On 4th of July, me, April and the hubby headed to St. Louis for the Freedom Four Miler. It started and ended on Market street and ran all through the streets of the city. It was hot, sweaty, and fun. I wanted to run 7:45-8:00 pace for the race. Didn't wanna kill myself, just wanted to have a good even pace. Finished the four mile race in 30:45. So 7:42 min/mile pace. :) I got 16th in my age group of 216 women, 37th out of all the women...700+. I was happy. April and Jordan did great as well! A great start to our Fourth of July.
Then today we ran the Red Bud Triathlon! Jordan, Adam (my cousin's husband) and I headed to Red Bud at 5:30am to check in and set up for our race. Jordan and Adam were racing a triathlon for the first time. I laid out the different rules of the racing and how to set up your transition area as we drove over. We knew it would be a small race and figured they would be pretty lenient on the rules and transition set up.
The race was a 200 meter swim, a 9.5 mile bike, and a 2 mile run. I hoped to finish under 1 hour. I figured I would swim about 4 minutes, ride about 37 minutes and run around 17 minutes or so. Timing splits were done by me, the race was in it's first year so they didn't have all the timing capabilities to track splits and transition times, which was fine.
The swim felt great, much better than the Ste. Gen tri. I was better at keeping my head down and breathing every other stroke, which helped my speed. I ran into some people during the last couple of laps, and had to slow down to wait to pass. I think I could have swam a little faster, but was happy with my 4:15 swim time. Then down to the transition area. My T1 time was 1:44. Off on the bike I went. I knew Adam would be coming after me on the bike, not that I minded him catching me, but my goal was to stay ahead of him, that way I knew I was riding faster than my Ste. Gen pace of 14mph. (Adam started his swim 2 minutes behind me in the pool, so even if he didn't catch me, he still had a good chance of beating me.) The beginning of the bike was full of rolling hills. I clicked in and out of gears, sure to keep it in a good gear for pedaling downhills too instead of just coasting. At the turn around point I really hit the bike hard (hard for me, I'm still not a confident cyclist) and knew I only had 4.75 miles until my favorite part, the run. I got to transition and forgot to hit my watch for a split time, so my bike time of 36:14 includes my T2 transition. I figure it's around 45 seconds or so, so I'm calling my bike time 35:30 (approximately 16mph for my average pace, awesome!). Off on the run I went, ugh, lead in the legs. I could not get my damn legs to move for anything. I was "running" but my stride was pathetic and I felt like my legs would never loosen up. Thankfully around the mile mark they did loosen up and I was able to pick up the pace a bit. I felt like I had a gallon of water in my stomach, I could hear and feel it jostling around and was quite aggravated by it, I hadn't drank THAT much before the race. Had I felt better I would have tried to run harder here, but didn't for fear of getting a side stitch with the extra water on board. I finished up the run in 19:42 for a total time of 1:01:56. At first I was quite unhappy with my run time, but wasn't convinced it was only 2 miles. When I got home I mapped the run via my hand dandy Runkeeper App to find out the run was 2.3 miles. So I ran 8:37 min/mile pace for the run. Awesome.
I think I got 2nd in my age group and was in the top 10 females to finish, but won't know for sure until they post the results on their website. Pretty happy with my second triathlon. Especially since I've only swam twice and biked a few times since my last race. I've been focusing on running for the half marathon in September.
Adam and Jordan finished well also. Adam didn't ever catch me to pass, but he did end up finishing only a minute behind my time. So he beat me, which is great! He's in incredible shape, is a great athlete, and a great triathlete now as well. :) Jordan had a goal of finishing in 1:15 or under, and ended up finishing in 1:16. The run got the best of him, his shins and calves were hurting him pretty good when I passed him on the run. I'm very proud of both the boys, they did great in their first triathlon. Welcome to the club guys! :)
Jordan finishing up his first triathlon! So proud!
Me and my training partner before the race.
Still smiling, after the race. So fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment