triathlon #2 - done!

Triathlon #2 is under my proverbial belt!

It was harder than the first one, which surprised me. I think I got a little too "well, I've done it before I can do it again" maybe? Not sure.

The starting line for the swim was farther away from the steps than last time, which is OK ... but we had only 5 minutes to get from the steps to the starting line. I got there in time, but I was a little tired from getting there and would have liked a minute or two just to chill. No such luck.

The horn went off and off we went. I had some trouble in general, partially because I was tired ("go slow, stop kicking, go slow, it's not a race, well, it is a race but that's ok") and partially because the shoulder injury has kept me out of the pool for the majority of the past five weeks. I felt it this morning.

There was a little more contact with other swimmers this morning than in the other race, which wasn't bad — nothing painful or anything — just kind of annoying.

My goggles were fine this time (thank goodness!) and I was able to swim less off-course, which was good. I need to learn how to swim in a straight line. Spotting (looking up for a landmark) every few strokes is tiring.

There were quite a few people hanging on to the buoys for rest, and a kayaker had to come out and help one woman who took a mighty mouthful of water. I was glad just to keep moving, slow as that might have been.

So I got out of the water — hooray! — and started to run to transition and checked my heart rate monitor. 190. Shit. OK, so I walked to my bike. [The cardiologist-approved exercising heart rate is 165. It's OK to go higher at the end, for the last minute or two, but for sustained exercise, I should stay around 165. No, this is not normal.]

Got changed, hopped on my bike, and started to ride. And I learned that my fabulous mountain bike, my trusty steed, does not ride like a spin bike (on which I've done all of my training). Hm. I guess that stands to reason, since spin bikes are made to simulate road racing. And so for the first time, I am considering buying a road bike. Not one of the fancy tri-bikes that whizzed past me many times, but one that will be a little more race-friendly.

The bike ride was OK, except that I was monitoring my heart rate and couldn't go nearly as fast as I wanted to (or as my legs could go).

At this event, there was a sprint tri, which is what I did (750m swim, 20K bike, 5K run) and an Olympic, which is twice the sprint. The Olympic swim waves started after the sprint.

Now, I am fully aware that I am not a fast swimmer, and I had a little trouble swimming today. However, an Olympic racer passed me on the way out of transition, and quite a few more passed me within the first quarter to half mile of the bike ride. So these guys started swimming at least 10 minutes later than I did, swam twice as far, and got to biking at about the same time. I was impressed.

Now, because I was heart rate monitoring (well, I think that's why), when I got off my bike, I didn't feel like I was going to keel over, and I was able to jog the first mile of the run! I walked up and over the bridge and jogged part of the way back, until, inexplicably, I hit 190 again and slowed to a walk. It didn't come back down below 170 at all after that, but I decided that the last half mile needed to be not walked.

My goal was to do this race in two hours, but I didn't hit that. The official times aren't posted yet, but I'll post them once I have them.

Regardless of not meeting my time goal, it was a good race, and I learned from it. I am thinking about doing maybe one more this season. There is one locally on Thanksgiving morning that I was considering, but I'm now thinking that it might be a wee chilly for my pansy body to swim early in the morning. Not sure. There are sprint races in the valley every weekend from now until then, so I have options. We'll see.

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Also, I am likely going to delete this blog in another couple of weeks. Not much going on here — it's kind of just taking up space...