So, I am a little behind in the race reports. Will try to remedy that as quickly as possible. Here is 1 of 3 I owe you.
I raced this sprint tri last year and had a really good time. I also snagged a 3rd place AG which I think helped elevate the fondness. I had included it in my plan from the very beginning of the season even though it was the weekend following what was to be my first 70.3. I went into this race with no expectations and hoping to just better my times from last year. I do enjoy doing a race I've done before so I can compare my results and (hopefully) see improvements. Coach Mary wasn't super thrilled about me doing this race. Especially since I had immediately signed up for another 70.3 after Steelhead that was only four weeks later and therefore only three weeks after this race. "I'll just use it as a training day. Nothing crazy." I said.
I drove out to the race site that morning by myself. None of my usual group were racing but it turned out that I knew a couple of people once I got there. I checked in and was surprised at the line of people who were trying to register that day and being told that the race had sold out. This race is held in a provincial park which I guess must really restrict the number of people they can have racing. According to the race results there were only 121 people total that raced.
Swim - 500 meters - 19:53 (74/121) 2:40/100m
(Last year - 23:36)
All I can say about this swim is that it must be long. For one thing it looks long (though they all do) but when reviewing the race results and looking at the /100m times posted by a couple of the top local athletes it seems everyone either had a really slow swim or it was long. I am happy that I improved on my time from last year - especially because last year's swim was a hot mess - but overall I was still disappointed by this time.
T1
No idea on time for this because they included T1 and T2 times with the bike time (I hate that!). I stripped off my wetsuit and got into my shoes and helmet pretty quickly. The transition area was set up in a grassy/sandy area that made everything a filthy mess.
Bike - 20 kilometres - 41:25 (81/121) 29 kph
(Last year - 42:22)
It started to rain during the bike leg and I have to admit that I held back a little because I was nervous about it being slick. This course is two loops of the park with alot of turns and I really wanted to have a fast bike time so I was a little disappointed by this. Given how much training I've done on this bike over this last year the difference between last year and this year should have been much different.
T2
I overshot my spot in transition because the girl next to me had racked her bike in my spot - GRR - so I lost a minute or so here. I tossed on my shoes with no socks and headed out of there.
Run - 5 kilometres - 26:57 (82/121) 5:24/km or 8:41/mile
(Last year - 31:22)
I went out as quickly as possible and my intention was to try to maintain that pace for the whole 5k. Here is where my screw up with my nutrition caught up with me. I forgot my sports drink and gel at home so had had nothing during this whole race. I think I started to bonk at about 3k because I zoned out a little. Fortunately, someone I knew was going in the other direction and yelled out a "Looking strong Mary!". It actually snapped me out of a bit of a fog and looked down at my watch to see that I had started to slow down a bit. I also couldn't remember the last couple of minutes! Ooops. Anyhow, I got my wits about me and kicked the pace up a little. With about 200 meters to go I turned it on and ended really strong. I was excited with the time because it a new PB for me for the 5k! Yay!
After the race I made a beeline for the food because as mentioned earlier I had forgotten all of my food. Very disappointed to see that they only had hot dogs. WTF? Hot dogs? I had paid $85 for this race! Not impressed.
Overall
Total time - 1:28:14
AG - 7/14 (there's that middle of the pack again)
OA - 82/121 (funny coincidence was that my bib number was 82)
Last year - 1:37:18
I think it's interesting that I knocked 9 minutes off last year's time but didn't place. Booo.
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