Commit to TRI

TRI. Wait for it.  Athlete.  Boom! :)

6.5 2016 running miles down, 993.5 to go.  

About this (TRI) run:

This was so out of my comfort zone!  I had butterflies in my stomach all of Saturday.  I felt like I would forget something major in the prep department, and spent all day Googling things like: do you need a helmet for spinning?  do you wear underwear under a tri suit?  will everyone at an indoor tri know how to do flip turns?  It was kinda funny to feel like a newbie again.  I went over to endurance house at lunch (possibly the only time I moved Saturday), and found a lot of their merchandise 50% off.  Score!  So despite the fact that I am just getting started, I jumped into the deep end and bought a two-piece trisuit.  Because lets face it, I am a gear junkie! :)  If nothing else, I knew I'd be using it at least one more time.  CW was scheduled to come pick me up at 5:45 am (eeeeeeppp).  Surprisingly, even after napping all day Saturday, I still managed to knock myself out with a book at a decent time.  Unfortunately, I made an alarm mishap, and didn't get up until 5:40 am!  Thank goodness I had laid out EVERYTHING I could ever need the night before, and that CW was running a few minutes behind.  When we got there, we even found that the entire event was gearing up pretty slowly.  Check in was not even in place when we hit the registration desk.  So all was well.  I was also surprised to find that I had done well on the prep.  I guess running has done me good for this.  Two notes .. Lifetime has plenty of towels, and bring a zip lock for wet things.

Swim:

10 laps (250 meters) in 10 minutes.  

There were 16 Women in the Open category.  I placed 2nd to last (2 points).  And I still feel like quite the badass! ;) My first length is always the best.  I can come in and out of the water using a decent stroke.  I alternated with backstroke every "back" length.  After the first one, every "there" on my stomach was messy.  I stopped wanting to put my face in the water, so I did this head up doggie paddle thing.  But .. I did.not.drown.  Bottom line: swimming is relaxing, and I want to get better at it.  It seems like it would be very cool to build up more upper body strength. Maybe it would help with one of my two problem areas (upper arms and stomach).

T1:

Transitions are a thing, and I did fine, but I am told that indoor T1s are nothing like IRL.  Note: May want to add a biking shirt and more padded shorts to the entourage.

Bike:

6.4 miles

3rd to last (3 points)

The bike was by far the toughest.  At only five minutes in, my upper thighs were for sure talking to me.  Like, 'hey lady, who are you?  since when do you need us for your workouts?'  I had no idea how to pace myself.  What pace would I be able to maintain for 30 minutes?  When was a reasonable time to start kicking?  Who knows!  But by far, the biggest complaint of the discipline: where do you put your dang vagina? Haha. My bum will surely not thank me for this!  Considering I have not been on a bike but once since childhood, though, the overall outcome gets an A+ in my book.

Run:

2.14 miles in 20 minutes (4th of 16, 13 points, 9:35 average pace)

When I got off the bike, my legs felt like jello.  From the studio to the treadmill, there were two sets of stairs.. fun, fun.  This wobbliness made me a little nervous.  How should I account for the other activities when deciding on my pace?  As goes the theme of the morning, who knows!  I set my pace to 10/mi, and then kicked it up every 5 minutes during the first mile, and every one minute in the second mile, give or take.  I should have upped the pace sooner.  But what else is new.  Leaving something in the tank on race day seems to be my problem de jour of late.  3rd place would have been SWEET.  That said, I was steady, and increasing the pace for negative splits felt fantastic!  I can for sure dial it up a little the next time I run short with swim/bike, and even more if I am not doing either of these prior.  It was funny to have the volunteers check on me during this round.  "Doing okay?  Pace yourself."  Don't worry dude, I may not have swam like a champ, and I may not look it, but the running, I've got! ;) 

What I liked / What I didn't like:

There is not much that I didn't adore!  I want to be careful about stretching myself too thin, but I feel so good about the prospect of really getting my cross-training on.  Time to find all of these other muscles that need help, too. :)  Plus, despite how far I've come, I still have a ways to go on the overall look of my body.  Hoping to really cut to the chase of the matter this year.  Gut, your time has come and gone!  I also loved shopping for new stuff.  Must.Get.All.the.Gear! Haha.  I know I will not like lake swimming as much.  And riding on a real road gives me panic attacks just thinking about.  But indoor tri gets 5 stars!