that, the chip timed men got to go, then after that everyone else. I started off well, actually, a little too well. I probably went out too fast, but at the time, it didn't feel too fast. Mile 1 came quickly and I remembered to lap my GPS at exactly the mile one mark - 10:14. Yay! I tried very hard to concentrate on my form and I heard Karen's voice in my head shouting "floppy feet!" I did my best to keep my feet floppy which seems to be the main thing that helps alle...