Sunday was my fourth year participating in the Iron Girl* sprint distance triathlon relay, my third time doing it as an Efit team, and my second time being on a team with Judy.
The two Efit teams – Efit Sophisticates and Efit Exquisites
Me and Judy
It was my first time being on a two-person relay time, and my first time time trying the swim portion of the event! Actually, it was my first time ever swimming in a “competitive” event (since middle school, anyway – ha!).
Sigh. When I told people I was doing a triathlon relay, and that I was swimming and running, so many people immediately asked why I wasn’t doing the whole thing. Told me they thought I should do the whole thing. Told me that I would regret not doing the whole thing. Told me they’d been thinking about it, and decided I should do a triathlon, on my own. (Then there was the very unique reaction my worrywart mother had, where she thought I would get a leg cramp and drown…)
Sigh again. I like doing these as a RELAY team. I do not have the interest now, in the logistics of doing a triathlon on my own. I just don’t. Could I do one? Yes, I could. Would I enjoy it? Probably not. That is what I determined during my swim Sunday morning.
So back to the race. It was a foggy day, with temps in the mid/high 60s but with high humidity. The water was at 79.5° and not wetsuit legal (although, Iron Girl did allow a wetsuit wave, so you could use it, you just couldn’t qualify for age group placements).
The water felt great to be in, and was smooth. It made me want to spend the day playing around in it, ha ha.
The race started at 7:00, and the relayers were in the 7:45 wave, with the 20-29 year olds. I felt excited to try the swim, and did not want to go out too fast and get out of breath, like I tend to in the pool.
I followed my friends’ advice to not be in the middle of the pack, and to stay to the side. I followed the announcer’s advice, for the less experienced swimmers to stay to the right (that is where the help was on the swim course – the bouys were to the left).
I felt good when I went out. I planned to do freestyle stroke for as long as possible, and use breaststroke to catch my breath, as I had practiced. But as soon as I did my first breaststroke break, I stayed in that “rest” mode way longer than I intended, and ended up doing mostly breaststroke, which I enjoy, but come on, we know freestyle is way faster! Ha ha.
I had a lot of oddly negative self talk during the swim, which is not like me, AT ALL. Just stuff like “you’re not so good at this,” and so on. Which, duh, yeah, why would I be a very “good” swimmer? It’s not really something I want to be – I want to swim for leisure and cross training. Why I’d like to have better form, I don’t really have a desire to be good at swimming.
On person bumped in to me during the swim, but apologized (I thought that was nice). Other than that, there wasn’t a ton of contact. When I saw two swimmers were about to collide, I would get out of their way. I kind of enjoyed the swim, but, I just didn’t DIG it. I didn’t immensely enjoy it, like I do with biking and running. And I know most people say that the swim is the least enjoyable part of the triathlon, but here’s the thing – if I am going to be mediocre at the athletic events I do, I want to ENJOY them. I do not see the point of doing a triathlon “because I can” when I don’t enjoy the first event. I can just do a duathlon. Or not. (<— probably not)
So, yeah. My goal was to finish the half mile swim in between 15 and 20 minutes, and my official time was 17:58.
My plan after the swim was to sprint like hell to Judy so she could get on her bike as fast as possible.
Success! Transition 1 was 00:46 seconds!
Gah, I was so incredibly out of breath from the rush of sprinting in. It took me awhile to calm down… and I am not sure I ever really did. I dried off as well as I could and changed in to my running clothes as quickly as possible. Judy was expecting the 12 mile ride to take her 35 minutes.
The 35 minutes went fast and I was getting pumped up, watching for Judy!
She came in at 39:25 (she later told me she felt great for the first half but low on energy for the second half),
and we had another awesome transition – transition 2 in 00:44.
I took off fast! I was hoping to get a 5K time between 24 and 25 minutes.
Right away, I did NOT like the feeling of water coming down from my wet hair. Or… was that the nasty humidity, affecting me THAT soon?! Either way, yuck. I know now I don’t like running with wet hair.
I could tell my timing chip was a bit loose and planned to adjust it later. Oops – guess I could have used more time in T2, for precision.
I focused on running the tangents as well as possible with passing so many people (because so many had started before me and were doing the full triathlon and had less energy than I did after resting after the swim). But I really messed up the tangents (and started my watch too early) and ended up running 3.3 miles, which screwed with my time.
Although… I would not be surprised if the course was not accurate. The bike course seems to be short. And Iron Girl has a poor 5K course design. I didn’t run the 5K portion in 2014, but people were telling me how part of it was an out and back on gravel and loose rocks (when I ran it in 2013 and previously, it was all paved). When I was talking to Dawn (an Efit friend on another team) about it on Saturday, she said she looked at the map and they took the gravel part out. Well, the map said that, but they seemed to use the 2014 map on race day, which are both linked to on their website… on the same page (the 2015 one under “participant guide” and the 2014 one under “triathlon course map”). They also added a 5K event this year, and that was supposed to stay off the gravel – I hope they at least got to, because an out and back on a narrow loose gravel path during a 5K is DANGEROUS. It slowed me WAY down and made me hella frustrated. GRRRRRRRRR. I sent an inquiry to Iron Girl about this, because I don’t want to continue doing this race if it’s like that. It’s dumb. I can find other relays to do that don’t have part of the 5K course on BS gravel. I train on crushed limestone so I can go faster on PAVED 5K courses. This isn’t a “trail” race. /rant over
Back to the run. I had to pull over on the gravel part to re-adjust the timing chip (derr, Kim, pay attention next time!) and I stopped on the way out of that section to get a drink of water. I dislike an out and back course on a 5K, but was nice on Sunday because I saw my friend Julie (whom I didn’t know was doing the race) and got to give Dawn a high-five! (Kelly was also there too, and we got to chat a bit!)
I tried to keep my pace consistent to the end, and felt good enough, but I finished way over my goal in 26:28! Eek!
Judy ran me in for the finish and really pushed me!!!
Janky supination pic for ya
Our final time was 1:25:18, which was first in the two-person relay division! Woot woot!
The other Efit team finished shortly after us, in 1:35:ish! Everyone on the team did really well!
Last year when we did this, we had four teams and at least one person from our studio doing it solo… it was much quieter this year with two teams, which was nice. It was easier to stay together, and cheer each other on! (Not that more teams are BAD, this was just logistically easier.)
After we all finished, we got some of the post race food (bagels, fruit, burritos, coffee, chocolate milk). In past years I always thought you had to pay for the post-race food, but you didn’t this year. I wonder if I have been wrong all this time (probably)! It was nice to get some food right after. I wasn’t sure how to fuel for the two events, and did a decent job, but was hungry when we finished.
After that (well, and unsuccessfully trying to find our relay team placings anywhere onsite), we got the bikes out of transitions and headed out.
I know I complained a lot in this post, but I DO enjoy doing these sorts of events as a team, and was very happy to have Judy as a teammate. Iron Girl is logistically easy for me (location, familiarity, etc.). The atmosphere is great, and they are working at figuring some things out (like parking), and we really enjoyed the expo.
But I think I am getting close to being over doing this race each year. The bike and run course are meh, and, dang, it’s SO expensive. At least I really like the shirt this year!
So, we’ll see what I end up doing next year. I’d really like to do a half iron man relay again, with my brother-in-laws, and being on an Efit team for a smaller event would be cool, too!
(Thanks to Steven for all of the pictures and to Judy’s husband, Mike, for spectating! So nice to have our guys there!)
*The first time I participated, it was actually Danskin, still, but, eh, details.
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