Look, Jen... No Socks!

Jen gave me a hard time a couple weeks ago when I mentioned something about putting socks on in transition of that little sprint triathlon. I hate being made fun of. So today, no socks.

But you know what? There's a reason why people wear socks in triathlons in Hawaii. Can you guess what it is?

How about SANDY FEET?

And do you know what little grains of sand do to tender wet feet when running for 27 minutes? Rub them raw. That's what they do.

So I've got raw feet. But you know what? I didn't get smoked in transitions today. :)

It was another stunning and perfect day in Kailua. Which in a tiny little way bummed me out. Because we've been ocean training in Small Craft Advisory conditions out there for the last couple of months, and conditions like that = advantage: swimmer. Skinny little runners get tossed around a lot in chop and surf, and since every other piece of this race was favorable to runners, I just wanted one little thing in my favor. I can swim in chop. But alas, it was like a warm smooth lake in there today. At least the swim wasn't short like in years past.

Gun went off and it was full on sprint. I'd heard that Katherine Nichols had gotten fast in the water. Rumor is true. I was red lining the whole way to stay on her feet. All 9 minutes of the swim.

Run up the sandy beach to our bikes... heart feels like it might just pop out of my chest because it is beating so hard... and while my transitions were better this week, I still suffer some when there's a long run involved in the transfer from sport to sport. My point here is that Kathryn was out of sight by the time I started pedaling. She went on to win the whole thing so I didn't feel so bad.

I managed to ride the first half with Rachel in sight... even climbed the hill to the turn around with her. But then at the top I swear my legs were completely numb. I just wanted like 2 seconds to take a deep breath. I got my breath in as we were u-turning... but then Rachel was GONE down the hill. I actually felt a slight sigh of relief and just rode back at my own hard pace rather than Rachel's hard pace. Mine is easier.

Run shoes on. My poor heart had been beating about as fast as it could go for almost 40 minutes already and now I was supposed to run 3.75 miles as hard as I could. Hmmm.

I tried. I really did. And now looking back at the splits, you'd think that ticking off 7:20's in that scenario wasn't so bad. But you know what? Oahu is full of very fast runners. Seemed like everyone and their little brothers were running by me the whole time. That is so frustrating. I started the run as the 3rd woman and finished it 8th. Apparently I need to be running 6:30's to not get crushed in sprint races around here.

I won my age group though, so that was cool. The prize was a t-shirt from a 5K race from last year that I didn't do. Sweet.

Here's a picture of our Pacific Velo Tri-Team. We swept 1st place in W35-39, W40-44, M35-39, M40-44, and M45-49. Would have had M30-34 as well, but Tai got 3rd overall. This is a fast group! They're the same ones who drag me around the island every Saturday.

Anyway, onward and upward. That's the last sprint tri i'll do this year. Phew! I'm looking forward to the longer stuff now. 6 weeks until Hawaii 70.3. I just got my schedule from Jen for this week. It's a big one and it involves taking my bike to the track for bike/run intervals at race pace. I've never done that before. Should be interesting!