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.

New Record Distance

FIFTY miles today! Yes, this was my longest ride ever! And yes, I'm pleased... I'm very glad that Kim was with the group today or else I'd have been left alone in the back of the pack. But, that's okay - I'm new to this.

Total Distance: 50.19 miles
Avg Speed. 14.8 mph
(we did stop twice though) It is slow, but thats okay. We still have several weeks to improve before Longhorn.

Fun in the Pool.

I finally gained the courage to try the YMCA Masters class again - I'm hooked. The coach is great and was willing to work with me. Gave me numerous pointers throughout the night and really broke my stroke down. I was told that I have a lot of room for improvement and that each week he will make a necessary adjustment. Also, at the end of the practice, we did an exercise that breaks down each element of the freestyle stroke - very helpful!

Randomness...

Okay, its been a while... a long while. I never did the race report. I'll make it short - everything but the swim went well. Somehow I averaged 19.1 mph on the bike and 9:33 miles on the run. I'm happy with the bike and I'll accept the run. I haven't been pushing myself enough on the runs and I'm working on it - honest. With regard to the swim, it just sucked. Yes, that is the technical word. For some reason, I flipped out at about 20m into it. I think that it was a combination of nerves, breathing, and only swimming a handful of times in a 50m pool.

Since the tri, work has been crazy. In this day of settlement, we actually went to trial... Needless to say, I had several busy weeks. Now, I'm really back with it and have learned a few lessons -

1) My swim sucks... I gotta spend a lot of time in the pool. I'm giving the Downtown Y Masters class another try this week and will try UH Masters next week.

2) My core is weak... Haven't done core in ages and did it yesterday - boy was it embarrassing.

3) Hills are tough... Yes, I know that this is not really a revelation; however, this past weekend was my first round of hills on the bike. I was hurting Saturday afternoon.

4) ATP is practice... Houston Fit ATP is not a running group. We have practices that require mandatory attendance unless a prior excuse has been cleared with the coach. Well, at least this is what I'm telling myself.

5) The scale can be a dirty liar... So, I've been a bit frustrated that I haven't actually dropped that much weight. Then, yesterday at the office, someone commented that I was looking good and that she could tell that I'd lost some weight. Yes, I have a new favorite assistant.

Race Report... Coming Soon...

Reading everyone's race reports from CDA is inspiring me to write mine from my FIRST tri! I'll update soon...