Sunday was my first triathlon, the Tri for Environment. The race was put on by the Annapolis
Triathlon Club and held at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
in Rhode River, MD. The race was a
Sprint that consisted of an 800 meter swim, a 10 Mile bike, and 5K Run.
I have done numerous duathlons now so the format of event,
transition, event, transition, event is not foreign to me. However, the swim is
another story. I consider myself n strong swimmer. And I had not trained for
the swim portion of this event very much.
So I knew it was going to be challenging. What I wasn’t excepting the
diversity of the skills needed for this race.
The swim course was an 800 meter open water swim in a
protected bay of the Rhode River. There were a couple things that made this a
hard. We started in the water…which
means a lot of trending around before you started. The second tough part was the jellyfish. They were pretty bad in the very warm
water. I was following Bobbi’s advice and
started near the back and out of the way so I didn’t get run over. I sighted the buoys really well and made a
nice line for the turn buoy once I was past the dock. That is when I got my jellyfish sting on my
foot and ankle…it is kind of like a bee sting…hurt and then it was just
annoying for the rest of the race. I
mixed up my strokes mainly to sight the buoys and churned along about 3 inches
underwater all the way (once a submariner always submariner).
Out of the water and across the first timing mat (another 175
to 200 yards up the road) in 28:32 (counting the transition that comes out to
be 2:59/100 meters, so I may have been a little faster than that in the
water).
Not unhappy with my swim (I didn’t drown or end up halfway
down the Chesapeake Bay) I made the transition on the bike and out I went. The bike was two 5 mile loops partially in
the SERC property and some on the main road.
I wasn’t hard and did well, despite the very rough road sections on SERC
(speed bumps, gravel, numerous potholes, etc.). I did the bike in 32:20 just
over 18.5 mph. While on the bike I refueled with liquids and food and cruised
into the second transition feeling pretty good by making up time on the bike
with my slow swim and heading for the run.
The run…it is what I do best, right?…just a few days before
I rocked the Chesty Puller 5K with a PR running 6:51/mi. What I failed to mention (although described
much differently on the race info) this was a trail run. It has been raining every day for weeks and
this trail run quickly turned into a mud run.
A single tract trail run in which you then must navigate
around, trees, roots, mud pits, slippery hills, slower runners, slippery wooded bridges, buildings and you never
get a good pace. So my thoughts for a sub 8 min/mile quickly faded and I
slugged along the course hoping not to fall. I finished the run a slow 28:32 or
9:12/mi. Overall, I finished in 1:28:27,
14 of 20 in the (M40-49) and 92 of 192 overall finishers.
For my first, yes I said first which means there might be
more, triathlon I am not unhappy on how I did.
I know that I would need to get a lot more time in the pool to do
anything longer or to get any faster in the water. I am seriously considering doing another
Sprint in September…the day after Bobbi’s 70.3 in Jamestown, Va.
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