Rookie Tri!

As my training for Whistler 70.3 began to ramp up, I decided to throw in this fun sprint tri as a warm up since it feels like forever since I've raced. Plus, it was my 40th birthday weekend and I really wanted to smash myself into my new age group. Aixa was a trooper, as always, and signed up for the race to help me celebrate! 

I really enjoy this race as it's a straight-forward course and you get to race against some great competition. The last time I raced here was in 2011 so I was really excited to compare my times and gauge my improvement. 

Swim-6:47

Oh, the swim. One day I'll be able to hit pool numbers in the open water, but this was not the day for it to happen. It was one of the smoothest swims I've ever done and I felt like I was crushing it. But according to my times I'm not there yet. Onward!

Bike-38:07

I was ready to push myself as hard as I could on this course and I am really happy with my effort. I was between my high/low goal times, and I feel the effort I put out was the best I could do on this day. A few minor changes have been made to my bike setup, so I'm really excited to see how these changes affect me. 

Run-17:10

This run was about proving to myself that I could run hard after a strong bike. This course is all off-road so it was a challenge to keep those paces low since I don't normally run trails. I'm very happy with the run I was able to pull out here. It also helped to have Aixa waiting close to the finish line informing me of the girl hot on my heels, who I had passed about a 1/2 mile back. So I kicked it up a notch and was able to hold my position. 

This is were things get gross. (WARNING! Not too graphic but just wanted to warn y'all just in case. 😉)

After I crossed the finish line I thought I just had a normal burp. But as it happened, I realized there was going to be a Linda Blair moment. I quickly found a trailer to hide behind and promptly puked my guts out! Flashbacks to my very first triathlon! After that, my stomach was a happy camper and I found the A-Team to go celebrate the finish. When I got home and downloaded my Garmin I realized that my HR got up to 191/192 so that explains the post-race pukefest. 

Total time-1:08:06

                         
I love challenging myself on these shorter races and seeing where I'm making gains and what areas I need work on. Not sure if I have time to throw in another race before Whistler, but I'm super excited to get back into the 70.3 distance after missing out on last year.