8/21/2010
Rexburg, ID
Weeks-before-race: Ok, so I did some pretty stupid “recovering” after my half-ironman four weeks before this race. Basically, I took one day off, then two days easy, and then learned that I needed to get my wisdom teeth out the next week. So, naturally, I decided that I would get plenty of rest and recovery after surgery and should therefore take the rest of the week at high volume. It felt fine at the time, as long as I kept the intensity low, but long-term was probably a stupid move.
Got my wisdom teeth out two weeks before the Rexburg tri and had a painful long weekend of “rest”. Then, to make up for lost training time, I took the next week pretty hard, especially with respect to running (not that I run a whole lot anymore, but I added in intervals for once).
The week of the race, I swam for the first time since the half iron (bad Shaena, your swim coach will be so sad by how much swimming fitness you have lost this summer!).
Night Before: This race is one of the few large ones in our area – there were around 100 people in the Olympic and twice that in the Sprint, which is VERY good turnout for Idaho/Wyoming. They had a classic Idahoan Potato-Bake dinner for us the night before. I saw several people from my hometown who had also come over for the race, including Olympic Triathlete Barb Linquist (she won the race, not surprisingly).
Now on to the tri, which was perfectly acceptable and not very eventful:
Swim: .9 miles/27 min
This was 5 quarters of a lake (i.e. the start was not the same as the finish). Went fine, as soon as I felt warmed up and remembered how to swim in a wetsuit. Water wasn’t too cold (for a cold part of the country, anyway).
Bike: 40k (24.8 mi)/1:18 – 20mph average!
Bike went well, although I hadn’t previewed the course so was very disheartened by the first ~10 miles, which included some large uphills and recently chip-sealed roads. Then I basically flew down the next 15 miles, averaging at least 22mph and passing a few people. That felt great. I passed a couple of strong young men who appeared to be confident in their races without trying too hard, and they seemed startled by me, saying “Wow, you’re tough!”
Run: 10k (+ a detour)/56 min :(
After such a great bike, I was hoping the run would go well. The temperature wasn’t too warm, which was great for me (since my max-temperature run in the past month or so is around 55 degrees). However, first I managed to miss a turn, adding at least a minute or two, and then I found out that they basically stuck a butte in the middle of the run. That wasn’t too fun, very steep and dirty, and most of the people were walking for a large portion of it. I got to the 5k turnaround in *gasp* 33 minutes. Hahaha, that’s bad even for me (I at least used to run 5ks in 22-23 minutes!). At least I negative-splitted the second half, by quite a lot.
For the finish line, we ran around 300m of the high school track and into a stadium. It was pretty cool. I came in in 2:45, which was good for me (since the two Olympics where I have done better than that both had too-short swim legs).
And: I won my age group! Yay, I must be so awesome!
Not. I was the only one in it. However, I did improve on the course record for 19 and under by a whopping 41 minutes.
Next up will be some NECTC races with the MIT Tri Club. So excited to race with other people again!!!
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