Way back on the long weekend in May I made an impromptu decision to race. My friend Pam was signed up for the Try this Triathlon at the University of Calgary and she wanted some company. She texted me on Friday night that she had just picked up her race packet and I could still register for the race. She then spent the next morning convincing me over breakfast that I should race. Twist my rubber arm…after breakfast I ran over to packet pick up to register for the race the next day.
I figured this would be a good race to get my feet wet this season. It would be a good way to practice transitions! The race included a pool swim, a few laps on the bike around the university and a few out and backs on the run.
The Swim – 500 m (12:01)
The pool swim start was self seeded. Swimmers were continuously fed into the pool whenever someone came out. When the time was right I made my way down to the pool deck to nervously stand in line.
The swim went not too badly. I was probably seeded with the right speed of swimmers for a couple of laps but soon they left the lane and a bunch of speedsters started. I let them pass me by.
T1
I tried to be as efficient as possible. I had my cap and goggles off as soon as I was out. Helmet on as soon as I reached my bike…
…then socks and shoes…
…and off we go
Bike – 16 km (36:55)
The bike was four loops around the university. In order to fit my bike in Pam’s vehicle we had to take the front and rear wheel off my bike. The cadence sensor must have gotten knocked out of alignment when we did that. I spent the entire ride with my Garmin beeping – auto start and auto resume – as it tried to figure out where my cadence sensor was. The bike course was fun and with four laps there was plenty of opportunity to figure out how to ride all of the turns and curves.
T2
Rack the bike, helmet off, shoes and hat on. Time to run!
Run – 3 km (21:42)
The run kinda sucked as my left hip was really bugging me. The great thing about running a few out and backs was that I was able to see Pam and my friend Richelle a ton. I walked more than I would have liked, but such was the case with my hip.
Coming in to the finish line was awesome. Rose from Tri It was announcing and she commented that it was great to see me racing after taking a bit of time off.
All in all I had a really fun time and I’m so glad I raced. It was a beautiful day and I had fun (despite the hurty run). Post race Opa was serving up souvlaki and Greek salad. It was a pretty great post race spread. Thanks for convincing me to race Pam!
Total Time 1:10:38 (19 out of 34 for the 30-39 year old women, 88 out of 163 overall)
Nice job on the race Leana! And, you made me feel better about not having my Chinook report up yet. 😉
Way to go, Leana. It IS good to see you racing again!! I see you have one on deck for tomorrow, too. Good luck!