Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Austin Tri Race Report

Not to waste any time: a 30 minute PR!

This was a great race- always well organized by the High Five/ Jack and Adam's team. It was going to be hot and dusty, but they did as best they could to minimize the problems that comes with this drought we're stuck in. I was worried mainly about the "training through the race" that the coaches recommended- doing 9.5 miles running on Friday morning, and 52 on the bike on Saturday. I had stretched and rollered, and tried to recover as quickly as I could, but I could definitely feel on Monday that I didn't have any power left in my legs. But I didn't feel horrible, and I was excited about this race because my friends C and S were doing their first Olympic distance, and there were a bunch of T3ers out to race, cheer, and volunteer too.

Swim- 2:48/ 100m- the same as Cap Tex 2008, which is the only other time I've done this course. I zigzagged a lot, especially coming back up into the sun. And I probably couldn't worked a little harder, but I wanted to save some energy for the rest of the day.

Bike- 14.9 mph- it was a three loop course, and the first loop, I had a hard time settling in and getting into a rhythm. Only two hills and one false flat, but they seemed to take a lot out of me- probably due to the "training through the race" thing. I did get to see a bunch of T3ers out there on the out and back parts, plus some old TNT buddies from last year, and my cousin K, who just happened to be running on the trail and saw me- how fun and random! No flats and a 3 mph improvement.

Run- 16:15/mile- same as last year. It was hot- 90 degrees with 50% humidity. I liked the course with the winding out and backs on grass/dirt and pavement, and I tried to run in the shade wherever I could find it. I was getting dehydrated and headachy at this point, and I couldn't drink enough at the water stations to stop it. I ran the entire way except for water stops, and kept a good high cadence. And most importantly, I could imagine it was just a training run- it felt the same, and I could imagine I could keep that pace for another 6 miles, though I would need a lot more water stops to get there!

And last year I had the bad flat on the bike course, so if I wanted to get all negative, I could say I didn't improve, I just got lucky to not flat. But really, I had 8 hours of training over the weekend and no taper. So if I actually trained for this like it was my A race, I could go even faster. That's the positive spin, and what I'm going to choose to believe!

1 comment:

F said...

That is SO cool! You rock. With all the training and then you went and did this race too? Wow.