I finished the race! Finally!
Blog posts have been kind of slow from me lately. I’ve been busy training for the triathlon. Training was 6 days per week – 2 days of biking (one of those being a brick: bike then run), 2 days of swimming and 2 days of running. It was a lot. With running, I’m used to just being able to go out the front door and run. However, with biking and swimming, I had to add in the extra 30-45 mins of round-trip travel time, which made the workouts even longer.
But I did it! I missed a few trainings due to bronchitis, kids being sick, weather, etc. But I made probably 90% of the trainings.
Before the race, I felt a little nervous and unsure, especially about the open water swimming, since I had only practiced it 2 short times (one of which was for only 3 minutes). Once I got started and during the race, I felt great though. I felt well prepared and strong the whole time.
My favorite part was seeing everyone cheer for me during the transitions. Nick brought the kids out to watch. The Slatterys and Grandma and Grandpa also came over to the marina to watch. It was only ¼ mile from Grandma and Grandpa’s house, so that made it super convenient.
At the very end of the race, Bryson, Emma, Patrick and Claire ran with me to the finish line. It was AWESOME! I got a super excited, “Hi Mo!” from Claire. Mya stayed back with Grandma, because she wasn’t too sure about the whole running with all the people around.
My goal was to finish in under 2 hours, and I finished in 1:57:45.
I finished 3rd in my age group out of 8, so I was happy about that, especially since this was my first triathlon. My age group results are below:
Things I learned from my race, if I was to ever do another triathlon (which may happen someday):
- I can get faster on the swim. I didn’t have any official coaching, so just kind of did my best to figure out how to swim the front crawl efficiently. I did okay, but would like to get better at this.
- Biking was the biggest opportunity area, since it was about half of my race time. I could improve by:
- Learn how to drink water while biking – stay hydrated!
- Get faster going in and out of turns
- Practice transition from swim to bike
- Get faster going up and down hills
- Get shoes with clips to help with efficiency while riding
- Next time, I’d do more speed work for running. I think this is my strength and I could have pushed a little faster.
I must give a big thanks to Nick for giving me the time to exercise 6 days per week. He never once complained, and was supportive the whole time, so thank you Nick!
Now, what race should I train for next? I’m thinking about taking it a little easier, and just doing some 5k’s, working on speed. I guess we will see…