My friend Bethany recently completed her first triathlon, and she had suggested we do one together at some point this summer. I had done the Eagle Creek Sprint Triathlon in the past (two of them in 2013), so we decided to complete the July race together. Since I had been in Spain, I was slightly worried about being undertrained (D and I had run in Spain, but not nearly as much as I had been running previously, and I didn't do any biking or swimming), but I figured it would be a fun experience either way.
We woke up at 5 am to leave by 5:30 since we had to pick up our race packets before the race. Standard breakfast of oatmeal with pb and brown sugar--no bananas though because I had completely forgotten to pick them up the day before. Boo. We got to Eagle Creek State Park with no issues, got checked in, and were ready to go. At the Purdue Triathlon I did in April, I found that french braiding my hair was very convenient for all three events--I talked Beth into letting me braid her hair as well before the tri started. :)
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| Very important pre-race business |
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| Beth and I ready to go! |
The swim portion of the tri is 500 meters long in a reservoir. I was a swimmer in high school and am very comfortable in the water, but open water swims still are very challenging for me. It's difficult to spot properly and there are so many people in the water around you that getting kicked is common. I just kept moving my arms and eventually I made it through the swim. :)
I ran to the transition area, grabbed my bike, and off I went. The bike felt really great! Typically I think biking is my weakest leg, but at this race I seemed to be doing quite well. I passed a lot of people, and even tackled hills without feeling like I was going to quit. :) When I got back from the bike, I was the first one to my rack, and so I popped my bike on the rack ready to go out for the run when all of a sudden I heard a loud clang....the bike rack had collapsed! I was so embarrassed and didn't know what to do! After a few seconds a guy at the next rack over ran over and helped me set it back up. I was so glad that only my bike had been on it, because some of the bikes are so expensive and I would have felt awful if I had knocked other people's bikes over. :-| A volunteer came to the rack as I was pulling on a tank top (needed it because it had a my number attached for the run portion) and told me not to worry and it happened a lot. I am sure he was lying but it made me feel a little better. :)
The run was disappointing for me because I just felt so exhausted. It was starting to get quite hot and humid by this time, and my legs were just not wanting to move. I ended up walking briefly twice: once near the top of a hill and once while getting water.
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| Luckily the race ends downhill so I at least had a strong finish! |
I finished the 5k in 29:06 which isn't horrible, but I just felt like I could do better. Also my GPS watch froze after about 1 mile of the run so in addition to not feeling great, I couldn't even check my pace. Bleh! But I know that it was just a bad run and I will do better next time. :) Overall I ended up with a time of 1:18:26 which was about 4 minutes and 30 seconds faster than my time on the same course in 2013. Woo for improvement!
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| Beth and I after we finished |
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