Monday, September 10, 2012

Triathlon #2 (or where I put another check beside Life List #97)

Still lots of stuff going through my head since Saturday's race.  It was an incredible experience and I'm glad I had the first race in me to help me through the complete unknown factor of racing a sprint triathlon.

This time it was a bigger competition. There were 28 women in my age category, not just 11. Somehow I finished smack dab in the middle at 14th place. This is beyond my wildest dreams. Last week I had gone and checked the results of the race in 2011 and discovered how fast the times were. At first this intimidated so much that the best I possibly hoped for was to finish 25-30th place. Maybe if I hadn't read those 2011 results that's what would've happened. But I did read them and that competitive edge I learned from dragon boating asserted itself. I placed myself closer to the start of the swim, I swam faster, I ran through transition (even if I did get stuck in my wetsuit but that'll be another post), I pushed it on the bike (hit 46km/h!) and after what felt like a lame first 2km run, I pushed it on the run too.

The result?  I finished in 1:25:16.

1 hour, 25 minutes, 16 seconds.

WHAT?!?!?!

Last week, Nick asked me if I could do this week's race in 1:39.  I said yes, I would aim for that and I knew it was totally do-able.  Friday night/Saturday morning I had decided that I would aim for 1 hour 30 minutes, which I already thought was pretty aggressive. I don't know what happened but I knocked another 5 full minutes off that time as well.

For now, I'm quite happy to put another check mark beside Life Life #97 - Complete a Sprint or Olympic distance triathlon.

I'll write my post-race analysis soon but until then, pictures from the race are here. Special and huge thanks to Nick for coming in from Ottawa just to watch and take pictures.


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