Swim 500m, bike 23.6 km, run 5 km
3/18 AG, 16/124 OA
Swim:
Goal time - as close to 10:00 as I could get
Actual time - 12:44 including exiting the pool building (last year: 12:42)
Bike
Goal - avg. 30 km/h
Actual - avg. 29.34 km/h (last year: 28.something)
Run
Goal - break 25 minutes
Actual - 24:57
Swim. Lightheaded, warmed up in the pool to relieve the feeling of wooziness. Good swim, main goal was to go out steady enough that I didn't spike my heart rate. Passed about as many people who passed me, so seeding was ok. Wished the gals in front of me on the stairs out of the building had hustled a little more, but what are you going to do. Threw on my running shoes, grabbed my bib and headed for transition. Pushed this part harder than last year, and took a minute off my T1 time -- I knew I'd need every advantage, and couldn't waste any time if I wanted to finish strong in this large field of 250 athletes (124 women).
Bike. Had my road bike at this race, having blown a tire on my TT bike earlier in the week and not had time to address it -- including the possibility of needing new tires, new tube on the front, etc. (these doubts start to creep in when you flat on your first ride of the season). Felt a little slow, but pushed hard on the bike. The benefit of an event with a staggered start pool swim is that the bike course is really well spread out. In the final event I did last season, the fastest women were stuck needing to pass the slowest men early in the bike course as our swim start was only 5 minutes behind theirs. Unfortunately, I found my hands starting to go numb around 6 km into the 24 km bike. No problem... I don't need those last 2 fingers anyway. Then the numbness started to spread, until I was only working off my thumb and my palm -- which I thought would be adequate, until I reached for the brake lever at the turnaround point and had to look down to see if my fingers were in the right place. Hmm. I'm planning to use this bike for the hilly Tremblant Olympic course, so I made a mental note to take the 6 second hit in transition to don gloves next time.
Run. I'll be honest -- this is not my favourite run course. The first couple of km are on a slight, insidious uphill grade, on a narrow strip of uneven grass. Following this is a steep downhill to the river (which of course becomes a steep uphill on the return trip). The pleasant section on the winding path by the river is narrow, which makes passing challenging particularly when someone's coming the other way. I tried not to waste any time in transition, which was included in the run time. I felt like my legs weren't working well on that first uphill, but I just pushed as hard as I could and didn't stop until I was across the finish line. I'm so happy to have finally broken 25 minutes... this was a goal I didn't manage to quite reach last year, so this was a great way to open the 2015 tri season.
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