See Emma Tri

This morning I competed in my first triathlon of the season, which was kind of a bust (literally) but definitely still good fun.

I registered for the Luray Sprint Triathlon, a race nestled in the heart of the Shenandoah, about a month and a half ago on the suggestion of my co-worker Kristi. Despite our original grand plan to spend the weekend camping and hiking before the race on Sunday, we ended up just driving down there for the day, departing DC at 4:45am.

I've been really busy at work lately, and only finally decided to go yesterday afternoon. On the drive down, I was reflecting on the difference between doing this race and my first triathlon last June. When I did the Austin Danskin, I made sure to go to bed early two nights before the race, I spent the day prior carb-loading and hydrating, and even took Monday off of work so I wouldn't have to drive the three and a half hours back to Corpus Christi following the race. This time it was just like, can I squeeze in a triathlon to my schedule this weekend if I work 11 hours on Saturday and go straight to work after the race on Sunday? I also didn't really have much riding on this triathlon, nor had I really been gearing up for it. (Apologies for the cycling puns.) Rather, I thought of this race as a beginning of the season diagnostic.

See Emma Swim

Swimming is definitely my strongest of the three events, but I was a little disappointed in my performance this time. I started out swimming way too fast and got tired before I even swam past the first buoy. In other races I've done, it was difficult to swim quickly at the outset because tons of other bodies are around you and on top of you. This race was not as crowded and I easily pushed ahead. Not only did I swim too fast, but I also got disoriented and had to swim extra to get back on the right course. Because of this, I spent a significant portion of the first quarter mile in panic mode and had to stop frequently to do an easy breast stroke. Luckily I calmed down and pulled it together in the second half. I think my time was about 18 minutes, which is about 2-3 minutes slower than my usual half-mile open water time. I am a little disappointed, but at least I learned the value of pacing myself.

See Emma Bike

My bike got a flat a couple weeks ago when the innertube in the front tire randomly exploded when my bike was in the back seat of my car. (A friend suggested this was likely due to the tire's rapid change in temperature when I put it in the hot car.) When I replaced the innertube last night, I noticed a small tear in the tread of the tire itself. I read on the internet that you can prevent a puncture in the tube by placing a piece of fabric or a dollar bill in between the tube and the tread. I did this, using some left over fabric from IKEA, but I was definitely nervous about my tire holding up during the race.

Sure enough, the front tire blew out around Mile 3. I didn't have an extra innertube (I had used my last one the night before), and assumed that the problem was with the tire itself and replacing the tube wouldn't do much to prevent another flat. I started to walk my bike back to the transition area, but stopped at Mile 2 where another woman had stopped and was fixing a flat on her bike. Shortly after this, a woman rode by and declared that the she was too tired from the swim to finish the bike ride, and offered to help us with our tires. The three of us pooled our resources and did our best to fix the two tires. The woman who stopped to help was really fun -- a lawyer who works in Reston and a fellow member of the California bar. She was cracking me up the entire time. We used her patch kit to mend my tube and tire, but to no avail. The tire deflated immediately after it was inflated. The other woman wasn't able to fix her tire either. I finally hitched a ride back to the transition area with a friendly local in a pick-up truck.

Going back to my earlier comparison between this tri and the Austin Danskin: if I had gotten a flat during my first triathlon, I would have been devasted! But since I was doing this race just to do it and the preciousness of my first race was not at stake, I wasn't too disappointed by the turn of events. Even though I didn't finish the bike ride, I actually had fun attempting to fix my tire with my new friends. And, at least I got some exercise and got to spend time outdoors (in the Shenandoah, no less!) I also learned that in the future, it's probably best to carefully inspect my bike sooner than 7pm the night before a race.

See Emma Run

Even though I didn't finish the bike, I decided to pick up with the run. I was most likely DQ-ed for failing to complete the bike, but the race volunteers let me keep my chip so I could still get my split for the 5k. The run course was actually really pretty -- around Lake Arrowhead, through the woods, with the mountains in the background.
When I was training for the marathon, I had to slow my pace way down in order to handle the distance. I'm worried that in doing so I some how programmed my body to always go that slow, regardless of the distance I'm running. I'm eager to see what my time is and will be ecstatic if I was able to get back into my usual 10 minute mile-ish pace.
Work permitting, I'm going to San Francisco to run Bay to Breakers next weekend (yay!), so I'll probably devote my work-outs this week to running and work on improving my speed.

My next triathlon is in Norfolk on June 4.
If at first you don't succeed, tri, tri again. :)

UPDATE

The results are in. My swim time was 19:38, my "bike" time was 1:29:40, and my run was 33:07, meaning a 10:37 pace per mile, and an overal "time" of 2:28:42. Even though I should have been DQed, I ranked 11/15 in my age group, and 55/71 overall. (Had I actually completed the bike, my time probably would have been a little faster, but not much.)
Kristi suspects that the run course was actually longer than 5k, given how many people's run split was just around 30 minutes (unusual). Similarly, I'm wondering if the swim course was also a little longer than a half mile. In other races I've done, the top swimmers all clocked in at around 11 minutes. Here, however, although one woman finished in 11:47, the other top swimmers' times ranged between 14 and 17 minutes. Heh! Blaming the course instead of my own performance is fun!