Summer vacation is over…where did it go?!

I know I’ve been M.I.A from blogging all summer, which is ironic because I thought I would be blogging more often over the summer. Oh well, it was a wonderful couple of months & now I am ready to start another school year.

Yesterday was the 3rd annual Tri Girl Sprint hosted by Bicycle World RGV in Harlingen, TX. This was my 2nd time to compete in this race, and I really enjoyed it last year, so I was looking forward to it this year.

It is very rookie-friendly; consisting of a 300m swim (in an Olympic distance pool), a 10 mile bike, & a 3 mile run. I was also excited to be racing alongside my mom for the first time! She has been training consistently for the past 4 months, and I knew she would do well.

Race Day:

Woke up at 4:30am and got all of my stuff together. Mike helped me load my and my mom’s bikes on the rack & I headed over to pick her up around 5:40am. Had a Bonk Breaker bar and a bottle of water for breakfast. When we got to the race site we made our way to transition and set ourselves up. Since it’s a small race, any place you rack your bike in transition is a good place.

The race was to begin at 7:00, so we waited around the pool for the festivities to begin.

Some of us dunked in to feel the water temperature and make sure our goggles were adjusted correctly.

Before we knew it, a prayer was said, the National Anthem was sung, and we were heading to line up to start.

It was a self-seeding line, so I made my way towards the 1:50-2:00 minute 100 meter swim pace.

SWIM:

The start was nice, with a 15 second gap between swimmers. I really enjoy swimming in this pool and found my rhythm right away & had a pleasant swim.

Jumped out of the water & headed into transition. Threw on my helmet, sunglasses, bike shoes & ran my bike out.

BIKE:

As soon as I took off on my bike I noticed my brakes were making a loud screeching sound when I rounded the first couple of turns. I got into my zone & started hammering away as fast as I could, but I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

I also noticed my heart rate was very high and I was breathing heavily. Since I lost my bike computer at IMTX & chose not to wear my Garmin for this race, I had no idea what my speed was. I tried to ignore my heavy breathing and effort & thought to myself that maybe my brakes were rubbing in the back (which was what had happened to me once before when I first got this bike last summer).

I pushed through and finished the bike feeling a little more winded than usual, but was interested to see what my legs had in store for me for the run.

What was cool was that as I was in transition to start my run, my mom was in transition right beside me to start her bike. So I was happy to see her.

RUN:

I loved how many spectators showed up and cheered us on in and out of transition. Heading out on the run I got a lot of friendly cheers and words of encouragement. We were lucky that it was a little overcast that day, so it wasn’t so extremely hot.

Overall, the run wasn’t so bad. I realized I was in the 3rd overall position once I hit the turn-around, and I knew the two women ahead of me weren’t in my age group, so that helped me kick it up a bit & head in for a strong finish.

Sprinted through the finish line and got interviewed for the newspaper right away; still trying to catch my breath. Found out I was first in my AG! Very happy about that.

Stuck around to see my mom come in on the bike and my other girlfriends finish. I made my way to the corner when I thought my mom would be finishing her run, and ran into the finish line area with her.

I am so extremely proud of her!

A very well-run race that I will most definitely do again next year!

By the way, when I got home and unloaded my bike, I took a look at my brakes and they WERE rubbing the tire frame the whole time! So it wasn’t me biking as poorly as I thought after all, haha ;).

What’s next on the calendar? Well, Longhorn 70.3 is in about 10 weeks, so training volume will gradually increasing, but I’m looking forward to it. I feel like I’m ready to get back on a schedule and a plan. It’s hard for me to train during the summer when my schedule is off. So, it’ll be nice to have that structure again.

Congrats to all the ladies who completed yesterday’s Tri! And remember….

TRI WITH JOY!

Jenna