Race Report - 5430 Sprint "Rehearsal"

I'm 3 weeks out from my 'A' olympic distance race, which is a pretty good time to do a sprint race. In looking for one that fit my schedule, I found an untimed, rehearsal race for the 5430 Sprint. The group that put it on, CWW triathlon, is a non-profit group that helps women of all abilities train in the sport of triathlon. Being untimed it was about half the cost of an official race, but the course was the same. A great way to work out the kinks before my 'A' race. So here's the report:

Got up at 4:30am to leave at 5am so I could make it to Boulder before 7:00. It was a cool and overcast morning (mid-40s) and there was a little rain on the roads in Denver. Boulder was just overcast, but the sun was just starting to peek out of the clouds at the 8am start.

Swim: 750m. Water was about 65 degrees. Not too cold, but still pretty chilly. The wetsuit certainly helps in water like that! Didn't really get much of a warm-up in (don't think anyone did, as the less time spent in the water the better.) The lake also had been closed a couple days earlier for high bacteria counts, so even more reason to spend less time in the shallow end. But with no warm up and only the second time in open water this year, it took my a while to get comfortable in my stroke. I was also getting water in my ears during so adjusted my swim cap accordingly. When I got out of the water and was mostly up the beach I looked at my watch and it had 20 minutes. Sigh. I didn't exactly swim the shortest distance, but it's still pretty darn slow. sigh. I suppose for this season, even after all the work I put into swimming, I will accept that I will not likely be much faster that I've been.

T1: Didn't time this. I took off the wetsuit, put on a dry jersey, sunglasses, my helmet and bike shoes, and off I went. Probably not my fastest, but it was relatively efficient.

Bike: 17.2ish miles, just under 57 minutes (so somewhere around 18mph). This is the same bike course as the duathlon I did a month ago. I think I took about 30 seconds off my time, but it's hard to say, since I forgot to stop the GPS until after my bike was racked and I was changing into my running gear.

The sun came out for the ride and it was another beautiful Boulder morning. Here I needed to make up some time I lost on the swim. I passed a few folks on the road heading out of the reservoir and then a couple more on Jay Road. The beautiful morning was interrupted with the sight of a homeless dude puking on the other side of HWY 36 (not too far from a homeless shelter). NOT what I wanted to see while trying to get my heart rate/breathing under control so I could start drinking. I charged up the road, passed a couple more bikers and then turned on to Neva Rd. A couple rollers and then a gradual descent to pick up the speed. Passed a couple more here and then got passed by one - the only one to pass me. On the highyway back to the reservoir I used my gel bot and got a few more calories in me before the run. My legs certainly felt a lot better this time than after run1 of the duathlon!

T2: Racked the bike, off with the helmet and bike shoes, then on with the socks and shoes. I didn't have my little cooler to sit on so this was a little more challenging than usual. It was here I realized that my feet were pretty numb still from the cold water. Put on my hat and grabbed my race belt and off again.

Run: GPS distance, 3.15 miles in 25:56 (8:13min/mile pace). Not bad for numb feet! Did they feel weird! Passed a few more ladies here. My legs felt good, no real aches or pains and my hip flexor did well today. As we headed back to the finish line, there was a pink tape everyone got to run through as they finished, and we even got medals!

Post race: Free massage! Finally got all feeling back in my feet. Refueled a bit with water and a PB&J bagel. Yum! A pretty small race with maybe 100? ladies. I was not at all disappointed and it was worth getting up at the crack of dawn and driving almost 2 hours for it.

Drove home, did a little yard work with Tim (not much) took a nap, got groceries, ironed some clothes, had dinner (hooray for frozen pizza and pre-bagged salad!), took Juno for a walk, made tomorrow's lunches, did some more ironing, and wrote this. It is definitely time for bed!