My second triathlon was a success. The tri began with a 400 meter open water swim, then 1.5 mile run, 12.5 mile bike, and finished with another 1.5 mile run. Most tris are swim-bike-run, but this one was a bit different given the distance of the lake from a working bike transition area (i.e. parking lot). They require you to put down your goal time for the swim when you sign up so they can place you for the start. I'd rather optimistically put down 12:30 (which is still a slow time by tri standards), but by the time race day arrived I'd never done better than 12:55 in a pool where I could just look down and follow the guide line. I was a bit nervous about my first open water swim. I knew I could do the distance (I've done up to 1000m without stopping in a pool), but its so hard to swim in a straight line if you can't see anything. It's like swimming a 400m square in coffee. They tell you to practice 'sighting', which means to look up about every other stroke to see where you are and aim for next bouy. This is much easier said than done. At one point, I went at a completely right angle to the course and almost hit a retaining wall. I also wasn't used to swimming in a group of people either, and accidently kicked a couple swimmers who caught up to me. Finally I rounded the last bouy, headed for shore. As I emerged from the water, I looked down at my watch, I fully expected to see something like 15 minutes. Instead, it read 12:30, one second off my goal time. Not bad. Next came the first run, which wasn't too eventful, as I only passed one person, but was passed about by about 15 people.
I made it to the bike area, hopped on, and finally started getting in a groove. Rather than getting passed like I had on the run, I started passing people. All told, I probably passed about 4 times more people on the bike than passed me. My goal pace was 16mph, but 2/3 of the way through I was closer to averaging 17mph. Then came the hills. These were steep hills than just seemed to come right after the other. I tried to speed down one to get a good start on the next, but I still ended up having to stand up on the bike and slowly peddle up. This knocked down my time to about 14.5mph for the total time.
I hopped off the bike, changed into my running shoes, and took off. This run was much better, as I averaged a 9 minute mile pace. I realized I'd practiced running after biking several times this summer, but I'd hardly ever run after swimming. Luckily, this is about the only triathlon where I'd have to be ready for that. I passed several very worn out people on the way to the finish line, but I felt like I could have kept going.
Kevin Herrington, my neighbor and practically semi-pro triathlete, and my friend from church, Ross Stevenson, cheered me on at the beginning and end of the run. Kevin finished 7th in our age group, Ross finished in the teens, and I finished 34 out of 47 in our age group (30 to 34), with a time of 1:34:20.
All in all, it was a success, and I'm looking forward to completing an Olympic Distance Tri (1500m swim, 40K bike, 10K run) next year.
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