Oops I Did It Again!!!

PR That is!! 

Sunday, I competed in my 3rd Sprint Triathlon this Summer.  I had struggled with whether or not I was going to enter the race because it's exactly 2 weeks away from my Olympic Tri and this was my last weekend to  get in a long run and a long bike since I'll be in semi-taper starting next week.  But many of my girlfriends were doing the race and it's in my hometown of Lee's Summit.  I know the course because I swim, bike, and run there all the time.  So, I decided I would do it and just have fun, and use it as a trial run/training race for the Hyvee Tri.  I decided to keep my long run on Saturday but did scale it back a bit.  I did a 6.2 mile run Saturday, followed by a quick 500 Meter swim.  I had a pretty good training week this week, and with the long workout Saturday I knew I would be pretty tired going in to the race on Sunday.  I kept telling myself, this is NOT a race, it's a training opportunity.  It's ok if your times aren't that great.  It's a training race!  I really didn't expect to improve on my time from the previous year.......

BUT I DID!  I beat last year's time by 19 Minutes and 47 Seconds!!

I would really like to say that all of the 19 minutes were due to my awesome training, but I have to admit the swim was WAY short.  It was supposed to be 1/3 of a mile which is roughly 500 meters.  In my last tri I did 500 meters in 11:48, today I did it in 5:34.  Wow, I'm amazing!  Based on people's times we were estimating the swim was actually only about 250 meters.  How in the world they can be THAT far off I have no idea.   But unfortunately this is not the best run or organized triathlon. 

The good news is the run course and bike course were exactly the same, so I know I improved in both of those areas cutting over 5 minutes off my bike, and almost 6 minutes off my run.  I also ran my fastest 5K run (in a triathlon) finishing and the super fast pace of 11:29 per mile - but hey that's fast for me.

I'm still certainly not winning my age group or anything, but I am definitely improving and that feels great!  I was really starting to doubt myself and my ability to do this Olympic Tri in a few weeks, so this was seriously a huge confidence builder.  If I can finish this strong in a race after a full week of training, I should be ok for my big race....I THINK!

Me & Michelle with our race results - Michelle did AWESOME getting 5th place overall for the women's

Here's the race breakdown:

Race:  Jackson County Sprint Triathlon
Location:  Longview Lake, Lee's Summit, MO
Race Distances:  Swim - 500 Meters (prob more like 250), Bike - 12 Miles, Run - 5K

            Swim      T1     Bike       T2     Run      Total    
 2010   13:17       2:41   49:35    2:06   40:15    1:47:51
 2011   5:34         1:57   44:01   2:08    34:26    1:28:04 

               Place in Division (women's)    Overall Place (all genders)
2010        31/37                                   351/400
2011        17/26                                   249/334

My transitions could still get a little faster, although I did lose some time trying to find a place to rack my bike when I got back to transition to find that someone had put their bike in my spot.  SERIOUSLY???  I was pretty ticked.  It definitely cost me a few extra seconds.  I also know that my biggest weakness is definitely the run.  I was 200th place in the swim, 225th on the bike, and 299th on the run....UGH!  I have obvious improvement in all areas, but I have also improved in all areas.  Overall, I was VERY happy with my race.