Saturday, April 17, 2010

Gateway to Kemah triathlon!

Last weekend I completed my first tri of the season. It was an Olympic distance (0.93 mile swim, 24.8 mile bike, 6.2 mile run) called "Gateway to Kemah". This was actually a qualifying race for the infamous Escape from Alcatraz, so the field was pretty competitive (and intimidating!!!). The course was set up similar to the Alcatraz course (probably not as many hills as San Francisco though :) ).


Me and Lisa, pre-race...with our awesome wetsuits! Yay for Xterra sales!

Swim-
A half an hour before the race start, we boarded boats and they took us out a mile from shore. The water was pretty choppy...I have been struggling with some inner ear issues and swimming in a wetsuit was making me seasick (changes your buoyancy and can confuse your vestibular system :)...how's that for a medical term). BUT...the dramamine I took that morning worked AWESOMELY well. As did all the prayers, thank you so much for those! So we jump of the end of the boat, swim to the start buoys, tread water for a few minutes and then the gun goes go, and we started swimming. It was really hard to sight in the water because the swim finish buoys were blue and blended in with the water, the waves were pretty high, so every time you tried to sight, a swell was between you and shore...anyhow, I've been struggling with my swim anyways and the challenging conditions put me in at around 42 minutes...yowsers.

Bike-
The bike took us up and over Kemah bridge (about a 5% grade) twice, then straight out and back, and then we did it all over again. We had a head wind both ways...go figure...so again, my bike time wasn't as great as I wanted it to be, about a mile per hour slower than my last race, BUT my aero bars ROCKED. If I hadn't had them, I would have been going about 3 miles per hour slower. Thanks parents!

Run-
Since I tend to overheat pretty quickly, I took a bottle of gatorade with me to help replace the electrolytes at shorter intervals than the aid stations allow. This worked great and I felt pretty good on the run. I ended up PRing my 10K distance...including a potty break in the middle (just couldn't make it any further :) ). So I was really pleased with that...of course, it's pretty funny that my 10k pace is about 43 seconds slower than my half-marathon pace :)...

So, overall I finished in 3hrs and 33 minutes...about 3.5 minutes slower than my last race, but considering that I did not put in the training that I had wanted to, I didn't get seasick, and I PRed my 10k distance, I am pretty happy with my performance. Philippians 4:13.


Post race...yay for finisher medals!

I have another Olympic tri in one week in Galveston...no hills on this one... :D

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