I’ve wanted to do the Heritage Park triathlon for a few years but haven’t. This is a short sprint tri with a duathlon run simultaneously. It is an early one usually the 3rd Sunday in May. Many Corporate Challenge companies use this as a tryout to see who can participate in the KCCC tri a few weeks later.
This year I decided to do it since I wouldn’t be competing in KCCC. I've been running 15-18 miles a week, very little biking, and no swimming.
I got up at 5:00am in order to make the 40-mile drive down to Heritage Park for a 7:30am start time. It is near Stillwell, KS on the south side of the metro. Us northlanders often refer to this as “near the Oklahoma boarder.” The sun was just starting to rise when I arrived. There were still lots of good spots in the transition area, thankfully, because I moved my bike 3 times. While waiting in line for chips and marking my buddy, Duke, from work said the lake water was 52 degrees. The spring weather had been cold with very few days above 70 and lots of rain, but this still surprised me. I don’t think I’ve ever swam in water that cold, would I be able to breathe?
The air temperature was in the lower 50’s and it was very foggy. The duathletes were happy as this was perfect racing weather for running and biking. Around 7am I put on my wetsuit and set up my transition area. I left a sweatshirt out just in case I was freezing after the swim.
Usually I get in to swim a bit of a warm-up before the race, but this day I did not. The few (and I mean very few) that did said it wasn’t uncomfortably cold. By habit, I requested the first heat with the fast swimmers, otherwise I’d have to start 30 min later and I’d spend most of leg swimming around people. When I got to the start I felt a little intimidated with all the young hard-body serious triathlete boys. I was one of a handful of women and probably the only 40-something woman and without any muscle definition.
The 500M swim started in water and was a counter-clockwise triangle with 2-turns. I chose to stay on the dock and when the gun sounded I jumped in and moved as fast as I could to generate heat. I fell in behind another swimmer to drag and got into a good rhythm. My head started to spin after a few minutes. It probably had something to do with only training once in the past 8 months, but I was too cold to care. I just wanted out of the water. Shortly after the 2nd turn I heard the gun start the next heat. This meant 5-minutes had lapsed and I was making good time. I popped my head up to look for the finish and decided to pass my drag and finish strong. When I exited the water my watch said 8:42 but my recorded time was 8:51 since the chip reader was closer to transition. Looking back, I noticed I was mid-pack (22nd of 42) of the first heat, not bad for an old lady.
T1 went smooth and I got out of my wetsuit with some grace. I put on my bike shoes, ran my bike out of transition, hopped on, clipped in and took off. The course was new to me as I hadn’t even looked at a map. The first mile and a half was a long deceitful hill and I was not feeling good about my only training being the 4-mile jaunts with Buster. Once we turned back into the park the rolling hills were mostly downhill. I soon saw the lake and transition area and realized we were doing loops. In total the bike leg was 3 laps and my average speed was over 16 mph. An acceptable rate for this early in the season.
The run leg was next, my weakest link. I walked out of transition drinking some water and started to jog about 20- yds later. It was a flat and managed a steady pace. Before I knew it I hit the 1-mile marker and my watch said 9:19, a very fast first mile for me. I figured it was wrong because I felt slow and steady. The 2nd mile was hilly and I walked up a few of the hills and my watched registered 11:03 for, a total of 20:22. For the first time ever in my life, my legs were moving on their own and not wanting to stop. Round and round like bicycle wheels, and luckily, my cardio was able to handle it. I wasn't wearing my monitor but it heart rates seemed okay. As we came around the lake on the 3rd and final mile my body was getting tired but I listened to the legs. I finished the run at 30:34, a pace of 10:11 which was my fastest run pace ever for a triathlon. I can really tell that I had been training for the run.
My final time was 1:27.38 which is good enough for me. I took 28th out of 43 women and for swimming I was 32nd out of 198 triathletes. Not too shabby for an old woman. I grabbed a few bagels, a banana, and a yogurt and went and got in the line for free massages!
My next race is 8/1/09, unless I decide that my toe is well enough for one in July!
1 comment:
Not bad for an old woman!
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