Y Tri Race Report

It’s absolutely pouring outside, and I am lucky to have made it from the car to the building without getting totally waterlogged. I haven’t seen it rain this hard since…well, since yesterday morning, when we got dumped on at the Y Tri sprint triathlon in Pearland.

Is it me, or has it been ever rainier than usual this summer? I mean, we always get afternoon thunderstorms, but there have been an inordinate amount of rainy mornings in the past few months.

Actually, doing another triathlon in the rain wasn’t too bad. It rained hard before the start, which was delayed about 10 minutes due to lightning, but then it stopped during my swim, and only drizzled lightly while I was biking. The wet roads made it necessary to slow to almost a crawl as I rounded the four U-turns on the bike course, but at least I didn’t have to deal with the pins-and-needles feeling of raindrops hitting you as you pedal at 17 mph. No, instead, the rain came fast and hard on the run. It would have bothered me, but I decided that I’d rather run in a torrential downpour than in the heat!

Overall the tri went reasonably well. The swim was in the 50-meter pool at Independence Park in Pearland. I had mistakenly submitted a 300 yard predicted time instead of 300 meter, so at #69 out of 300, I was seeded slightly faster than my ability. The person behind me was a no-show, so there was a 20-second gap between me and the next person in the water after me. Still, two people passed me in the water. I will have to be more careful next time to avoid making that mistake again.

I haven’t swum in a 50-meter pool since I was at Georgia Tech, and I have to admit I found myself waiting for the wall each length. I finished the swim in 6:42, a deceptive time since there was a 20-30 second run between leaving the pool and crossing the timing mat into transition. My actual in-the-water time was closer to 6:10, which is probably what I should’ve put down for my predicted time. That is under 2:00 per 100 yards, which I’m happy enough about.

The bike was a 12-miler (Garmin measured 12.25, which I think is accurate; tri distances are often a little bit off the nice round number advertised) that was pretty nice except for the four U-turns. I hate U-turns on a bike. Like I said, it didn’t rain too much, but for whatever reason, I was just not feeling it. Maybe it was the 5-miler I did the day before. Maybe it was bad nutrition. Maybe it was just a bad day. I managed to push enough to average just over 17 mph, finishing the bike in 42:32, but I had hoped for 40:00 flat. One of the BAFT women was just behind me, and also competing in the Athena category. At every U-turn I could see her, and at every U-turn she was gaining on me. If the bike had been much longer, she would’ve caught me.

After the bike, I didn’t have high hopes for the run, but somehow the rain actually helped. It was a 3-miler (Garmin measured 3.1, which matches a Google pedometer version of the route) and after some dead legs for the first half mile, I was able to settle into a comfortable pace and do the run with only two quick stops at the two water stations. (At the first one, in the middle of the downpour, I remarked that it seemed unfair that I had to stop to drink, and wondered why my body couldn’t just absorb the massive quantities of liquid falling from the sky at that particular moment. I finished in 32:48 for an average of either 10:56 per mile if you go with an even 3 miles, or 10:35 if you say it was 3.1. Either way, it was under 11:00 per mile and I was happy with that.

My overall finish time was 1:24:45. That would’ve put me 12th in my age group, but was good enough for 1st place Athena. So far this year I’ve been 2nd, 1st, and 1st in the Athena group. The only race I didn’t place in was the Half Iron, and well, those Athenas were hard core. I have to watch out or this stuff is going to go to my head. I know that placing in this category is totally dependent on who happens to show up and who happens to be willing to admit that they weigh more than 150 pounds. But I’ll take it. Fastest fat girl in Houston, that’s me!

I almost lost 1st place yesterday though. Second place was a minute behind me and third place was the Bay Area Fit woman who kept gaining on me on the bike, four minutes behind. Even more interesting: I finished 1st in the category, but did not have the fastest time in any of the splits. There were 5 Athenas. I was 2/5 in the swim and T1. I was 3/5 on the bike, T2, and run. But I was the most consistent, and therefore took the category.