Coronation Tri

Coronation tri was today. The goal for today was to have a stronger run. Last year in all 3 of my tris I had to walk a lot on the run. I think I achieved my goal. I still don't think I'm ready for GWN fit, but I did have a stronger run than last year.

Full race report:
Friday-went for package pick-up, which was a total waste of time since they didn't have the shirts or anything. They gave me my swim time and heat (couldn't they have just emailed that or included in the pre-race letter?). They said we would get the shirts on the morning of the race. I had someone with me to hold my stuff, but I wasn't sure what everyone else was supposed to do with their shirts? Lucky for us, the package pick-up for the Blackfoot Ultra was at the same place so we had to be there anyway. Then drove to get my bike checked. They were pretty thorough, except they missed a tear in my tire that Lawrence pointed out so I had to get a new tire. Came home and practiced putting it on.


Sunday- got up at 5am (tris always have really early starts). I felt crampy and didn't want to eat but I forced down a bagel. I had gotten all of my stuff together the night before, but had forgot to put my goggles in the box. Now I know why I like to do it early. Got there around 6:30 and racked my bike. Went for body marking, and there was a long line-up. Waited for a while until they came by and said you could go to the front if you had a 7:45 swim time. Got my shirt (very nice!) and body marking done. My stomach was still really unsettled.

There was a lot of confusion getting seeded for the swim. They ended up joining us with another lane so we would have 8 people. We tried to go in order of our times but it looks like some people really don't know what their time is since one girl said she was 35mins and she lapped me. For the start they just scanned all of our chips one after the other and said "go". No gap between people! It was impossible to try and get any rhythym with all of these people swimming at different speeds. After a couple of laps we got into a flow, until some guy doing breast stroke passed me and then slowed down. It's really tough to do front crawl behind someone that is doing the breast stroke because the timing is different. He had enough speed to get past me but really didn't swim faster than me so I ended up stuck behind him for the remainder of the swim. Besides all of my whining, I had a good swim. As soon as I got in the water my stomach cramps went away so it must have been nerves. I felt good and my shoulder held out (it's been giving me a lot of problems for a couple of months now). Transitioned to the bike; I'm not a race for every minute kind of person so I chatted a little to my pool "lane mates" for a minute while I put on my shoes and socks. The bike was interesting - 3km downhill, 3km back up the hill for 4 laps. I felt pretty good but my legs were getting a little tired by the end and my right foot went numb. Transition to the run-switch shoes and grab my water bottle and sunglasses since the sun has come out now. I walked for the first little bit to try and get some feeling back in my right foot. Ran for a few minutes and then walked for a minute. Once I started running after that I felt pretty good. My legs were a little tired but I felt alright. After the first 4km (which was pretty well all downhill but it was out and back so we had to go back up) I walked for a bit, ran for a bit. Once I got to 6km I felt ok but my stomach was empty (I need to fuel up better). Ran it in as hard as I could. Hubby and son were a great support (as always).


I don't have any times yet-I'll add them once they get posted. I feel good about it, but still terrified of GWN.