My Second Triathlon!

You may remember that it was not that long ago when I blogged about my first triathlon, the Silicon Valley Sprint Triathlon on June 12th. Well, it was so awesome that I decided to do some more! I knew right away that I wanted to return to the Luna Bar Women’s Triathlon Festival, where I got my first taste of multisport in the duathlon last August. But it was a long time until the end of August, so I decided to do another event in between. The TBF Tri-for-Fun2 was perfect because it is held at the same park by the same race organizers as the Luna Bar Tri, and the courses are very similar (the Luna Bar cycle and run courses are a little bit longer).

Lizzy tries to get rid of some nerves

This triathlon was held at Rancho Seco Park, which is out east near Sacramento. It’s not that far away, but it is far enough that we had to leave at 4:30am to get there in time to stake out a good spot in transition, check in, warm up, and deal with pre-race nerves.

Where's Lizzy?

I was a little nervous for the swim course because it was significantly longer than my previous tri (800m vs. 500m) and the air was a little chillier. However, the water was surprisingly warm and much less murky than at Lake Almaden. As a result, I was able to follow a couple swimmers in front of me (letting them break their stroke to check our direction instead of having to do it so many times myself). I think I ended up averaging a little over 2:00 per 100m, which is generally what I’ve been doing in the pool.

Women's heat one is off!

I think my T1 was a little faster than before – the short run from the swim exit to transition was grassy and allowed me to get most of the sand off my feet before I got to my towel. I’m still not super fast at jumping on my bike, but I don’t think I’m really competitive enough yet for those couple of seconds to make a significant difference for me. The bike course, an out-and-back course on a relatively flat road with gentle rolling hills, was also significantly longer than that on my first tri (16mi vs. 8.8mi), but I had raced on the course before (the Luna Bar Tri/Du does the same out-and-back, except with the turnaround another 2 miles out), so I knew what to expect. Not surprisingly, I was much faster on my tri bike than on my normal road bike that I used on the duathlon. The course is flat enough that I was able to stay in aero position almost the entire time, in addition to staying on my big front gear for maximum efficiency. My top speed was about 25mph, and my average speed was around 19mph. I think I averaged about 14mph on my road bike on the same course (well, the same course +4 more miles and maybe in a little worse shape).

Lizzy works to minimize her T1 by running out of the water!

My T2 also went better than my first triathlon. My feet were drier (I’d been on the bike for about 50 minutes this time) and I did a much better job of putting my socks on. My legs definitely felt much more tired starting out the run, but I tried to stay in a positive mental state, focusing on how light I felt and how warm my muscles were, rather than how tired my legs were feeling. I got a little psyched out on the run, since I expected the aid station to be at the turnaround (1.5mi) and it was actually at ~1mi, so I got all excited to be halfway done, only to realize that I still had a ways to go before halfway. With some effort, though, I was able to stay positive and keep pushing. It didn’t hurt that I was passing tons of people and could tell that there weren’t that many women ahead of me (i.e. I was doing well in my age group).

On the bike leaving the transition.

Since my legs were quite warm (read: tired) by the final stretch, I was able to do an even better sprint to the finish than my first triathlon. (I know this is counter-intuitive, but I have a major tendency to pull my quads when I really sprint hard, so I only really go full-throttle when I know my quads are happy.)

Lizzy staying in aero position as she finishes the bike.

Although I was definitely more physically tired than my first tri, I still felt good after finishing and relaxed in the shade with Luke to wait for the awards ceremony. They were giving awards 5 deep in 5-year age groups (mine is women 20-24) and I was almost certain I’d done well enough to get an award. It actually turned out that I won my age group, which I think is my best race result ever (I won my age group at the Luna Bar Duathlon, but I was the only one in my age group, so there wasn’t much competition).

Lizzy in first for women 20-24 with the other top finishers.

So my second triathlon was just as awesome as my first! I’m pretty excited for the Luna Bar Tri at the end of August (I’ll have some work to regain some fitness after my 3 weeks doing geology in South Africa, but that’s ok). It continues to impress me that, although I used to consider myself a pretty unathletic person, I’m now a successful triathlete! I’m even entertaining wild and crazy thoughts of doing a Half Ironman at some point…

Lizzy