Ok, so I admit it: I was a little nervous. It seems rediculous to be nervous for such a short triathlon, especially since it's indoors. But I was nervous anyway. I guess just because it was the first triathlon of the year for me.
So I woke up at about 4 AM, and kind of just laid there for a while. At 5:30 I eventually dragged myself out of bed and downstairs to the espresso machine. Two shots of espresso and one hour of reading Triathlete magazine later, I was ready to go!
But first: Take care of the 1 and 1/2 year old. Got him changed, dressed, fed (ok, ok, so I gave him a banana and a sippy cup of milk on the way to grandmas, that still counts in my book).
When I finally arrived at the YMCA around 8am, the first 'heat' was already warming up in the water. I took my time getting my things set up; it was my first indoor tri, and it was very interesting the way it was set up. There was a large, barriered 'transition area', where you actually set your bike up on a trainer (pretty sophisticated one at that- the trainers allowed everyone's weight to be input into each individual computer, and then the trainer adjusted the resistance so that each persons resistance was 'the same'). Next to your bike, you set your towel, running shoes, etc.
Once I was all set up, I took a couple of minutes to time the swimmers in the first heat. Oh man, a couple of them were going so fast! I swim about a 1:45 for 100 yards, and some of them were swimming almost a 1 minute for 100 yards!
When it was time for the second heat, I made my way out to the pool and started warming up. I guess I waited a little too long, because by the time I finished 50 yards, the race director, Bo, was aleady in the middle of a sentence with the rest of my heat paying rapt attention. Then he said, "so keep one hand on the wall, I'll say ready set go and blow the horn. Ok, let's do it".
And we were off.
I looked at my watch after the first 100 and I was at 1:30. I figured I'd better slow down a little (in retrospect a mistake), because I didn't want to 'blow up' (probably not going to happen on a 550 yard swim) and end up losing time.
I was second out of the water at 10:10, so my heat wasn't incredibly fast in the water, and I ran out to my bike and jumped on. I was averaging about 22 MPH, and I felt great. Honestly, I should have pushed harder, but I kept thinking, "I don't want to blow up on the run, I better hold back". To my great surprise, I was the first one getting off of the bikes, and as the spectators clapped, I ran upstairs to the indoor track for my 3.1 miles. The stairs, by the way, were not a terriffic thing to encounter directly off of the bike.
My running was beautiful! I seriously think the run is going to develop into a serious strength for me. The track is 1/6th of a mile, so 6 laps complete a mile. I started a new lap on my watch and as I came around my watch said 1 minute. I thought, "not bad, a 6 minute mile. I better slow down some so I don't blow up".
!Oh! That kills me now.
Anyway, so I slowed just a touch to between 1:03 and 1:05 per lap, and was just flying by everyone, it was truly a beautiful thing.
I finished the run in 19:10, and after waiting around for a bit, found out I had taken 3rd overall and 1st in my age group. I was thrilled....but...the 1st and 2nd over all guys were less than a minute ahead of me in time. Sooo.....I was a little miffed at myself for holding back. I easily could have taken another minute out of them in any of the 3 disciplines, but I just kept holding back.
Oh well! That's what this season is supposed to be about for me anyway: learning what pace I can maintain for each distance. There is another sprint tri at the YMCA in May, so I'll be there for that one, and I'll go a little faster.
It's an outdoor bike and run, and the run is only 2 miles, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to absolutely desimate the run, I'm going to shoot for 10 minutes and see what happens.
Until next time...
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