Mission (Wo)Man Tri

What a HOT (but nice) day for a triathlon in central North Carolina! It was most likely the hottest day of the summer so far. The heat index got up to 120 yesterday so it was good that I was done at 9:30 am The temp was a balmy 79 degrees when I got up to drive to the race site at 5:30am. By race start at 8am it was in the mid-80s. I’ve been taking time off to let my knee get better so when it finally started to feel better this week I jumped on the opportunity to do a tri. I just love the fact that I can sign up for triathlons at the last minute now that I have my awesome bike I suppose it doesn’t hurt that I keep up my swimming and biking training all summer long. I didn’t expect my best times, but overall considering my conditioning and the weather it was great!

Keeping it cool and putting gear together at transition

Representing the 1-7-4

The lake water was like bath water, no joke. The water temp was 82 degrees!!! Yuuuuck. Oh, and it was so murky I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. Very different from White Lake, NC.

Contemplating my race strategy around the yellow boeys

My tri shorts give me a muffin top...but I swear I don't usually have one!

Thankfully the water was flat as glass and the swim went off without a hitch (except that it was murky and hot). My 800 meter swim time was 15 min 27 seconds.

Getting in to warm up

Ruby’s been flying lately so I wasn’t worried about the 15 mile bike ride at all! I spent most of the ride in the aero position which I really think cut down on my wind resistance and helped my time. I figured it’d take me about 40-43 min and I was spot on.

After a lightening quick transition 2 (1 min to rack the bike, swap my shoes, and throw on a visor) I was off on the run. That’s when the heat hit me. I was in the mid to upper 90s by then so I was slowing down a bit. Also, thanks Set Up Events for telling us ahead of time that the run was a trail run (sarcasm…they didn’t say anything about it). Up, Down, Up , Down, UP, UP, Steep UP in the woods does not translate into a fast run. It’s too bad because my knee has finally started to feel better. The run took me 30 min, which is about 6 min slower than the Shenandoah Tri for the Y about a month ago (and that was following a longer bike!). Overall time: 1:40:40. Definitely not my best (if you check out my PRs on the active life page you’ll see this is a bit off from my best sprint tri time), but I only signed up the morning of just for the workout so it was a WIN