Cap tex Tri!!!

First Tri of the season!!!! Didn't have the best swim, but felt strong on an easy bike course! My run was awesome despite a tight it band.

Happy overall but have a lot to build on...more later!

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So overall, although I was pretty dissapointed with my swim initially, now that I think of it, a 10 minute PR on the swim ain’t so bad!! (that’s right, I had a 10 MINUTE PR on my 750 meter swim! That’s pretty big!) So I really did have great reason to celebrate my race! Yes, I was slow to get started on my swim, but a couple of my T3 buddies saw me finish and said I looked really strong, which I DID feel awesome at the end. I just need to keep working on it. Getting stronger…mentally push from the beginning. NO PANICKING…ughh, too bad other people kept swimming into me ¾ of the swim…urgh.

My transition times weren’t great, but MAN, that is a long tranisition area! Anyone who has done CapTex or Austin Tri knows this! I didn’t bother with a wetsuit so that saved a little time. THAT WATER WAS COOOOLLLD though! Swimming in Barton springs without a wetsuit did NOT prepare me at 9 in the morning for 70 degrees!

My bike time was decent. I could have pushed a LOT harder I think. I felt my heartrate was pretty high for about 6 miles though so I just cruised a little. The course was crowded and the roads were downtown-bumpy. I got passed on the Right (WTF?!) more than what made me comfortable, and I tried to stay as far right as possible! I lost my rear waterbottle very early on the course, and it almost caused me to crash as it feel into my drivechain! Luckily, my cat-like reflexes helped me there and also when some guy deadstopped RIGHT in front of me after the turn-around on S 1st street! UGH, surely that would have been the end of the race for both of us had I hit him. Anyhow, still an Austin bike PR for me. My best race PR is 18.3 mph which I accomplished in Houston last year. My bike goal is to average AT LEAST 18 mph in the Austin races!

My run, is as usual, where I shine. Even feeling sluggish and slow, I ran a 24:34 5K. That’s not too shabby after all that ‘other stuff’ before hand. Overall, I felt confident and picked people off left and right. It’s very clear that running is where triathlon is won. I mean, I passed SOOO many people. I think I got passed twice by some really strong elite-looking guys. Eghh, no skin off my back. I would like to bring my run down to 7:30/mile, so that’s another goal to go for this summer, which might be a challenge since I haven’t been training hard on my running.

Happy to be done and have another race to train for in 2 weeks! Gotta bring that swim time down. Placing 15 out of 63 in my age group (good enough to put me in top ¼ of my age group) feels great…but literally only 2 minutes seperated me from a top 10 finish. Time to continue to focus and train hard, knowing I have goals to accomplish. And this next race is on a TOUGH course…the 70.3 course…!

The STATS:
750m swim, 12.4 mile bike, 3.1 mile run

21:19s
3:43 T1
41:43b (17.8 mph)
2:24 T2
24:34 r (7:52/mile)

=1:33.44 total time

15th out of 63, sprint female, ages 25-29