Sunday, March 29, 2009

WOW!

Ooohh how cool I get to finally write a triathlon race report! First one for me since... Ironman '07... and first one since... giving birth to Moana!

It was just a little sprint this morning... 750 swim, 12 mile bike, 3.6 mile run. I showed up and I swear I wasn't the least bit nervous about the swim/bike/run part... but wasn't sure I'd remember how to get through a transition in decent time. Sure enough, I got smoked in both transitions, but hey... whatever.

It was cold and windy this morning (what's new, eh?) and even though I was under strict instructions to get in a good warm up, I only managed to jog for about 10 minutes and swim for like, a minute. Not like I was gonna actually get 'warm' in that cold water anyway... that was my rationalization... sorry, Jen! The water was actually cold enough to make it 'wetsuit legal' but no one bothered with a wetsuit.

I lined up near the front with Rachel, Kathryn, and Stefan. Rachel said Stefan was wicked fast in the water... I'd never swam (swum? swimmed?) with him before but given Rachel's description I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to hang with him. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when after a couple minutes I could see him off to my right and we were swimming stroke for stroke! I'm no dummy... I slowed down a bit and just tucked in his draft... tapped his toes for much of the rest of the swim (sorry, Stefan!!). It was great though because he just led me directly from buoy to buoy and all of a sudden we were running up the beach towards our bikes. Kathryn was, of course, just ahead of us.

Transition? Yah, not so much. I fumbled with my helmet for a while and by the time I was getting on my bike at the line, Rachel had already gone by. That was cool though- my super-secret goal was to see if I could keep her in sight for the short ride after she inevitably passed me. I had no idea how realistic this was because Rachel and I haven't trained at all together this year... so again, imagine my very pleasant surprise when I managed to stay just a couple of bike lengths behind her for the whole ride! We picked our way through the majority of the men's field up ahead and arrived into T2 together. WOW!

Getting off the bike I almost felt like my goal had been accomplished because I had no illusions of being able to run with Rachel... but again, after another slow transition, I started off on the run. I worked as hard as I could just trying to maintain my second place. In all honesty I don't remember too much of the run... just trying to put one foot in front of other and not trip over myself I suppose... I went as fast as my little feet would take me and for the first time ever, no women passed me on the run. That's another really big WOW!

So, first race back... second place overall... Though in all honesty, it's hard to be really proud of the placing because most of the fast local gals were on the Big Island racing Lavaman today. I *so* wish I could have gone and raced there this year but family responsibility and lack of funds made that unrealistic.

So the Blogger Chicks ruled the day today at the Waterfront Triathlon! And I suspect that if you pop on over to Rachel's blog later you might find this same photo along with her version of today's events. What a fun way to start the tri season... :)

16 comments:

Clare said...

you are awesome!!! what a comeback...i mean, ok, it was "only" a sprint but for some of us that's still pretty impressive!

Angela and David said...

Awesome. Way to rock your first race back.

And we have snow so no sympathy for a cold swim.

Jennifer Harrison said...

I love it! Cute pic of you and RR too....us bloggers are great! (hee hee) and way to rock it on your 1st tri back! Great start to the 09 season!!!

Charisa said...

Awesome start to the tri season!! You're going to have a great year! :)

rr said...

You were awesome today and I was running scared. Congrats!

X-Country2 said...

Both you lovely ladies rocked today. Welcome back to tri racing!

Molly said...

Congratulations! You rock!

cat. said...

YAHOOOO, mama!

your reign as UBER stud athlete mom continues!!

Ordinarylife said...

congrats!!!! What a first race back, well done.

Allison Chapple said...

Yeehaw! You've actually inspired me to want to race again.

Rebecca DeWire said...

WOW! WOW! WOW! You totally rocked it out there. Great race report and great pics.

Lizzie said...

2nd overall???? I would be freaking out if that was me!! Amazing work!

Mnowac said...

Nice job!!! Sounds like you are going to have a fast year ahead of you speedy. But I don't want to read any post from someone who lives in HI whining that it's cold :) Come get in Lake Eerie!

Kate Parker said...

Amazing!!! Congrats!

H said...

Love it, well done!!! Racing is cool, especially when you do better than you thought you would! x

Aron said...

awesome job!!!! you are AMAZING! congrats on the 2nd place finish!!