Mountain Lakes Triathlon race report

I could also title this post "Why Nakedie Doesn't Do Sprints."

OUCH!!!

I think I mentioned in a post from a couple of months ago that I coach a triathlon club for beginners. We are 4 1/2 weeks away from our main goal, the Music City Triathlon on September 16th. Along the way, I've encouraged them to do other races - a sprint with a pool swim, a longer sprint with a pool swim, an even longer sprint with a lake swim - to help them tackle the Olympic distance. Mountain Lakes was on their calendar and several of them had decided to go, so my original thought was to go and cheer them on. After all, my Ironman was just 3 weeks before that, so there'd be no way I could do the race myself. About a week and a half after Ironman, I must've had a brain fart because I thought I was actually rested enough to do this sprint. So I signed up and responded with, "Yeah, I'm fine - it's weird!" to everyone who was surprised to hear that I was racing 3 weeks after putting in 140.6 miles.

Race morning came and my legs were a little sore from a sculpting class I taught Tuesday morning (during which we did lots of walking lunges - stupid, I know - quit lecturing me - I'm almost done subbing that damn class), but I decided I was going to give it my all. One of my goals for next year is to do shorter races and regain some of my speed lost over the past 3 years while churning out hours upon hours of long distance training, so why not push myself as hard as I could and see where I'm starting from?

The swim was okay - a little too much algae, but I got out under my goal of 12 minutes (no, I'm not a fast swimmer - working on that) - and the bike was fine. However, the run SUCKED ASS. That's where I realized that no, I'm not as recovered as I thought. I ran as hard as I could for the first mile, then had to slow down. My first mile was 7:50, my overall pace for 3 miles was 8:27 - that shows you how much I slowed down. A friend of mine was at the finish line, and the first thing I said to him was, "Doing a sprint 3 weeks after Ironman is one of the worst f*cking decisions I've ever made." Man, that hurt! Man, I have a lot of work to do!

After the pain wore off, I realized that I was okay with my performance. My goal was 1:30, my time was 1:28:59. I came in 11th out of 40 in my age group, which is quite competitive. Not too shabby for someone who a)did an Ironman 3 weeks before and b)is NOT a sprinter. Honestly, the last time I did a race that short was 5 years ago. But I foresee more of those in my future; getting to that point where you're not quite sure what's going to happen first, puking or passing out, is actually a bit fun in a very sick sort of way.

Swim: 11:46 for 600 yards (no, I'm not a fast swimmer)
T1: 1:58
Bike: 48:38 for 16.2 miles (20.0mph average)
T2: 1:07
Run: 25:22 for 3 miles (8:27/mile average)

Next up: I Run for the Party 5K next Saturday night. After that will be the Music City Triathlon on September 16th.

PS - In case you're wondering, all of my peeps (the people I coach) finished the race! There were 2 of them who had never done a triathlon before, and 3 of them who had never swum in a lake before. I was a very proud mama. One of my guys made it a point to let me know that he had beaten me ("Stephanie, if you're looking for your name on that list of overall results, just find my name and count 10 below that to find your name." - yeah, that didn't fly with me too well) but when I got home and saw the results, I found out he beat me by only 33 seconds. Come Music City, I'll show him who's boss! GAME ON!!!