Last Triathlon of the Season

This post is two weeks overdue but I figure I should write it anyway as I have written about all of my other races and I would hate for this one to feel left out.

First though I must comment about how much I hate that the sun doesn't come up until almost 7:30. That is just ridiculous. Secondly I must comment that I hate the fact that I can never sleep in when given the opportunity. It is seriously ridiculous.

Okay, back to our regular scheduled programming. This triathlon was a fun one because it was very close to our house and was apparently the SEC college conference championships for the triathlon season. It was fun to see all the college triathletes. This triathlon was a terrible one because everything managed to be uphill both ways on the course for both the bike and run, and it was my first lake swim for a race.

When we swim in pools they release us two at a time to control the chaos. When we swim in the lake, they release 50 people at one time to try and swim along the same line (aka: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in a lake) and it gets ugly. Of course none of the ugliness is intentional as we are all just competitive people, and I didn't hesitate to go all Mel Gibson on a guy and punch him in the leg during his sideways backstroking stupidity as he was swimming the WRONG DIRECTION and cutting everyone off. (I stand by my judgement that if someone wants to backstroke during the swim it is fine, but they should have to go last. It takes up too much room and they have no idea where they are going. It's just common sense.) I was wearing goggles but you sure can't see anything under water, which leads to most run-ins with folks. There was a lot of seaweed (lake weed?) and mud when we were getting in and out at the bank so that was really disgusting. There was also a really lovely 400 yard run up a 45-60 degree incline to our bikes that was not awesome in any way. I did it in 14 minutes and 3 seconds. (53rd place)

The bike portion was only 10 miles long and I had already ridden it with Jake once so it was not very exciting. I still pass a lot of people on really expensive and lightweight bicycles with my really cheap and heavy one so I get a lot of bizarre joy out of that. Unfortunately all of those people I pass on the the bike pass me back on the run....I wonder if they get the same joy? Dangit. The last part of the bike course is the most (or second most) brutal hill I have ever ridden on a bicycle on purpose. Yuck. I did it in 36 minutes and 42 seconds. (38th place)

I am really terrible at running. I just really hate it. I think I am slowly getting better at it, but I especially hate it after I have already swum 500 meters and ridden a bike 10 miles. I have still never run my 3.1 miles in under 30 minutes in a race...and it didn't change this time either. It was hilly and terrible and I had to walk twice to avoid my heart exploding and I got passed by people fatter than me and in worse shape than me. It was just a pretty depressing 31 minutes and 15 seconds. I have a triathlon pal that I race against. We just have a little competitive thing between the two of us. She beat me out of the water on the swim by 5 seconds, I kicked her rear end at the bike by 3 minutes, and then she ran a ridiculously fast 28 minutes and 37 seconds on the 3.1 miles to beat my 31 minutes and 15 seconds. So I ended up losing (me: 1 hour, 25 minutes, and 47 seconds) by 26 seconds to my friend. It was frustrating. Oh well.

I ended up being 49th place out of 103 racers in the Sprint Division, but won second place in my division and have a nifty shoulder pack thing (much better than the fanny pack) for my efforts. I would say that all in all this triathlon experience has been one of the more fun physically competitive things I have ever done in my life. I am not a very successful athlete usually so it is definitely neat to find something you are kind of good at... I should only get better too hopefully. I am hoping to get a good bike over the winter and speed up my slow, pathetic running. I will say that my running improved almost each race (34 minutes, 30.59, 31.58, 31.15 last race). Watch out world, I will be superfast next year!