Triathlon (day of truth)

Yesterday was finally my Belwood Lake try-a-tri race day. For my first time, I'd say it really went great.

Jer's race was at 8:30am. We didn't end up leaving the house until 7:10am. We should have left earlier, it was partially my fault since I thought we wouldn't need so much time. Anyway he was stressed but we got there and registered, and he had just enough time to get his tires pumped up, lay out his gear and basically run down to the water for the start. He did the sprint and had such a strong race with a really great time.

Luckily for me, I got to watch his race, take the photos, etc. and see how things went before my race at 1:15pm. For my race, the bike and run were at switched around from his but things went smoothly. I thought it would be a lot more stressful trying to figure out where to go but once I got going, I wasn't worried so much about that anymore as just keeping moving.

Before the swim:

The swim was really tough, I think I need lessons. I did almost the entire swim on my back. I can do front crawl but I have a hard time with timing my breathing. Also with the suit on and with 25 people thrashing around you, it brings up the anxiey level. Every time I wanted to swim on my stomach I felt like I couldn't breathe so I just stuck to back crawl and was fine. Jer said I was at the back 1/3 of the pack when I got out.

After the swim, trying to get my suit off:
Suit half off, finally caught my breath from the swim and jogging over to my bike:


Swim to bike transition. Got my suit off, drying off my feet, putting on my shoes and grabbing my bike:
Jer said I managed to make up some time I lost on the swim during my bike. A few guys passed me on the bike portion who must have been behind me in the second heat of the swim but for the most part I held my own and passed about 5 or 6 people.

Finally ready to head out for my 14k bike:
The bike went well and I felt good during it. After the bike, I hopped off, racked it and headed out for the run. This is around the time when I realized my calves were on fire and I was having trouble picking my feet up. It felt like my legs were full of lactic acid. I just kept telling myself, "NO JULIA YOU ARE NOT WALKING!" and so I didn't. Except when I grabbed a sip of water from volunteers.

Heading out for my 3k run:


Finally the finish line was in sight so I picked it up and sprinted through for a not bad finishing time of 1:11. This try-a-tri was slightly longer than others, mine was swim 375, bike 14k, run 3, whereas others have shorter bike and runs. I had a goal of 1:15 so I am certainly happy with my time!

Photo finish:

After the race I felt great. I felt so happy and lucky to have friends there cheering me on and to have Jer there congratulating me when I finished. He was so sweet and proud of me. We had something to eat and headed home.

Drive home post-race high:

When we got home around 3:30pm, we decided to have a nap which I thought would be 1/2 hour or so but it turned out we were both exhausted and slept for an hour and a half. Thankfully we set an alarm otherwise we both would have probably kept on sleeping for who knows how long.

Race kit:

And last but not least my Belwood Lake 2011 race shirt, which I am proudly wearing today:



All in all this was a great experience. I would love to do another try-a-tri this year and try to beat my time. It was clear that I need to work on the swim and do more brick workouts. For anyone who feels intimidated by the whole thing, I would say go for it. It was a great experience and everyone there was really encouraging and kind. There were all sorts of people from different backgrounds with different body types and really the only person you're racing is yourself.

Can't wait until the next one! And surprisingly even though my legs hurt so much during the race, I'm not in any pain today at all. Awesome.