Sunday, May 31, 2009

Issaquah Triathlon 2009

I went into this race with a little bit of trepidation. Since training for Ironman I have been doing a lot of slow long endurance stuff and I was hoping that I could find the fast twitch muscles again for a sprint distance.

Up at 4:45 am after a good nights sleep..breakfast and coffee in the car. Got to the race site around 5:30, racked the bike, set up the transition area and brought my bag over to our new team tent to meet up with the team.

Everyone seemed relaxed and calm for the first tri of the season. The weather was PERFECT. The water was perfect and I felt great. Warmed up in the water for 15 min and stood around chatting before the start.

SWIM 7:23

This honestly was the roughest swim I have ever had. I have done a lot of wave starts and it was NOTHING compared to this swim. It was short but brutal. I started out front of my wave which was 88 women deep. Gun went off and I dove in, 2 women directly in front of me flipped over on their backs and started to backstroke and I basically swam over them after crashing into them. Not a good start. Until the final buoy I found no place to swim where I wasn't being pummeled and boxed in. I was hoping for a sub 7 swim but it was not to be.

T-1 1:45 Uneventful. Rode in just the tri suit, no glasses, no gloves and it was fine.

BIKE 39:33 22.62 m.p.h.

This was both my triumph and my downfall. I had some big time frustration with this course as the no passing zones seemed excessive. The areas just outside the no passing zones were also difficult to pass in as several women were trying to tell me I could not pass when I could. I felt great on the bike. I felt like I was flying. I hammered up the hills and stayed in aero for most of the ride. I passed a whole lot of people and was only passed a handful of times. Got stuck behind a pack of people in the no pass zone but my time was almost a 5 min improvement from last year!

T-2 1:11 Again, uneventful, run shoes on, helmet off, hat on ...go!

RUN 26:52

And this is where that fast bike caught up with me. I felt really slow and stiff starting out and my legs did not really feel like they were ok until after the first mile. Even after that first mile I never got a good pace going. The course is cross country and the footing is weird for me so I was rolling my ankles right and left. It was not a pretty run for sure but I know now I need more work on the bike/run balance for next time.


In all I was happy with this race. It was fun to do and I improved by almost 7 min from last year. Aged up into a more challenging age group and still maintained 10th place.

TOTAL TIME 1:16:45 10/88 age group

Best thing for me was being 147/940 on the bike!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your cycling is getting really good. Great race!

SwimBikeRunMom said...

FAST BIKE SPLIT...WAY TO GO RACHEL!

And 7 minutes better than last year. I would say your fast twitch muscles are there!

RawTriGirl said...

You ROCKED this race Rachel! I'm so happy for you!

Jodi said...

Great race Rachel. You are kicking butt on your bike, keep it up!!! Nice improvement from last year.

Jodi