A fond farewell

Yesterday was my second and last tri of this season. It was also my fourth tri ever, and my last as an Athena. I'm at 152 pounds now and I've decided that this off season I will kiss Athena status good-bye forever as I work towards my goal weight. I haven't exactly decided my goal weight yet, I think it will be 140, that's what I weighed when I got married almost nine years ago. That's 12 pounds to go and I think I should get there. However, if I don't get all the way there but reach a point where I'm happy, so be it.

Here's my report from the women's triathlon.
The weather was crappy on the way up, driving through drizzle alternating with downpours, so we knew we were headed for a wet morning. There were 418 racers, we were broken up into four waves. I went off in the first wave. It was an in-water start, I lined up in front but over to the left of the right side buoys course to avoid the pack. I knew that the buoys were approximately 45 degrees to my right for the triangular course and yet, when the race started, I swam straight. I had two friends in waves behind me and they said a few people mentioned the "poor woman that swam so far out she'd have to swim way farther to get back on course". Yes, I was that swimmer. I'm guessing I swam an extra 150 meters or so, really stupid. The part that was annoying was that when I joined the pack again after the turn buoy, I was now with the slower swimmers in my wave and I was trying to swim through them. Ugh. I also took my first real hard kick to the ribs in a swim, it knocked me off for a minute. I don't begrudge people that can't swim freestyle the whole way, but do you have to kick so hard with the breaststroke kick? It takes up much more space and it's very hard to swim around a breaststroke kicker, because you don't always see it before you get hit. A few pink caps flew past me from the wave three minutes behind and I was able to get through behind them.
Anyway- swim time: 16:02 145/418 should have been at least two- three minutes faster, grr.

Transition was uneventful, but a long way to run with the bike on wet pavement. I'm a bit awkward in the bike shoes anyway. 2:49

The bike was 12 miles, some small hills but nothing too difficult. However, it was wet. We were drenched and it was almost like a constant enema as the water just streamed up from the back tire. I'm a nervous biker in the rain, but it did a little to increase my confidence, I was able to maintain an okay pace, just had to slow down a lot more than usual for the turns and downhills. I had no computer, no idea on top speed or anything. I averaged approximately 16.5 mph, which is pretty fast for me really. Total- 43:45, 213/418

T2- more awkward running in bike shoes back to the rack. I skipped the hat since there was no sun to shield and headed off. 1:13

The run was a trail 5K, more hilly than advertised and muddy. It wasn't raining as hard by that time, but I was already soaked so it didn't much matter. I didn't cramp up this time, which was nice, I just couldn't move as fast as I would have liked. Total- 33:41 278/418

Overall: 1:37:28, 201/418 and 15/53 Athenas, and I had a great time. Had I raced age grouper this year I would have placed 43/75. I'd like to finish top half of my age group next year. I'd also like to shave at least 3:45 off my bike time- 18mph average, and 5 minutes off my run time- 9:00 pace. Someone 9 minutes faster than me this year was 23/75 age group. I'd be thrilled to get there.

That's it for the tri-season. Back to the gym for cardio intervals class twice a week for conditioning and more running! I'm also adding some more weight training and we're going to keep up at least a once weekly lunch bike ride at work, weather permitting.