Sunday, June 29, 2008

rochester

Brief race report: Info basically posted to the log I send to my coaches: 
Mixed bag of results at Rochester.
Good news: cut time off of my swim compared to last year's Lifetime Fitness tri. Last year, did the .9 swim in 50.50. This year at Rochester, my official time was 45:53. BUT, I am not entirely comfortable with that time. My watch, which I started when we started the swim, had me finish the swim in 39:53, so I'm not sure where the extra time came from. (Was not transition; more about that in a bit).

The swim was two laps in the lake. First lap was pretty disastrous. My goggles leaked and I was not smooth in my swimming stroke. Stopped alot.

Second lap was a confidence builder.

Got that dang seal to fit and then just swam. I really did not stop at a buoy or noodle line (well, I did once). Felt much better and was NOT last out of the water. Pretty dang close though.

T1 was 4:34. (Greg, Natalie told me that you are watching our transition times. While I know that 4:34 may seem like I took some time to eat some bon bons, I really didn't. My T1 time for LTF last year was 5:35, so I was a minute faster.... still can improve, however).

Bike was very disappointing, especially in light of how much work I've done on the bike. However, in my "defense": the course was incredibly hilly and it was very, very, very windy today. My chain also fell off TWICE, which added some time as I got of to track it back on the chain.

My MPH was a very disappointing 14.2 (last year at LTF, I averaged 15.6). LTF is much less hilly, so I'm hoping to improve on that on 7/12. I did manage to pass three people on the bike course. Quite a feat for a slow poke.

T2 was 1:34. Last year at LTF it was 1:56, so it was slight improvement there.

Run. I thought I was out on that run course for a million years.

Although my legs did not feel too terrible at the start of the race, I did not have a lot of mental steam working for me. I had several long conversations with my self: "What hurts?" Nothing. "Why aren't you running better?" Because. "Because why?" No real reason in particular.

I did have a "horse moment" when I turned a corner and found myself at the bottom of a big hill. I just stopped. I had had enough hills on the dang bike.

I was very surprised to see my time. Honestly, I thought it was going to be a pathetic 1:20 or more. Although 1:12 is a big drop from last year's LTF (1:02), it really was much better than I thought.

All in all, my time was 3:48:06. Last year LTF: 3:40:09. I was second in my age group. (There were only two, so this is not that big of a deal, but will score points with my sedentary co-workers...)

I think if I can keep my swim up; get my cadence up on the bike and not drop a chain (twice) and get my head in the game for the run, I should be able to improve before 2008 LTF on 7/12.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

All in all it sounds like your day went well. I know you're not thrilled with it but I'm duly impressed that's for sure. I think you have time for some bon-bons at T2 :)

Anonymous said...

You're a triathlon machine, girl! I LOL about the "horse moment". You finished the race and did it great! Congrats!

Sunshine said...

Glad you got the correct time on that swim... It does pay to have a discussion with the officials.. as you did.. when you don't think they got it right. They are usually pretty reasonable.