Triathlon Season 2015

Yesterday my 2015 triathlon season commenced and being it was a whole 9 degrees when I left the house yesterday morning I was thanking my lucky stars that the race was indoors. This indoor tri, was an ‘hour of power’ if you will and once the hour was over, power was one thing I no longer had. I finished with sore muscles, slight dehydration, a headache, a sense of accomplishment, but power was not an attribute I could correlate with my current bodily state. This triathlon was uniquely different than any other tri I had competed in before. For starters it was held completely indoors which I had never experienced, the scoring was based on how much distance the athletes covered over a designated amount of time rather than speed and very little training on my part had been conducted before the event started. Also for any of you that have competed in a triathlon before or supported a triathlete you know we do not travel lightly, however yesterday was an exception; I only had to take myself, swimsuit, goggles, swim cap, and biking/running clothes and shoes. That may still seem like a lot, but trust me when I say I have a check list that typically the night before a race I have check everything off and laid it all out to make sure I am not forgetting a helmet, bike shoes, wetsuit, ect. Yesterday’s race started with a 10 min swim and thank heavens I have been taking a combat swim class in sub 0 water because it prepared me for the freezing water we swam in yesterday….I joke about the water temperature, kind of. I sadly was trying so hard to not drown that I forgot to count the laps I swam in 10 mins, but if I were a guessing girl I would say 14-16. After the swim we were given 10 mins to transition from the swim to the bike. This lengthy amount of time was due to the gym wanting a safe transition and to remove all wet clothes and replace them with dry clothes for the bike ride in their state of the art spin room. Once I arrived at my designated bike I had all of 2 mins to get all settled into the saddle. In the 30 min allotted time slot for biking I managed to squeeze in 10.3 miles averaged 20.7 miles an hour (don’t do the math I may be off a point or two on that average) and was the top girl in distance in our wave. I nearly vomited, nearly passed out when I got off the bike and had not had a drink of liquid since this fiasco started…I may or may not have been in rough shape. The transition between the bike and run was not quite as luxurious; we had 5 mins to get from the bike to the treadmill. As I began my run a huge side pain started to make routs in my rib cage and I was done. I have run through a side stich before and once was enough for me to learn my lesson. I had to walk the majority of the 20 min run portion of the race. I was frustrated, annoyed and realized even more the importance of doing those things your life that are very important but you hate, like cleaning the toilets, picking up after the dog on walks and running. Moral of this story…eat less candy and run more miles! Cheers to a triathlon season that will no doubt be riddled with adventures, disappointments, frustrations, fulfillment, joy, laughter, tears and accomplishment.