Foothills Sprint Tri - My First Race

This story is actually hilarious...well to me it is cause its not something I would typically do. I've been training with Fleet Feet for about 3 weeks now and 4 weeks before that on my own. My goal was always to do the Westside Y Tri as my first race. Well everybody else thought differently, My first day of FF training on a bike ride, the girl I was riding with, lets call her Rachel, cause I forgot her name oops. Well as we were riding/(me using her draft zone to make my ride easier) we were talking about races and such and she just straight up said that I should sign up, I told her she was crazy haha. So I pushed that aside till this past Saturday when a guy/great Christian guy in my FF program suggested I do the same, again I made up the excuse I have to go tear down the sound system at fellowship, he said he understood my commitment. Secretly though I had been dying to do the Westside Y Tri and was so excited for it to come, but it was still 6 weeks away. Well on Sunday of this past week, the day before the race I might add I went to listen to Shanin (my tri coach) do a transition clinic. I met a girl there that was a TriVols member and when I told her I hadn't planned on doing the foothills tri, she just kinda looked at me and continued to persuade me. She did have some good points like: I had said I was super excited for the Westside Tri and the day before I had done a 40 mile bike ride. So after her persuasion (geez women) I signed up!!!

That afternoon I spend time getting all my things ready to take to the race. Going to bed was horrible, I think I just laid in bed for 1.5 hours just thinking about the the next days race, to top it off I had dreams about the race like forgetting my chip and such. Morning came quick though, and I woke up to a dark rainy view outside my window. Luckily this didn't make me the least bit upset. I ate a simple breakfast, packed up and drove to the site. I got there really early which was good. I saw a lot of familiar faces which helped me so much to relax. I had been nervous all the time before but once I was there I felt great. I warmed up in all 3 sports and set up my transition area, I learned the most here. I did a lot of people watching, I learned stuff like what to pack in, which is a 5 gallon bucket (its a seat and a water tight container - GENIUS)

The race started with the swim as usual. I paced myself at about 6:30 in the starting line and ended up finished up at 6:24. In my rankings I was 50th out of 255 which I thought was legit. I felt great with that, I do need to work on some bilateral and rhythmic breathing, it felt kinda off, but didn't prove to be too much of a problem. I also want to practice flip turns under lane ropes...tricky but shouldn't be too hard. After getting out of the water I ran into the trainition area, keep in mind it was a wet morning, I don't remember if it was raining then or not, I kinda just didn't notice anything. My T1(Transition 1) was slower than I wanted I tried to put my running shirt on but with the rain and being wet from the pool I just ditched that idea, so I won't do that in the future unless I have a tri suit. Other than that delay it wasn't to bad. I'm glad I got mountain shoes for my clipless pedals cause they're easy to run in.

The bike started out great, the day before I had driven the course to see what kind of hills there were and from when I drove it I saw some bad hills, but when I got to riding them, they weren't bad at all. About half way thought I started getting a tight pain in my lower back, not sure what muscle that is, but it hurt, I was just tight and cramping. I rode through the pain and just wanted to get my 10 miles in. I got passed a lot, and I know it was cause I was so distracted by that pain. After the race I talked to Shanin about it and he told me about my riding position and thats why it happend, so I will be working on that too. I ended up placing 134th, so thats where I really need to focus some time to.

My T2 was easy, having Yantz really helped. I had done some bike rides followed by a run to practice getting my muscles to go from biking to running. So I knew what to expect, but the side cramp/tightness hadn't gone away. My first 1/2 of the run was miserable, I had to walk twice, but when walking the girl TriVols girls that talked me into the race, Alli, passed me and yelled out some encouraging words. I then got back into my run and once I hit the halfway point it was all great from there. The past few weeks I have really gotten a great running rhythm down, and I felt my body just kick into that as I turned the bend. As I made my way back I saw Shanin as he had already finished and was out running again with people in his class...(this man is a beast)...I also saw Joel and Sarah just seeing these new friends was great. I finished strong in the pouring down rain and its has just been such a rewarding thing. In my run I finished at 21:20 with a avg pace of 8:20 which was 110th place. I must have been booking it on my last part especially if I walked twice.

The end of the race was great, I hung out and talked to some of my new friends, and even so my co-leader Mary from DC. It didn't hit me until I got in the car to drive home what I actually did...I have been blown away all day, and all I can do is praise God for the strength and discipline to do something like this. It took a lot of energy, just from a nutrition perspective, I don't think I've ever been so hungry in one day. I had two breakfasts, some chocolate goo, a huge lunch, afternoon desserts snack, big dinner, and now I'm hungry again, I think this is all kinda funny. So how did I do over all, well my goal was 1st to finish the race, Check, my second goal was to not finish last in my age group, check HAHA I got 6th out of 7. Overall I got 111th out of 255, not bad for your first tri I thought. Hope you all enjoyed reading about my first race, I hope to keep up sharing about my Tri experience.