12. Do a triathlon

A report on one of my items from my 30-before-30 bucket list.

Monday, September 1, 2014

For whatever reason, I have always wanted to do a triathlon. I hate 5Ks and other races, but the variety of a tri seemed a bit more exciting, so I added this as a goal. I was hoping to do it in the spring, but I found out my friend Sarah wanted to do one this fall. So, she found the South Davis Labor Day Tri, and we signed up a few months ago.

I had a training calendar for the summer, and tried to do as much as I could, but this summer was crazy, so I didn't train as much as I wanted to. The week before the race, I was pretty terrified. Sarah and I talked and decided to do the novice race instead of the sprint race, as it was shorter distance and this was our first tri. That change made me totally excited and a lot less terrified.

We got there early Monday morning, checked in, set up our transition station, and waited. It took 45 minutes for all the sprint people to get in the water before the novice racers even lined up. They let people in the water every 8-10 seconds. Then you swim serpentine style up the pool through the lanes. Sarah went in right before me. We got bottle-necked a little by people who thought they were faster than they were. Then we both got out of the pool at the same moment.

We walked over to the transition. (The swimming portion gave me weird jelly legs, so I couldn't run that transition, even though I really should have.) Put on a little more gear, and hoped on my bike. I so do not have a nice bike, but it is usable, so I went on my merry way. Halfway into the ride, I just thought: "Wow, this is fun. I like this." It got a little harder, but the course was pretty flat so that was nice.

The bike-run transition was pretty easy. I just put my bike on the rack, walked off, them remembered I don't need a helmet to run, so went back and took that off. Then I started the run. I was pretty tired, and running is my least favorite of the events, so I walked most of that portion, with a few sprints thrown in. I felt totally fine about that.

I walked over the finish line, excited and exhausted. Overall, it was a really good race. I usually hate races, but I walked away from this one feeling energized and totally willing to do it again. Join me in 2015!

When I looked up my official time, it looked like the timing chip added 12 minutes to my swim (like it would take me 17 minutes to swim 150 yards!?!), so my first official times were a little off. I think I accidentally walked too close to one of the chip readers before I actually got in the water, as my start-time is listed as 12 minutes before Sarah's. But the glitch was fixed and my official times are:

Swim (150 yds): 5:14.02
transition: 3:26.82
Bike (2.4 mi): 11:29.16
transition: 1:01.25
Run (1.2 mi): 20:53.06
Total: 42:04.33