Issaquah 2008 was the first Tri I ever did.
The difference between this year and last? Last year I had trained for 4 months with TNT and was raring to go, this year I have slacked off and bitched about whether or not to do this race*.
I guess slacking and bitching work for me!
I managed to take 10minutes off my Issaquah time!
Issaquah 2009 |
Overall | Swim (1/4mi) | T1 | Bike
(14mi) | T2 | Run
(5K) |
1:26:25 | 0:06:37 | 2:18 | 0:47:59 | 0:01:10 | 0:28:20 |
Issaquah Race Report
Spent the night before hanging out with the nephews at their new house and before I knew it, it'd gotten very late. So I got the kids in bed and hit the sack myself. I slept great probably more out of exhaustion than out of assurance of my race readiness.
I woke up at what I thought would be dark-o'thirty but it was light out and the day was looking to be a good one. Due to events of the night before I hadn't been able to pick up anything for a pre-race meal so I foraged through my Mom's cabinets thinking I'd go for the standby of PB&J. What house with kids does not have PB? I settled on 2 mini bagels toasted, one with cream cheese and one with jelly. This felt like nothing and there were still 2hours until the race started so I was hoping to stop by the store to grab a banana or other additional grub. But the clock was ticking and I wanted to set up transition, find old friends and meet up with the Captain who was sweet enough to drag his booty out of bed at some ungodly hour just to cheer me on and hold my boss' stuff ;)
So straight to the park I went. The day was perfect! I had picked up my packet the day before and was all body marked so I just strolled into transition. Setting up my transition area came back to me just like riding a bike. My rack was full of amiable speed demons which was cool; they were low key and had fancy bikes that I could ogle plus I knew they'd be out of transition by the time I was there.
I bumped into a few TNT friends who were all having prerace issues (needed a pump, forgot her bike shoes, etc) and then found my boss at the prerace meeting. It was her first tri and she was adorably nervous for someone who swims 3 times a week, has ridden century rides and consistently pulls out sub-30min 5K…I didn't doubt she'd do fine. Her weakness though was her vision, she wanted to have her glasses with her on the beach but didn't have anyone to hand them off too. Enter The Captain to save the day, he graciously agreed to Sherpa for us.
The Race
Swim- I was VERY nervous about the swim. I hadn't been swimming much at all and figured I would be toast in OW. This early season race has a short swim (1/4mi) which was great except it meant we were almost back before the pack of bodies thinned out. I had a goggle malfunction right away, with water getting into my right goggle, and then tried to swim one-eyed. Sighting went well after one mishap at the first buoy where if I hadn't looked up, I'd have swum into the open lake.
T1- Getting out of the water was good, wetsuit stripped halfway and cap/goggles off. I got my land legs pretty fast and was out on the bike.
Bike- Maybe it was the short swim or maybe the Shredding I've been doing has strengthened my core but I didn't feel as wobbly as I had in previous races when I got on the bike. I tried to follow Coach Jill's advice for the bike and was REALLY happy with the results. According to my Garmin my average speed was 17.5mph with a high of 33.5. I got tripped up on one hill where I was barely moving but otherwise a great ride.
Had a near miss on the bike, I was shifting down on the above mentioned hill and my chain dropped completely off. Rather than panicking I shifted further (kind of just tried shifting around frantically) which miraculously picked up the chain!
I had promised myself I'd drink at least half of my water bottle (containing 50% water/50% Gatorade FIERCE) but I only managed a few swigs.
T2- Almost flawless except I tried racking my bike backwards and had to do it again.
Run- My legs felt great right off the bike, it was hot and I was a bit worried about hydration but luckily I was still a bit wet from the swim. My goal had been keeping ~9:30min/mi pace. I clocked the first mile at 9:38 (not too bad) and the next 2.1 were avg 9:58 (whoops).
High fived the Captain at the finish line and we got to watch some of my friends and my manager come in. I tease him about being a total social butterfly (CAUSE HE IS!) but I felt like one on Saturday. There were TNT folks out in force and I am always so happy to catch up with them.
It was a great race and I can't believe I was able to cut so much time off but that wasn't the highlight of the day. I got to introduce Multi-sport to 2 newbies (BossLady and The Captain). It is such a fun environment and, especially this small race, is really supportive and encouraging to the "everyday athletes ."
The Bosslady is already talking about how the whole company should do Seafair in July. As for Cap, I think I may have sold him on the idea of at least a Du and he, DSF
and I could totally do a relay now that he has a bike.*to be fair, in between last year and slacking off I’ve done 1 Oly, 3more sprints, trained for and ran a marathon
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Issaquah last year
Swim 00:07:54.4
T1 00:02:07.7
Bike 00:55:44.3
T2 00:01:04.2
Run 00:28:30.4 Finish 01:35:21.1
