Colonial Beach VA Sprint Tri Recap

I've been on an emotional rollercoaster with this one. I was super stoked to begin this tri. I was with some ladies from my team, my family was there, the weather was great, and I had trained hard.

We look ready to rock, right?

Here it goes:

Getting there wasn't too bad. We left Friday afternoon, stopped for lunch, and got to the hotel around 2:30. It was right on the water, about 2 blocks from the transition area. It was AWESOME! The lady that owns it has worked there since 1953! She was pretty cute - wish I had gotten a picture of her.

The boys played at the beach and then we got dinner. We just happened to be in walking distance to a ice cream stand, so we hit that up too.

Complimentary clothes line. Did your hotel have that?

There were crazy storms that night. Pouring rain, thunder, lighting...the whole bit. Made for some beautiful skies.

Race morning!!!! I woke up at 5:20. Had to be at the transition around 5:45. I
got ready and left the hotel. I was about a block away when I dropped my bike. Ugh. The brakes were rubbing, so I walked back and Sam fixed them. Whew! I set up transition, got my chip, got body markings, and then just took it all in.

Swim: There were only 5 swim waves. Pretty tiny race (288 peeps). I knew that I had the opportunity to be in the top or dead last. I really would rather not be dead last, but someone has to be. The water was real wavey - someone called it a washing machine swim. It was tough. My goal was to swim freestyle the whole way and to not panic (Rumpuss I spent 2 minutes trying not to drown). Well? I met my goals! No stopping, no panicking, just pure swimming. I felt good, but I felt alone. I never looked - but I felt like I was the ONLY one out there. Turns out, I was. I was dead last in my wave. I was embarrassed until I did my stats (yep.  nerd) and I improved my swim time by 2 minutes! Yeah me!

one is the loneliest number....

T1: WAAAAY too long. No clue what I was doing there!

Bike: This course is flat. Perfectly flat. I was really excited about that....until I was on it. Did you know that if there are no downhills then the biker is the ONLY thing supplying speed? I found that out. My quads were on FIRE! My goal was to maintain a 18 mph pace. I came really close with 17 mph! My first race I averaged 15.2 and the 2nd race was 15.4 average. I have to say I'm really happy that I pushed hard and made such a huge change in my bike performance! Once again - Yeah Ann!

T2: Seriously? Long again? Pull your head out of your ass!

Run: Here's where it all goes downhill. I used the porta potty before the race. I get nervous poo (TMI) EVERY race. Sometimes twice. This race was twice, but I only had time to go once. Right when they called my swim wave I knew I had to go again. No time. Oops. So, I swam and biked.....but on the run you just can't hold it. I started out the run and realized I was moving at a snails pace. At about 2 miles I saw a lady watering her garden. Yep. I did it. I asked to use her restroom. She agreed. I blew it up and ran to the finish. I picked up the pace by almost a minute a mile after that. It's the slowest 5K time I've ever had, but what can you do?

pre pitstop

post pitstop

The moral of this race? You really can only compare yourself to yourself. I compared myself at first to other racers. Big time sadness. 13/15 in my age group. Dead last on the swim. That all sounds terrible. Awful. BUT - today I got out my  nerdy chart and put my times in. Here's what I found:

Date	Swim 750m	Bike	Run
10/10	22:57 3:03/100m	47:05 12 miles Ave: 15:29	29:38 5K 9:32 pace
4/11	22:46 3:02/100m	48:24 12.4 miles Ave: 15.4	28:30 5K 9:10 pace
7/11	20:13 2:41/100m	49:23 14 miles Ave: 17.0	33:30 5K 10:46 pace