Spring sprint

So today was my first triathlon of the season and the first year anniversary of my first ever triathlon. I had high hopes since I did pretty well at my last triathlon and that I have been working with a coach for the past 2.5 month.

Anyways I was a basket case all week. Computing recomputing possible finish times and what it would mean in the grand scheme of things.Oh did I mention that I moved from a competitive age group to a more competitive one! I decided that I would try to shave off 10 min from last years time since I trained on my own for 5 weeks for that.

So anyways yesterday I did my last workout before the race and went to bed early. I woke up at 3:45-4-4:30 and finally at 5am. Got ready, grabbed my gear and off I go alone in the dark! Really... got to Fiesta Island (just before Seaworld), get out of my car to realize that I forgot my warm clothes and change of clothes and that it is darn cold this morning. The sky is overcast in the 5:45am light and brrr...

Anyways set up my stuff, get body marked, go to the restroom, say hi to a few people, get inline for the bathroom again, put my wetsuit on, freeze my butt off waiting to get in the cold cold water.

The horn goes off and here I go, too many people swimming just on top of me... don't like that so I slow down (not that I was going really fast) and try to get into my groove, wetsuit isn't too comfortable and the water is dark dark it feels like walking in a dark maze with a bright spot each time you breathe out.. feels long. I think 4 min into the swim I knew I would not have this amazing miracle and so I might as well stop killing myself and just enjoy the race ;)

5 min later I was really reconsidering this whole triathlon thing especially since my next race has a 1km swim (0.6m).... Anyways slowly but surely I make my way back to shores, that nasty part is finally over with. Run to my bike.... T1 is hell as our rack is way way out there, find my bike get out my wetsuit into my bike shoes, put helmet on, sunglasses and off I go.... Start of the bike goes pretty well until I hit the windy side of Fiesta island and I slow down to a turtle pace.... Legs are pumping and I'm like ohhhh run is going to be painful! I managed to take 4 sips of my energy drink.... Bike is over and onto the run never was able to settle into a pace. I don't know if it is because I'm tired or because I'm going fast. The first mile goes on forever, I get a side ache and then nausea settles. It is hard to push the pace when you feel like you are going to puke any minute! Nonetheless I tried to plow my way though the run, tried to keep the pace up. I passed quite a lot of people and got passed by people clearly in better running shape than I was so good sign. At the beginning of the run though I did take a quick peak at my watch to see that I would probably finish in about the same time than last year! Big Big mistake on my part!

Anyways the last straight line, I managed to actually sprint to the finish line.

A good friend of mine totally surprised me by hugging me at the finish line! This is so sweet after a hard race when you finish time was actually worse than the previous year and you put more training into it! I tried to push the bad thoughts away. I drank a little bit of water, didn't eat anything since I was still quite nauseous.

I came home took a long hot shower and had my first bite of food at noon! I know I know not good... to be fair though nausea left me alone about 2hoo after I was done.

So anyways all bummed out I write this dramatic email to my coach etc....

She very nicely puts things in perspective for me. She also tells me that she talked to several friends of her who did the race and 1) the swim was long 2) The wind on fiesta was strong. She also said that don't look at the time but rather how did you place in your age group.

Then two minutes later the results get posted and this year the whole women 35-39 sucked and so I finished 16/63 in the top 25% of my age group! Woot Woot. For once I don't care that if I had race in the 30-34 I would have barely made the top 50%.... that all the strong 35-39 triathletes decided to do some other race or stay in bed because today no matter what I finished in the top 25% of my age group!

Note to self.... consider a new wetsuit and please go practice open water swimming and finally figure out your nutrition so nausea is not your running companion ;)

Now I am very curious to see the splits because I have no idea on how slow/fast I ran these 3 miles....