SummiTri Race Report

Woke up at 5:15 to start race day. Thankfully I had spent Saturday evening loading up the bike and all my stuff so I had very little to think about that morning. I had to take a picture that morning for all you people out there that thinks NE Ohio is cloudy all the time. This day was absolutely a gorgeous morning for a race with bright sun in the 60's.

The race was to start at 7:15 for females and 7:20 for males. It was a 500 yard swim and thankfully I had practiced this before. As we made our way into the water, I knew I would not be fast but I was hoping to not get hit bad and not fall too far behind. With the tone, I was off. It started off OK and then I could feel my form just falling apart. I felt like I was kicking and splashing around some little kid at swim lessons. As I neared the turnaround I saw my 52 year old friend, Carol who has not swam in three years already heading back (yeah she is one of those natural swimmer folk...she was the 4th female out of water, swam with no goggles, and half of it on her back.) Anyway as I made my way back I heard the men start. There wake from the men going down made some little waves for us and then I started to get really nervous. They were closing on me fast. All I could think was, "Please let me get out of the water before the men catch up as this is hard enough without them." Thankfully, I made it out just in the nick of time as they were on my heels on the way into transition. I was not the last one out of the water, but there could not have been many females behind me.

Both transitions seemed uneventful and pretty quick. I was exhausted after my splash in the lake. I can't figure out why but my legs were really exhausted. Too much frantic kicking? I don't know. So as I took off on my bike, it took me at least 5 minutes to just collect myself after the swim. As I rode I saw a guy laid out on his back. Apparently someone was backing out of their driveway and hit him. Poor guy...I thought. I guess he was pretty much OK but you could not say the same for the bike. At any rate the bike portion went by fast. I was ablet o make up some ground and many of the men passed me here. Into transition which felt fine and back out for two loops around the park. With my heavy legs I still felt pretty good. Honestly I think I was just relieved to be back to my comfort zone...running! I kept a decent pace and started passing people. Then when I got to the front of the park entrance I wondered why there was no cone turnaround. Crud, I missed it. It turns out we practiced it wrong and so without paying attention and just doing what I practiced I totally missed it. I saw the one girl I had passed rounding the corner giving me a strange look as I said that I totally missed that cone---oops....I could tell on my second lap that it was clearly marked and I was just paying any attention. So then I was mad that I added on extra distance and lost ground. Oh well, as they say, shit happens! So I continued on and picked up the pace. As I came around for my second loop I was happy to see my friend Carol in the distance who was on her first lap. I cheered her on and headed to the finish line and collect my trophy.

I would think I would feel happier about the fact that I did my first tri and I was the 5 out of 23 females. However, I was more frustrated than anything. I was frustrated that my swim really put me far back and frustrated that I could tell my swim affected my biking and I just did not feel as strong on the bike as I expected, and frustrated I missed the stupid cone on the run. In retrospect...stupic missed cone, no biggy. Bottom line, my swimming is very weak and that is where I need to focus.