The first tri we did this year was the Kansas City Triathlon on May 20th. Last year, the water temp was only 59 degrees, but this year we warmed up to 69 degrees, which is a huge difference, but still cold. Gotta love the first tri of the season! Our 2011 time was 3:29 and our 2012 time was 3:24. We were SO please with this improvement. However, we both had bike envy as we stared down our competition, and also realized how well we do on the swim and the run, but got our butts kicked on the bike. And we are competitive, and didn't like that, so that was the last triathlon we did on our old road bikes. By old I mean mine was an early 90s Trek and Jen's was an 80s Schwinn.
Enter the era of "The New Babies." Jen got a brand new Felt tri bike and I got a used (but still a 2012) Cannondale tri bike. Let me just say, we love them more than most humans we come in contact with on a daily basis. And I wish I were exaggerating! AND, they make a huge difference. We give the same amount of effort and fly down the road at about 4mph faster, and don't feel like we are trying nearly as hard. And uphill? Wow! Where we used to slow down to about 8-9 mph we are now going about 12mph. Just love them.
We had high hopes of really getting going on our bikes at the Midwest Meltdown Triathlon on August 26th. However, it decided to rain for the first time all summer, and mixed with the 8 tons of brand new asphalt they put down on the bike course, we took it easy. This was a great course. The swim was 750m instead of 500m, but Jen and I locked in at a 1:50 pace, which was great! This was the first triathlon I finally got into a swim groove. I wasn't being "as" clobbered by other people, so that was a major factor. We also had a great run! Our 5k time was 25:59. This will be a redo next year because the bike course was really flat, and hopefully the roads will be dry next year so we can fly!
Today we did the Olathe Medical Center Women's Triathlon. We found out earlier this week that we were in different swim heats. This doesn't work for us. Jen and I do triathlons TOGETHER! And our heats were 30 minutes apart. And they said if we miss our heat, we can't participate. So we had to regroup and plan to go solo. Not cool. Jen started at 7:35 and I got to watch her entire swim, which was fun. I started at 8:05, and she was completely done by the time I got off the bike. Have I ever mentioned I hate to run by myself? Well, I do. And Jen and I have a system. My watch tracks our entire tri time and our splits. But it doesn't show my pace. Jen's watch paces our run. We both have speedometers on our bikes, and neither one of them were working today, so we had NO idea where we were on the bike. And without Jen, I had no idea where I was on the run. On both, I just decided to push til it hurts, and then I knew I was giving it my best effort. My swim was 10:15 for 500m, my bike was 38 minutes for 10.6 miles and my run was 25:29 for 3 miles. I placed 7th in my age group and 39th of 307 overall. Jen did fantastic too, and our times were only a couple minutes apart. However, it just wasn't the same without her. I'm bummed we aren't the same age. We are 7 years apart, so this heat division problem is going to definitely come into play again in the future.
In the off season, we both plan on getting more miles on our bikes. I can't wait until May 2013 rolls around so we can do it all again!
2 comments:
Holy cow Traci! That is AMAZING! Way to go!
What a great write-up. I'm proud of you and Jen for accomplishing so much this summer. That's good to know that the bike makes such a big difference. I'll have to look into that in the future. Way to go on your run. a 25 minute 5k is pretty darn good. One of these days, you and I need to do one...just for old times sake!
Post a Comment