The swim was, again, tough! My time in the water was far too long, 20:41. That's a full 3:17 longer than my first race. I was sucking air big time. Could only do about 20 strokes before needing to take an oxygen break. I made it to the first buoy in about 6 minutes and knew I was going to have to really pick it up if I was going to match my first race. About halfway through, I just focused on getting to the end and not worrying about the time. It seems a lot of people struggled with the swim as the top times weren't where I thought they would be.
Transition this race was slower as well - 4:22 today compared to 3:12 in May. I think it was because I couldn't get my left leg out of the wetsuit! There was also time spent getting into sandals because it was a long, rocky run to the transition area.
The bike was fun but hard. Culprit: Oxygen! However, I did a bit better than my first race. Today I made it in 38:28 and last time it was 39:34 so a whole minute faster. Felt really good about the bike but was hoping to be closer to 35:00.
T2 was really about the same, 1:37 as compared to 1:35. So that's good.
The run was just a bit faster this time as well: 24:40 today and 25:24 first race. I, again, had to stop and stretch my calves after about 200 yards. Not sure if that is something I will always have to do or not but I will just file it away. I should probably count on stretching at the bike rack, in transition. Might be faster there. The run was good, I didn't walk at all this time and was able to pass some people so that felt good.
Overall time was 1:29:49. That's slower than my first race of 1:27:07 but still under the 90 minutes I never want to go over. I ended up 68th out of the field of 357 who did the sprint distance. That's in the top 25% of all the racers. I feel pretty good about that. In my age group I placed 10th out of 22 so top 50% there.
So, race day has come and gone and I am still alive. I didn't die from oxygen deprivation, although it was nip and tuck there for a while in the water, grin.
I appreciate so much the support I got today. Heather and Xander came to cheer me on and that is huge motivation for me. Also my sister Theresa was there to cheer Blaine (her husband) and I along. Blaine did great for his first sprint distance tri. And my sister Karen came as well. It makes such a huge difference to have people there cheering me on.
So, another race done and now I have to decide where and when the next one will be.
Stay tuned.
