As per my usual, I got sick the week before. It is an unwritten rule that if I sign up for a race, I'm going to get sick, usually a sore throat or sinus infection, the week of the race. And this time didn't disappoint. My kids brought home the "back to school bug" and were nice enough to share it with us. I immediately started cutting back on workouts, taking Airborne and lots of vitamin C, eating cleaner, drinking tons of water, and getting extra sleep. Well, nothing was helping. I had finally been sick for 10 days when I contacted my dr and got a prescription for some antibiotics the day before the tri. I had a bad sore throat and a rough night of coughing that kept us both awake, but miraculously when my alarm went off at 4 am, I felt better than I had in a week. The medicine kicked in just in time.
I was one of the last people to start because they started in numerical order, and I was number 98. It was good because I got to watch a lot of the people before me and get a feel for things, and I also got to see Larissa finish her part running on a relay team.
My swim time of 11:31 was about a minute slower than I had hoped. The pool was 11 ft deep on one half and it kind of freaked me out seeing how deep it was. I had a little panic attack on my first lap, so I forced myself to slow down and take deep breaths after that. My transition could have been a little faster, but it always takes forever to put socks on wet feet.
I assumed I could do the bike in 50 minutes. I purposely kept my eyes off my watch cause I didn't want to know how I was doing, but I did notice I kept passing people. I was shocked to see my time coming in to transition area was 44 minutes! The transition from bike to run was quick as usual, and then I was off running.
The hard thing about this 5K was that I was still recovering from the bike ride and swim. I had a hard time catching my breath and it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest the entire time. Somehow I finished in just over 24 minutes.
My total time was 1:21:50 and I was the 6th female out of 50. I was 1st in my age group of 30-34 year olds. My swim time was 14th, bike time was 11th, and run time was 4th.
My first thought after finishing was that a sprint triathlon is harder than an Olympic distance. Probably because you are red-lining the entire time; you never get to settle into your pace. My second though was that it was so much fun and I can't wait to do another one!
My week leading up to the race looked like this:
Monday-1 hr yoga
Tuesday-14 mile bike/2 mile run
Wednesday-20 min swim
Thursday-rest
Friday-rest
Saturday-triathlon!
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