Trek Tri

Beautiful views

I competed in my 2nd Triathlon on Sunday, October 2nd. The Trek Tri Series is very similar to the Danskin Tri series that I competed in back in June. One difference though...significantly less people. While the Danskin had somewhere in the thousands compete, the Trek only had about 400 women compete. I'm wondering if the summer time and school had any influence on that number. I'm thinking yes.

Awesome husband, beautiful daughter (inspiration) and myself

Calli & Dave (great job, Calli! proud of you!)

Calli and I (my guns were out of ammo)

When I first signed up for the tri, I was stoked. I was coming off of a major high from the Danskin and I was ready to do another one. So ready. Then I decided to pick up training for the RnR 1/2 marathon. Couple that with an extremely busy and stressful work over the past few months and throw in there the pressures and "burn out" of workouts and basically you have the recipe to set yourself up for failure.

Okay, not complete failure. But this tri definitely did not goes as planned. The week before the event was a nightmare week. I'd go so far as to say it's one of the worst weeks of work I've had in a very long time. I came home, relieved on Friday evening, only to start feeling nauseated around 7pm. For 4 hours, I had the chills and had rolling waves of nausea. I think it was the stomach bug, but it could of been my body just dealing with the stress. Who knows. Regardless, the amount of food I put in my body for fuel those next 24 hours was not good.

Calli, Annah and I

The event was held at a park out in Spicewood (close to ATX). The morning was gorgeous. Cool, which was slightly intimidating for the swim, but enjoyable for the bike/run. My goals turned from kicking my Danskin time's butt to just plain finishing without embarrassing myself too bad.

In the water

My swim started out horrible. Too many women pushing and shoving and kicking and I couldn't find my stride at all. It was a mess. So finally I just let a group go in front of me so I could catch my stride. And I did. I thought I had loss time here, but actually improved my time 1:00 from the Danskin.

on the road

My ride however.... such a shame. Cycling is my thing. Well. In the fact that out of the three, that is my strongest. But, after my swim, I was out of juice. The hills killed me (even though they could of been way worse) and even after telling myself five times over to kick it in to over time Colleen, I just could not perform. I lost most of my time here. Almost 10 minutes slower than Danskin.

My run, it was meh. More like my run/walk. Egads, that last hill was brutal, but obviously doable. I was so ready to finish, I could taste it. My time was 4 minutes faster than Danskin, but.... do to a long transition from swim/bike, distance was cut off.

final results

All in all, my total time was 2:06:00 - I really wanted to be under 2:00 - ah well. With all the circumstances, I'm happy I finished, even if it leaves me a bit disappointed. By no means am I turned off of tri's. I love them. But, next time I do one, I'm focusing on it alone and making sure I put in the time/commitment that it deserves.

A huge shout out to my friends Calli, who kicked some serious ass on her first tri! and as always, Annah killed it. The girls got wheels!

Till the next one....