2009 Rookie Triathlon

It's easy to say, "I'm just going to go out and race for fun." It's another thing to actually do that and not get hung up on how fast you're going. I mean, it's a race, right? 

I can't help but compare my current self to myself two years ago. I'm pretty much starting at square one. Pregnancy, childbirth and nursing have been hard on my body. Not to mention, it's hard to find the time to get in a workout. Add an extra 15 pounds of weight to the equation and I'm just not the athlete I was a couple of years ago.

What has really suffered is my biking. I can count the number of times I've been on my bike since Emmaline's birth on two hands (literally, I've been on my bike 10 times since July). My swim workouts haven't been too much better (15 of those since last July). Running has been a little more regular, but mostly short workouts since Emmaline doesn't like the jog stroller for more than 20 minutes or so. 

I'm trying to keep these things in mind and have perspective, but it's hard. I just want to be back where I was - fifteen pounds lighter, faster and the best shape of my life. 

The morning started far too early, for all of us. Emmaline slept a little in the car on the way down, which was good, but she woke up when we arrived, which was bad. So we all headed over to the race site and I got stuff set up. I wanted to get a warm up swim in, but I couldn't get everything to work out time-wise because I had the extra time snag of breast feeding Emmaline before the race start. I found a little secluded area and fed her. 

Swim

My wave went off at 8:20 - pretty much on time. I got into the water and UGH!! The stench coming off the water was nasty. It was completely disgusting. The gun went off and it was insane. There was kicking and flailing and swimming over. I felt very beat up. I never found my rhythm and every time I stuck my face in the water, it was pitch black which was sooo unnerving. The first half of the swim I was fighting with people in my age group. We finally lined ourselves up, but then I spent the second half of the swim dodging people from the groups ahead of me. It was a mess. Too many people in too small a body of water. Finally the swim was over and I looked down and my watch said 7 something. Ugh. I was pretty unhappy since I really didn't think my swimming had fallen off that much. 

Bike

I walked to transition to give myself a chance to catch my breath. Someone told me I had mud on my face. Lovely. I spent time in transition wiping the mud off before grabbing my helmet and bike and taking off for the bike course. 

On the bike I was about 3 miles in when I realized I really need to work on my bike. It wasn't going well at all. I was really struggling and my neck and shoulders were hurting from being aero, which I'm not used to. I just tried to do the best I could and keep my cadence up and hoped for the best. At one point I reminded myself to try to enjoy the ride and remember that it wasn't 56 miles. I could do 11 miles easily. A little over 45 minutes later I was finally done with the bike. Yikes!

Run

I was worried my legs were shot from the bike when I headed out for the run. I think I lingered a bit in transition wiping myself and my feet off. But I saved some time by not wearing socks. This was my first race not wearing socks and it worked out fine. No blisters. I've been running without socks pretty regularly so I wasn't concerned. It was nice not having to deal with stuffing socks on wet feet. 

The run is slightly uphill on the way out and thus, slightly downhill on the way back. Somehow the up always feels steeper than the down. Also, it is amazing how long two miles can feel. I felt like I was out there forever. I wasn't too hot, though and my heart rate was actually pretty manageable. I wasn't running as fast as I would have liked, but actually, it wasn't too awful either. Again, I've been running more and it shows. I'm not where I was two years ago, but I'm getting there slowly. Training with 18 pounds of baby in a stroller helps!

Final Thoughts

I was glad to be finished and happy to see Emmaline and Roger out there. I enjoyed some fruit at the Texas Iron aid station and tried to drink a lot of water since I wanted to make sure I didn't affect Emmaline's milk supply. At an hour and twenty minutes, this was the longest workout I've done since having a baby. I felt pretty beat afterwards and I'm really going to have to figure out how to get more training in if I want to do anything longer (and/or be any faster). 

Official times:

Total time - 01:20:06 49/81 in age group

300 meter swim - 07:17 2:26/M

T1 - 02:05

11.1 mile bike - 46:31 14.4mph

T2 - 01:43

2 mile run - 22:28 11:14/mi

Just for comparison, here are my times from two years ago:

Total time - 1:07:15 15/78 in age group

300 meter swim - 5:21 1:47/M

T1 - 2:08

11.1 mile bike - 39:10 17 mph

T2 - 1:41

run - 18:52 9:26/mi

Interestingly, my transition times are nearly identical. Otherwise, I was much faster a couple of years ago. 13 minutes is a pretty big chunk of time for such a short race. Just the bike, at over 7 minutes faster is a huge difference. And evidently I was bummed about my bike when I did this race in 2007. Talk about perspective. Geesh! Hopefully I'll get back there. Maybe next year!