4/9 Collegiate Triathlon Nationals!

Triathlon Nationals 2011 Race Report
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
April 9, 2011



Warning: I usually love writing race reports, but have had a lot of schoolwork to do so put off writing the most recent ones for such a long time that this might be annoyingly short or boring.

Travel: 13 athletes from MIT (5 women, 8 men) flew out to Birmingham then drove to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for collegiate triathlon nationals. The flights were uneventful, but the dramatic change in landscape and climate totally shocked me; we came from cold, rainy Boston to almost tropical-feeling, green Alabama.

Swim: 28:35
The water temperature felt fairly cold (~62 degrees), but not altogether unpleasant because the air was so balmy. For this race, the men all started around 7am, then the women did not start until 10:00; this altogether made the races for men and women quite different, as we had to deal with horrible heat and humidity by the end, and they didn’t. Anyway, I started in the first wave, with all of the elite/semi-pro triathletes along with all the other women who just happened to be seeded first for some reason; the swim was ok, though I didn’t really go as hard as I would have in a pool because everything was so chaotic. The crazy part of the swim (and the reason for the super-slow time) is that the run into the transition area was at least 2 minutes/.25 miles, which was quite long.

Bike: 1:16:20
The bike course and race was great, super fun. It was mostly flat or rolling hills, without very much wind. It’s always really exciting to pass women on super-expensive bikes with aero-everything, who should probably just spend some more time training…On that note, I got to watch the men’s bike start because our race hadn’t started yet, and it was AMAZING how many of the top men fell off or totally messed up their bike mounts; sometimes, simple methods (i.e. putting on shoes in transition zone) are more efficient! The course consisted of two laps, so it was fun to see other MIT women going the opposite direction and cheer for them.

Run: 52:21
The run was not fun (it rarely is, but this was particularly not fun), due to the heat and humidity; it reached the high 80’s during our race, and there were literally girls who just sat down in the middle of the road and couldn’t move, and people who were carried in on stretchers and dunked in ice baths. So, compared to them, all of us MIT women survived fairly well; I felt like I was sprinting and was shivering pretty badly on the final mile (which was around a 9:00 pace, yikes), but ended up running a 53, which is far from the worst I’ve ever done. Anyway, it was a great relief to finish and walk around with big bags of ice for the next few hours (and sunburn for the next few days).

Overall: 2:39:45

Overall, it was quite fun, and we had a great time. I placed fine, not a lot better than last year but at least slightly so. This summer, my goal is to get better at running in the heat.