One Year

Yesterday I raced in the 8th Annual PT Solutions Women's Sprint Tri. This race marks one full year that I've been doing tris. Last year, this race was my first ever triathlon. It was really interesting coming back with some more experience under my belt.

There were several girls on my rack who were doing their first race ever. I tried to give them advice as best I could (it wasn't my first race ever, but I'm not exactly a seasoned pro!). I remember how nice everyone seemed and how intimidated I was, and so I tried to pay forward all the advice and reassurance I got from folks last year. I also ran into some friends from TnT- it was great to see them!

Swim: It's a short swim, and my time was pretty similar to last year, but I was amazed at how much more comfortable I felt in the water, and swimming in a pack. 2011- 10:09/2010- 10:42

T1: Nothing major to report. 2011- 1:39/2010- 2:11

Bike: Here is where most of my improvements were made. Some of the improvment was due to having a better bike. Last year I was doing it on my mountain bike. This year, I had a better road bike. But I've also been putting a lot of time in on the trainer, and working on my biking. So it's really nice to see some concrete evidence that it's been worth it. The bike itself was relatively smooth. There were a couple spots where folks got super bunched up. At one point there is a steep hill, where the road is not closed to traffic. A few people were having to stop and get off and walk their bikes up. That plus cars trying to pass made for a huge log jam. I nearly had to get off myself for the sole reason that I couldn't get around the slower folks. A little frustrating. I was able to get through however, and passed folks. It felt really great to pass tons of people and only have a few pass me. 2011- 46:58/2010- 1:03:19

T2: Nothing much to report here either. Had a long run back to my rack in bike shoes. 2011- 1:36/2010- 1:14

Run: It wasn't very hot, but man was it humid. Even on the bike, I didn't dry off at all. And sweat was just dripping, and not evaporating. I felt like I was overheating big time, even though the temperature wasnt' that hot. I did improve on last year's time, but last year's time was awful. And I've had much better tri 5k's recently. I felt like I could've done a little better on the run, but with the conditions, I'm not too upset about it. 2011- 35:47/2010- 38:10

Overall: 2011- 1:36:07/2010- 1:55:34. An improvement of nearly 20 minutes. I'm still not quite where I'd like to be, but I can see the improvement coming, so that's what counts.

A Pet Peeve of Mine

Lately something that gets said to me a lot, when I talk about my training, has started to bother me. It seems to happen most at work, but I've gotten it elsewhere. It's really just a minor thing, but it's really starting to get under my skin. Here's a sample conversation:

Random Colleague: What did you do this weekend
Me: I raced in a sprint triathlon on Sunday (or hell, a 5K)
RC: Oh how nice to be young.

I get that I'm young. I get that maintaining exercise fitness gets harder as you get older. But something about that particular statement, makes it seem like they're simutaneously making excuses for themselves, while not acknowledging the fact that I work really hard.

I get up at 5:30 am to fit runs in. I pack my lunch and drive to the gym on my lunch break to get swims in. I sacrifice Sundays with my boyfriend to go on long bike rides (I'm still working on getting him biking with me). I work really hard to find the time to fit in my workouts. And I work really hard to maintain my fitness. When people say something along those lines, sometimes it sounds like, "Oh, you're young, it's not that hard of work."

I do realize that that is probably not what their intended meaning is. Although sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly fiesty, I'll just reply with something like, "Well, my Mom did X triathlon with me."

The Beauty of (Not) Training

This weekend my boyfriend and I took a much needed mini-vacation down to the coast. We've both been traveling a lot this year, with more coming up, and between the stress of spending that much time apart, and the hectic-ness of trying to catch up while we're in town, we both needed this sooo bad. I just wish it could have been a few days longer. So we took off for the weekend, down to the beach. We got a nice deal on a beachfront hotel. Friday was mostly spent driving down, but we went to the beach for a half hour swim or so, then went to dinner and feasted on fresh seafood.

Saturday, we rented bikes from the hotel after breakfast, and rode all over the island. It was so refreshing to just bike for recreation. Don't get me wrong, I like training. I take it seriously. But it's really nice to remember that this is something that is just FUN too. To just mosey around on a fixed gear beach cruiser, and stop and take in the sights. To not worry about cadence, and nutrition (we did bring along water since it was so hot- would have been miserable otherwise), and pace, and distance, etc.

All in all, it was a nice relaxing vacation. Which is the whole point right? We stayed active enough that I didn't come back feeling like a slug, but it was a nice break from the grind of training (not to mention work and stuff).