Try the Tri Recap

I recognize that I'm posting this rather late, but I've been too busy OVER-TRAINING. Yep, I think I might've overdone it this weekend and am paying for it now - muscle aches, exhaustion, random sharp pains (calf). Anyhoo, this post is not supposed to be about my woes, but instead my second turn in the TriFury Try the Tri series.

The series, which takes place Thursday evenings , has suffered because of nasty weather. Two of the six races scheduled have been canceled because of storms and I was fairly worried it would happen again. Thankfully, the rain held off and just left us with the nastiest humidity possible. ;-)

Though the pond felt like bathwater, I decided to buck convention and wear my wetsuit anyway. I'd never trained in open water without it, and I didn't want to test my abilities in a race. Did I care that I was the only person in a full wetsuit? Not a bit. Because I performed three minutes better than my previous attempt - 7:39/.25 mile vs 10:55/.25 mile a month ago.

Despite the wetsuit, I still managed a decent transition (1:14) and was on the bike in no time. Once again, I knew how fast my swim time was by the number of people who passed me on the bike. I. really. need. work. And while my bike performance was better than my last outing, it was still only 1 mph/avg better. Oh, and did I mention? I was drafted the entire time. And I'm not talking about a questionable draft. I'm talking about his front wheel on my back wheel THE ENTIRE RACE. I couldn't even spit for fear of hitting him in the face. Had it not been a young teenager who was probably not aware of USAT drafting rules, I might not have been so tolerant. And despite a warning re: spacing, he still drafted. I think it threw me off mentally. Bike - 35:57/9.5 miles vs. 38:29/9.5 miles a month ago.

My second transition was very fast (:56) and I needed that time. (Note: I went sockless for the 2 miler and had no issues. I tried to run 3+ yesterday without socks and ended up with several blisters. So, socks it is).

The run was challenging (as all Tri runs seem to be for me). My drafter (fortunately) found someone else to shadow and loped after her. I ran my pace and didn't stop (except to throw back some water) and managed to come in at 19:06 vs. 20:44 a month ago.

Overall time:
July 16 - 1:04:52
June 11 - 1:12:58

I managed to knock more than 8 minutes off my first tri. I don't expect to make those types of marked improvements in the next few races, but if I could lose a few minutes on the bike and get out of the water just a wee bit faster, I'll be happy.

Not bad for a newbie triathlete, no?