Race Report-Tri The Farm

I raced Tri The Farm in Pooler, GA yesterday. It was my first triathlon of a distance longer than a sprint. It was a 1000 M swim, 18 mile bike, and 4.6 mile run. I was happy with my race performance overall, but as always I am disappointed with my swim. Here's how it went:

Arrived about an hour before the race, set up transition, and hung out with my hubby and talked to other racers. There were a lot of familiar faces, so it was nice to chat with people before the race to break up my nervousness. 10 minutes before the race start I put on my wetsuit and headed to the swim start in a small lake. There were only 74 people racing so it was 2 waves, males 1st, females 2nd. The second horn went off and I was on my way out to the turn-a-round buoy.

I told myself to swim slow and smooth, and not do my usual frantic stroking. Unfortunately it was too slow. I finally make it to the turn-a-round buoy, and start following another swimmer because I was having trouble sighting. Unfortunately, she was way off course, so in turn I was way off course, I had to swim an additional 50 meters or so to get back on course and back to shore and out of the water. Swim time was 22:40

T1 did the wetsuit dance to get it off, put on my helmet, bike shoes with no socks, garmin, grabbed bike and headed to the mount line and hopped on. T1 time was 1:26

The bike went well, it was 18 miles with 2 out and backs. My husband was a volunteer at one of the turn-a-rounds so it was nice to see him on the course. The first half of the bike I was going faster than I was comfortable with since I was trying to make up for my crappy swim. Doing that didn't drain me, so I was able to maintain pretty good speed the rest of the bike course. There were a few "Savannah hills" which to us means overpass bridges. I maintained my speed going up the hills, which I was happy about since I don't have any hills nearby to train on. Bike time was 52:23.

T2 racked bike, took helmet off, put on running hat. It was a 4.6 mile trail run so I choose my trail shoes today, with socks. I took a few extra seconds to put on socks, and I was off. T2 time was 1:26, the same as my T1 time.

The run was good. It was two 2.3 mile loops on a trail for a 4.6 mile run. When I entered one of the aid station workers informed me I was currently 3rd female overall. For the entire run I was with men, but .4 miles from the finish line a girls come sprinting past me out of nowhere, I pick up the pace a lot to try to catch her but she is gone. She crossed the finish line 20 seconds in front of me. I cross the finish line in under 2 hours, which was my big goal for today. Run time was 37:17.

Total time was 1:55:11

After the race we ate some food and let the girls play on the splash park in the facility, they had a blast. The girl that passed me at the last minute took 3rd place overall, so I placed first in my age group. I got a cool medal for it. This race was a lot of fun, and gave me the confidence boost I needed knowing I can do well in something longer than a sprint.

I have a few pics from the race on my blog if you want to see, we didn't get too many pics at this race since Loraine was supervising the girls and Joel was out volunteering on the bike course
theadventuresofashrinkingfatchick.blogspot.com/2011/05/race- report-tri-farm.html

Another fantastic race and result! Your speed is really coming along. Have an awesome day and great job... BTW... I am 99% for sure in for IM Louisville

Thanks! I hope you will be at Louisville, I would love to meet you, and Andrew!

that's happend to me before (getting surprised by a pass late in a race), sucks but 4th OA and 1st AG is pretty friggin awesome!  great job... again, you are really ripping it up every race.

Thanks! You know, your quote in your signature block gets me out the door to train at time when I don't feel like since I am a competitive person.

 You ROCK!  You are my inspiration. 

Thanks! Can't wait to read your race report from yesterday!

 you were flying on the bike.  you're a natural at this.

When I got ITBS after the marathon, I focused on cycling a lot. I actually would rather ride my trainer than ride outside (mostly because its so dangerous here). I got strong cycling when I couldn't run because of the ITBS. It seems to be working to my advantage.

Wow, you are my hero! I so miss my old athletic self and hope that some day I can get back to intense workouts and competitive adventures...only 4 days VSG post-op.