Issaquah Sprint Triathlon June 5 2010

Last Saturday I did my first triathlon of the season, my second triathlon ever, the Issaquah Sprint Tri.  The official distances of each leg were 1/4 mile swim, 15 mile bike ride, 3 Mile run.

Details
29th out of 108
The actual course:. As measured by Garmin: 14.7 mile bike ride, 2.69 run.
Times:

• swim  08:15, 35th in AG
• t1       3:17, 50th in AG
• bike:  43:07 or 20.9 mph, 24th in AG
• t2      2:32 81st in AG
• run   20:23, 35th in AG

20.9mph bike, official 6:45 for run, but I think that was assuming a 3 mile run. If the run was 2.69 and total time was 20:23, meaning real pace was 7:34.

Race Prep
I can't say I was flying for this race. Work has been grueling. I end up working most nights after the kids go to bed. Usually knock off around 10, 10:30. I had only been riding on the weekends, averaging one ride per week. My running had tapered a little bit, but I had been focusing on speedwork. And my swimming is still definitely in the 'technique and endurance buildup' phase. So I didn't have massive expectations, I just wanted to make sure I went as hard as I could.

Day of Race:
It was the first nice day in 3 weeks. But it was still cold. I ventured out into the lake to see how cold, and came back with an ice cream headache. It was so cold it literally took my breath away. I had to force myself to take slow, deep breaths -- once I had a layer of water around my chest and it had started to warm up, this was easier. But my feet were insta numb, and it felt like I was moving through molasses.

Swim:
After the warmup it ended up being about 30 minutes to the start. I once again had the joy of immersing my body in ice cold water and losing my breath, but I got it out of the way before the start. This time I started in the middle of the field, and fortunately didn't have a lot of people crawling over me. But I was definitely thrashing. I was uncomfortable because it was so cold, and I kept having to re-sight. Started getting tired near the end - thing is, it was only a 1/4 mile swim, but it felt so much longer!

T1:
I stumbled out of the water. Couldn't feel anything beneath my knees, and my arms were completely pumped. Fortunately, the wetsuit came off like a prom dress (fast!), because of the leg zips. I was still having issues feeling anything, and struggled to get my bike jersey on. Next time, I'm just going to wear a sleeveless jersey under the wet suit. Hopefully it will be warm enough so that  I dont regret doing that, but trying to put on a bike jersey with completely pumped arms is a stumblefuck of an experience. I lost a lot of time in transition -- basically the two places before me had slower run/bike/swim times, but faster transitions. Transitions are free time, I shouldn't be pissing them away.

Bike:
The first part of the bike course was about 3 feet wide, for about a mile. This made it hard/impossible to pass slower people, which was frustrating. The road opened out after that, and once we were on lake sammamish, it was smooth sailing. Sort of. I still couldn't feel anything beneath the knees, not sure if this was good or bad, but I felt like I was struggling on the bike for the first 5 miles. Definitely felt like I was getting into a good groove around mile 13, but then we were back into the narrow cones and getting ready for T2. 20.9 mph is decent, but I would definitely like to be able to move faster than that next time.

T2:
Since all I had to do was change into my shoes, I was amazed at how hard T2 really was. I think most of the difficulty was that I still couldn't feel my toes. Getting socks on was not an option (next time: bring a towel just for this!), I shoved my feet into running shoes and stumbled out onto the run.

Run:
Ouch. I think some bricks are in order. I felt like hell the first mile. The second mile I was fighting off a hamstring cramp. The third mile I started to feel good, but before I knew it, there was the finish line. 7:34/ mile is pretty freaking slow. But it's hard to run when you can't feel your feet :)

Overall:
A little slower than my last triathlon in September. But just a little. The first transition definitely went better, and I'm pretty happy to have survived the swim and done decent on the bike, and glad that the leg cramp on the run was fleeting.

I would like to believe that Olympic might be more my thing, based on how I was feeling by the time I finished each leg (except the swim. I was just glad that was done). The nice thing about triathlons is that I always feel like I did something at the end, even the short ones like this.