I surived my race in Key West! It was a great weekend; I love this place! So glad I got the opportunity to come down here and race.
I got there Friday afternoon and got right into the water to do a practice swim. So glad I did, because as it turned out the conditions were worse on Friday than on race morning. I only swam about 10 minutes (just enough to break my new wetsuit in!) and got the feel for breathing and sighting with the waves. After that, we did a short bike and run. It was kind of a late night because after that I went back to the hotel to check in and shower up, then went to hear my coach give a talk at 6 pm, then dinner, then I hit up the Winn-Dixie so I'd have some food in the hotel. I didn't get to bed until about 10pm, which is late for me!
For triathlons, you have a transition area where you set everything up and use it as your 'base' to transition from swim-to-bike, and then bike-to-run. Everyone has their own methodology for dealing with it; mine is pretty much solidified at this point. I got there at 5am when it opened up and was one of the first bikes there! I wanted to make sure I didn't stress about parking.
I hung around for the two hours until the swim started and watched the swim waves before me take off so I could figure out where to start. Once I got in the water I was so relieved - it was much better than the day before! I actually had a really good swim; sighting to make sure I was on the right course wasn't much of an issue. I started towards the back of my wave, but quickly cut through everyone and soon I was at the head with just one person from my wave ahead of me. I stuck with her for most of the swim, but then lost her once we had to make a left turn to come back to shore. I had the second best swim time in my age group, and I think the 3rd or 4th best time overall. Score!!!
I had a little bit of a hard time getting my breathe after running through transition to get on my bike, and my transition time was a little longer than I'd like, so something to work on. I got on the bike and immediately got down into aero position because it was windy! Head wind on the way out, tail wind on the way back. I tried to manage my effort but still go as hard as I could, and I think I balanced it out ok. I got passed by one girl as we were making the turnaround for our second loop because I was eating a gel. I kept an eye on her for the rest of the bike, so she was within reach. I did ok, I had the sixth best bike in my age group.
Got off the bike and was very nervous about what was going to happen on the run. I started off a little slow, but picked up after that once I got my confidence and rhythm down. But...I kept getting passed by girls! Ugh, so frustrating. I tried pushing harder, but then I got the 'I'm going to barf' feeling, so I slowed down a little bit. I think three girls passed me right at the end, in the last .2 miles. So frustrating.
All in all, I still think it was a good race. I've only been really training for 2 months, and the past six months or so have been the most stressful of my life (move, new job). If ending up 4th in my age group is where I'm starting from, I'll take it! I've got a lot of work to do on my running, though.
I'm so glad I'm doing this DietBet. Weight is a key issue to improve my running, as it's less weight to pull around these courses. I'm going to really buckle down over the next two weeks to focus on my diet. I talked to my coach after the race and she said to really limit carbs and dairy, so that's what I'm going to try to do.
Nutrition-wise, this weekend wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. I don't think I did any permanent damage, but I didn't get ahead of the curve either. I'm headed back to Miami in a bit, so I've got the afternoon to stock up and get things ready. Back to reality!