tri it in spanish
it's been over four months since i've strapped on the bib and raced. my knee has finally been tolerating 15 miles/week, along with 2-hour bike rides, with zero pain. it's time for a triathlon.
given it was my first race in a while, the stress was off: i had no performance expectations, my only goal was to push the pace and continue my pain-free streak. i was glad to have the pressure off: i lost some training time last week due to a sinus infection, and i got four hours of sleep the night before due to my mind still racing from an extremely busy day at work on friday. as i lay wide awake at 3am, i only hoped that the racing would continue on through the morning before my body would run out of steam. k, steven, jenny and myself met up at 530am to carpool to zorn, texas for the event.
the water for the swim, being a man-made ski lake, was surprisingly nice: ~80-degree water, no visibility, but a nice blue-green hue. i was quickly reminded how poor of a navigator i am in the open water: i'm rather certain i turned a 400m swim into at least 450m by the time all of the zig-zagging was through. i was so shocked by how far out-of-line i was during my first spot that i inhaled a noseful of lake and suffered through some swim/choke drills for 30 seconds or so.
the bike was a fun rolling out-and-back amongst farmland, but had strong headwinds on the return. i felt reasonably solid while spinning, except on the final road leading back into transition: 30mph decents on a single-lane, overly-crowned paved road with potholes galore. i almost lost control during that decent, but came out allright.
beside some calf cramp issues at the start, the run went very well. it was warm, but had plenty of shade on the trail amongst the trees. i was able to drop a nice negative split, flirting with 5k PR pace near the end.
post-race, we all got to hang out with our friends jack and jeanne, and enjoy the backyard food spread and awards. k gave me some grief about neti-potting in public this was a fun triathlon that had a nice down-to-earth feeling about it. bigger stages will have to wait until later this year.
[...]
i went to bed last night with a dry throat. i woke up in the middle of the night congested and coughing. although i'm feeling a little bit better now, i'm becoming quite fearful of becoming sick after warm summer swims in open water. those 10 days of incapacitation earlier this month are enough for one summer--neti pots and sinex only go so far. i can only hope that i'm cleared up come tomorrow morning--my nosing around on youtube hasn't been very comforting. no pun intended.
1:21:09 (5th in 30-34M, ~100 participants overall)
=======
400m swim - 9:04 (2:16/100m)
T1 - 2:10
25km bike - 49:19 (18.9 mph)
T2 - 1:06
5km run - 19:30 (6:17/mi)
* 1k-3k: 6:27/mi
* 4k: 6:35/mi
* 5k: 5:27/mi
given it was my first race in a while, the stress was off: i had no performance expectations, my only goal was to push the pace and continue my pain-free streak. i was glad to have the pressure off: i lost some training time last week due to a sinus infection, and i got four hours of sleep the night before due to my mind still racing from an extremely busy day at work on friday. as i lay wide awake at 3am, i only hoped that the racing would continue on through the morning before my body would run out of steam. k, steven, jenny and myself met up at 530am to carpool to zorn, texas for the event.
the water for the swim, being a man-made ski lake, was surprisingly nice: ~80-degree water, no visibility, but a nice blue-green hue. i was quickly reminded how poor of a navigator i am in the open water: i'm rather certain i turned a 400m swim into at least 450m by the time all of the zig-zagging was through. i was so shocked by how far out-of-line i was during my first spot that i inhaled a noseful of lake and suffered through some swim/choke drills for 30 seconds or so.
the bike was a fun rolling out-and-back amongst farmland, but had strong headwinds on the return. i felt reasonably solid while spinning, except on the final road leading back into transition: 30mph decents on a single-lane, overly-crowned paved road with potholes galore. i almost lost control during that decent, but came out allright.
beside some calf cramp issues at the start, the run went very well. it was warm, but had plenty of shade on the trail amongst the trees. i was able to drop a nice negative split, flirting with 5k PR pace near the end.
post-race, we all got to hang out with our friends jack and jeanne, and enjoy the backyard food spread and awards. k gave me some grief about neti-potting in public this was a fun triathlon that had a nice down-to-earth feeling about it. bigger stages will have to wait until later this year.
[...]
i went to bed last night with a dry throat. i woke up in the middle of the night congested and coughing. although i'm feeling a little bit better now, i'm becoming quite fearful of becoming sick after warm summer swims in open water. those 10 days of incapacitation earlier this month are enough for one summer--neti pots and sinex only go so far. i can only hope that i'm cleared up come tomorrow morning--my nosing around on youtube hasn't been very comforting. no pun intended.
1:21:09 (5th in 30-34M, ~100 participants overall)
=======
400m swim - 9:04 (2:16/100m)
T1 - 2:10
25km bike - 49:19 (18.9 mph)
T2 - 1:06
5km run - 19:30 (6:17/mi)
* 1k-3k: 6:27/mi
* 4k: 6:35/mi
* 5k: 5:27/mi
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