Race Report: Iron Babe

I decided to race on Saturday afternoon and was one of the last people to register. Seriously, registration ended at 5:00; I registered at about 4:50. The whole point of registering was to get in a smaller open water swim before doing Clear Lake next weekend.

As usual, I was nervous before the swim. The water had a bit of a chop to it (or at least I thought that it did). By far, open water swims are much better than the pool. Apparently, the participants in this race were pretty rough and there were a lot of elbows and people swimming over each other. As I heard people complaining about it afterwards, I remarked to myself that it wasn't actually that bad. I was glad that I didn't have to worry about the person behind me and felt like I could swim my own (slow) race. Towards the end, I finally just put my head down and did ten stroke intervals. The ten strokes turned into thirty and I was quickly out of the lake.

I do not mind the bike portion of the race at all. I had the bike adjusted on Friday before the race. At the beginning of the bike portion, I felt the seat move on the bike. Fortunately, it just moved along the bracket and there were no real problems. I now just need to figure out why my seat will not stay in the most forward position. During the race, I just tried to keep pace with those in my age group. I thought that the strategy worked pretty well.

The run was fabulous for me. Lately, I've been struggling on the runs; however, for some reason, I can't pull off a 10:00 mile for the marathon pace portion of a run but can easily run faster than that for the last leg of the tri. I haven't yet completely figured out how the garmin works in the multisport function. As such, I have no clue what my actual pace is during the run. It only gives me total time (including bike and transition) and total distance (including the bike). But, maybe that is why it is easier to do well - I'm not worrying about hitting a specific pace and just run.

Time: 1:17.32
Swim: 8:57.9 (no doubt where my weakness is)
T1: 1:36.6
Bike: 36:28.0 - 18.1 mph
T2: 2:05.6
Run: 28.24.1 - 9:28/mile

Age Group: 17/60
Overall: 128/362

Tired

So, is anyone else out there just inexplicably tired? I don't know what is going on with my right now. I cannot get out of bed in the mornings and don't feel like doing much. This morning, I barely made it 3 miles (unfortunately 5 was on the schedule for today). My legs feel like lead and my ankles are killing me... Maybe I need new shoes? But how can that explain my inability to get my butt out of bed in the mornings?

Vacation

This weekend the hubby and I were in Dallas to celebrate his birthday. What a much needed break. Every year he celebrates his bday with an old friend, Steve, and this year the party was in Dallas.

Steve and Eve (his wife) recently purchased a gorgeous new house complete with a pool. The entire weekend was spent hanging out by the pool. I worked on perfecting (well learning) a back dive and even attempted the front flip - I've almost got the flip. Of course, everyone thought that I was crazy because of my exuberance in getting things right. I think that I was diving for at least an hour straight.

Perhaps the best part of the weekend was spending time with Steve, Eve, and their four year-old Kyra. I love this little one so much and always enjoy spending time with her. It is amazing to see how much she has grown in the past three years and how much she changes each time I see her. Yet, no matter how much she grows, she is always so excited to see me - apparently, I'm her best friend (but I'm sure she tells all the ladies that...)

I will update with pictures - couldn't get the card reader to work last night.