I like Katie's idea of posting pre-race thoughts, so here we go. The Olympic distance Vineman Monte Rio tri is this Sunday. It will be my third Olympic distance triathlon, and my goal here is to PR (current PR 2:53). My swimming and running are already somewhat close to optimized (sorry, got a little engineery there), and I can't expect huge significant drops in those legs. What I would really like to see on Sunday is a strong improvement in the bike, and I feel like I've been training hard enough to see at least something. Last year my bike split in my Olympic tri was a lot slower than I thought it could be, but my bike split in the 70.3 was pretty much faster than I thought was physically possible (for me). My point is, I have a REALLY hard time gauging what my bike split should be from my training, so whatever happens Sunday will be either a good surprise or a bad surprise!
It felt wrong to have a blog post without a picture, so here's a pic of the piping hot blueberry cobbler I just made. Don't worry- we'll be eating it with vanilla ice cream.
Another fun fact is that we have two new triathletes racing with us this weekend- fellow bloggers (sort of) Sandi and Will! In the spirit of first triathlons I'm going to make a list-style overview of my first tri (also an Olympic distance), especially highlighting all of the mistakes I made:
1.) The swim went fine. Then again, I had been racing swimming for 18 years. If you can't manage to have decent execution of a sport that you've been doing for that long, then it's a bad sign. In hindsight I may have even taken it a little too easy, but there's no shame in that in a first tri.
2.) My bike wasn't in a low enough gear for the short but steep uphill out of the parking lot. Also, I was getting passed a lot so I basically sprinted the first two miles of the bike, which of course, resulted in me feeling like my quads were going to fall off by mile 10. I'll also add that I ate and drank nothing on the bike because I couldn't take a hand off my handlebars without crashing. Luckily that situation has improved since my first race.
3.) The run wasn't a total disaster, but it was hot. I was feeling the effects of not drinking anything for the last 1:30+ (ok, closer to 1:40). And again, I pushed the first mile WAY too hard. Luckily, I had also been running for a long time so I managed to drag myself through the 10k although I'm sure there was some serious positive splitting going on.
For those of our readers who are triathletes... what mistakes did you make in your first (or subsequent) triathlon?
Wooot! Sounds like you are definitely due for a PR!
ReplyDeleteLet's see my biggest mistake of my one (and thus far only) triathlon was total panic on the swim. Ironically I wasn't even panicking about MY swim I was worried that Matt had drown. Trying to spot your spouse as they finish their swim right before you start yours and missing them somehow is a bad bad idea.
So I guess my lesson learned would be swim/bike/run your own race and just worry about you. :)
Go Rachel, Go! :)
ReplyDeleteMy biggest Tri mistake: hanging out for almost 7 minutes between the swim and bike portions. Totally could've made that transition faster! On the other hand I was taking time to enjoy my first triathlon, which I did! Maybe it wasn't a mistake.
I once did a 1/10 ironman that UW ChemE puts on every year. My biggest mistake was not reaaaallllllllly knowing how to swim. I rocked the breast stroke pretty hard. Maybe next time I try a tri my swimming practice over the past few years will be evident :p
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