I was so excited last night to post about how things went at the Iron Girl Tri, but I fell asleep.   This is what happens when you wake up (on purpose) at 3:30 in the morning to leave your house in the dark at 4:30.   I will say though that even though I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, my plan of staying up till 11:00 and having a glass of wine put me right to sleep.   Wasn’t a long rest, but a good one.   So that’s all that mattered.

On to race day!   Arrived at 6:00 still in the dark, but plenty of time for set up.  plus got to see a beautiful sunrise over transition.

Spectacular!

This being my third Tri, I was starting to feel a little more confident in what I needed to bring and how to set it up.   I will say that I worried for a moment that I didn’t bring enough as my bag was not overflowing.   I guess it worked because I had some great transition times!   T1 was 2:27 minutes and T1 was only 1;15.   So I guess I will now stick with this setup.

Recap

Swim – I’ve got to work on this.   I am good in the pool.   I have a decent stroke and keep my head down.   For some reason (called panic), I can’t seem to transition this to an open water swim.  I end up doing more backstroke than I should.  I’m guessing the only way it is going to get better is to just keep swimming:)  

Bike – This year they added an extra 5 miles to the bike ride which doesn’t sound like a lot until your out there pedaling away in the wind from the ocean and bay.   I’ve got to get out on my bike more too as you totally use different muscles biking than running!

Run – I did something new this time.   I caught with one of the women I went with.   She follows Jeff Gallaway training plan where you run 3 minutes and walk 1.   So to stay with her, that’s what I did.   Besides my legs were jello, so the thought of walking at all sounded REALLY good!   I still ended up a great run time with an average pace of 9:18.    I might need to investigate this plan more and I will keep you up to date.

Overall

Swim: 20:03 (would like to get under 20 minutes next time – Damn those 3 seconds!)

T1 2:27

Bike: 1:01:34 ( would like to get under an hour next time)

T2 1:15

Run:  27:54 (happy dance)

Great day with some great friends.   I’d like to say that I can’t wait to do again (which is true), but I’m off for a deep tissue massage:)