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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Busy Busy Busy

Two triathlons in two weekends equals too tired! Yes, I would compete two weekends in a row again, but the second tri wore me out even though it was shorter. This past Sunday was the first time I've done a specific triathlon for the second time. The Sudbury Sprint was the first triathlon I did last year, and I thought it would be fun to do it again to try and beat my time.

The race started out fine. We all lined up for the pool swim. In keeping with Mother's Day, I spent time reassuring the 61 year old man in front of me and the 13 and 14 year old boys behind me that they would be just fine. The nice thing about a pool swim is that you can always stand up or hang onto a lane line if things aren't going well. Sure the officials might not like it, and you'll probably get some dirty looks, but if you're having a panic attack you don't have to worry about literally not having your feet on the ground.

There are a lot of things that are not so nice about a triathlon pool swim. Triathletes had started swimming every 20 seconds the week before. This triathlon only left a 15 second gap, which led to a lot of crowding. Their efforts to ensure separation by having the fastest swimmers start first were foiled by the number of people who got their expected swim times wrong. Those who underestimated their speed soon collided with those who who overestimated their speed. Because this weekend's swim had two more lanes going back and forth to complete the swim course, there were a lot more people splashing and creating wakes, which in turn led to choppier water.

After last year's mishap with my biking shoes, I repeated "biking shoes, biking shoes, biking shoes" as I ran to the transition area. This year I didn't lose time by wearing the wrong shoes. Instead I lost time because my chain fell off while I was running next to my bike in the transition area at the start of the course. Every cloud has a silver lining. We have been talking to my older son (OS) about how to handle things when something goes wrong on the soccer field, like if you fall. Take a deep breath, fix the problem, and start playing again. OS got to witness me practicing what I preach, as I appeared pretty calm while someone helped me get my chain back on my bike.

The rest of the biking went smoothly, and it was over before I knew it. I'm not sure if clipping into my pedals or greater familiarity with triathlons made the difference this year, but the course was much easier than I remembered it being. The run went smoothly as well. Despite the bike chain snafu, I beat my time from last year.

In other exciting news, I was excited to be asked to do the swimming leg of a half Ironman next month. As much as I love triathlons, I'm always disappointed that I can't go all out in the swimming because I have two other sports after it. I also tend to do triathlons with short swims, simply because those with longer swims would require me to also do longer bikes and runs. This sounded perfect. Unfortunately yesterday I found out that my cyclist had to back out. He was the one who was originally looking to do this. However, my triathlon training buddy's husband is going to do it with me. We are now looking for a runner. 13.1 miles anyone? A woman in my spinning class today said she's seriously considering it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: If you are interested in running 13.1 miles as part of a half Ironman triathlon in Massachusetts next month, there is a perfect opportunity available for you.

posted by Alex Elliot @ 1:43 PM 1 comments

1 Comments:

At 5/15/2009 1:28 AM, Goofball said…

yeaaah for beating your time and being more calm!

My Profile

Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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