Silverlake Tri Race Report

The Silverlake Triathlon was one of the best I’ve ever done. The weather was awesome. The course was fun. And I had one of my best races ever.

It was actually chilly enough as I left my apartment that I grabbed my biking windbreaker. Though they had announced that the water temperature was 76 degrees, meaning wetsuits would be legal, I decided it wasn’t worth it to deal with the wetsuit for such a short swim. But it was chilly enough in the dark that I worried not about being cold in the water, but being cold when I started the bike all wet! The air temperature was in the 60s when I left for the race.

As it turned out, I question where they measured the water temperature because that lake felt warmer than the 80-degree pool at the Rec Center — in other words, the water was fine, and when the sun came out it warmed up enough that a windbreaker wasn’t necessary.

I arrived about 10 minutes before 6:00 and rode my bike from the parking lot to the race site. Since the race was in a subdivision, we had to park a mile away. The transition area was set up on a semi-circle driveway, with extra racks set up on the grass median in the middle. With my luck I ended up having to rack my bike in the grass, but that didn’t turn out to be too bad. It just meant that my stuff was already wet with dew before I even got out of the water.

I made some changes to my transition process that all involved cutting out equipment that I didn’t need, so I set up my area in a very minimalist way. Towel on the ground to wipe my feet on after the swim. Bike shoes, with socks halfway inside-out (to make putting them on easier) sitting on top of shoes. Helmet on the bike seat. Sunglasses stuck through the handlebars so I didn’t have to mess with them until I was already riding. Garmin strapped loosely around the handlebars so again, I didn’t have to mess with it until I was already riding. Running shoes with elastic laces placed behind the bike shoes. And, for the first time, I didn’t change any article of clothing in transition — I wore the same outfit of tri shorts, swim bra top, and swim/bike sleeveless jersey for the entire race. It was tight and showed all my flab, but I decided I didn’t care.

After setting up my transition I stood in the very long line to get my chips. I’m not sure why the line was so long, but it was. This was the only poorly organized part of the entire race — everything else was great. I still had tons of time to kill, since transition closed at 6:30 and my wave (the last one) didn’t start until 7:27, so I wandered around the site. I ran into Carson and chatted with him until it was time for his wave to start, then I found Cathy and Joy from the BAFT group and hung out with them.

Finally, it was time for my wave to get in the water. Now, most triathlons start the men first and women second, meaning my wave is always one of the last, if not the last. I’ve accepted this, even though I can swim just as fast as a lot of the men. Fine, let them go first, let them kick and grab at each other in the water (though girls can be just a vicious), let them get out on the bike course and get going, whatever. But yesterday, my wave consisted of the Athenas, women 40-44, and all of the relay teams — meaning there were about a half-dozen men in my wave of about 40 people total. As we were lining up to get into the water, they called those 7 men to the front and had them line up first. They purposefully lined up 7 men in front of 35 women. Did they really think that all 7 of them would be faster than any of the women in my wave?

For the record, my swim time was faster than 5 of those 7 men. And the girl who won the Athena category had a faster swim than all 7 of them. I’m just saying.

The swim went well. The lake was a man-made thing in the middle of the neighborhood. It was cloudy so visibility was bad, but it was much cleaner than some of the other neighborhood lakes I’ve been in around here. I did a good job of hugging the buoys (essential if you want to swim the actual distance and not end up swimming farther than you have to) and only got tripped up by other swimmers a couple times. My swim time was 8:25; I’d been hoping to go under 8:00 but oh well. That time is still above average for the race. The volunteers at the edge of the lake were awesome — one person grabbed each of my hands and whooshed me out of the water so hard that I thought I’d fly into the air.

It was a very short jog from the edge of the water to transition. Still dripping but standing, I pulled on my socks and shoes and headed out. Streamlining my transition process really helped here. T1 was 1:33, which is at least 30-60 seconds faster than I would’ve been if I’d changed shirts, sat down, etc. Every little bit helps. Both of my transitions in this race were faster than the race average, which is new for me. I ran to the bike exit where there were 3 other girls also mounting their bikes. I got on in record time and passed all three on the way out.

The bike course was a short 9.7 miles but it was technical — lots of turns through the neighborhood streets. I guess that probably made everyone just a bit slower than usual, but the effect was pretty negligible, and all the turns actually made the course pretty fun. It did make for a couple bottlenecks when multiple riders would get stacked up around the corners (and the problem was compounded by the fact that we were confined to one lane), trying to pass each other while trying to stay within the no-drafting three-bike-lengths must-complete-your-pass-within-15-seconds crazy triathlon rules. I finished the bike in 31:21 for an average of 18.5 mph — by far my best bike leg of any tri I’ve done. Very cool. Very exciting.

I went through T2 in 1:07. All I had to do was change shoes. I probably would have been even quicker except that a volunteer almost pointed me in the wrong direction for the run start. Fortunately I caught myself quickly and headed out on the run. After my fast bike I was unsure of how well I’d handle the run, but the cooler weather really helped. I didn’t walk at all (also a first for me in a triathlon) and kept a steady pace to finish the 3.08 mile run in 32:48, an average of about 10:40 per mile. I was very happy with that run.

Interestingly, this is the only race I’ve ever done where my bike time was faster than my run time. This is also the shortest bike I’ve done, but it still made me laugh.

My overall finish time was 1:15:11, good enough for 2nd place among the 7 Athenas (that’s the category for women who weigh more than 150 pounds). I got a cool medal for my effort and some more hardware to add to my collection. I place so rarely that I have to enjoy every one! There aren’t many women who race as Athenas in this area, so it gives me an opportunity to take home some hardware every once in a while. The girl who won 1st place in the group was ahead of me by more than 5 minutes, so it wasn’t even close. She wasn’t overweight at all; she was just tall, probably 6 feet, and really muscular.

All in all it was a great race and I’ll definitely do it again next year.