Clemson Sprint Race

This past Saturday I finally had the ability to do a race. I signed up for the Clemson Sprint last year but it was on Mother’s Day. Given everything that suddenly came up around that time, I decided to defer the race and go to VA instead. They ended up moving the race to July this year due to Clemson’s sport schedule. So this race as on my schedule with the only thought that hopefully I could fit it in with training. Leading up to it I was a little concerned about the running portion as I still wasn’t running even 3 miles. That meant the plan for the race was to swim and ride my ass off and take the run easy. Irrelevant of what the race plan was, I was happy to be able to race again. Also excited I got to do the same race as a girl I’d been helping prepare for this race. This also meant that a few of our friends came out to support her and cheered me on as well.

Swim 16:24

Goal: Swim hard. The thing about swimming is your effort is all based on feel. No numbers to hit, especially in open water. I lined up somewhere near the front and middle, right behind girls I knew were faster than me. The really-loud-made-us-all-jump gun went off for the third time and we were off. Course was very simple. Straight out, turn 90 degree right, straight, another 90 degree turn heading us back to shore. If I couldn’t stay on course for this swim, I would have considering myself a lost cause. I sighted often, was with the pack the whole time and never had issues finding the buoy. FINALLY! I successfully stayed on course for a race. Water was fairly calm and warm. Like I wanted to take my cap off towards the end warm. I felt like I swam hard the whole time but I could feel my effort start to drop a little after the first half. I still feel like in general I struggle with open water. I’m completely comfortable swimming in it but it always ends up being slower than I expect. Obviously it will be slower than a pool but it just seems way slower. I think I have lots of room for improvement on all the things that make pool swimming so different from open water but of course I only ever swim in a pool. I’m not exactly sure what my real swim time was as the time included a long run to transition.

T1 1:21

Speaking of room to improve… this only included the time I spent inside the gated transition area and for a sprint, I should be moving faster. I wasted a bunch of time trying to get all the dirt and grass off my feet to put my shoes on. I wanted to put my tri shirt on after the swim but had some technical difficulties since I was wet and the shirt ended up completely rolled up. After several seconds of struggling and making no progress I realized it wasn’t worth the time just so I could hide my stomach so it came back off. Sooo lucky you gets to see lots of pictures with my shirt off... I'm sorry. Apparently I found the struggle humorous. Better than getting angry.

Bike 29:10

Goal: Ride hard. I set my own power range based on what it should be for a sprint but Katie’s instructions were pretty clear. Go as hard as I can. Since I didn’t have to run fast off the bike, there were no concerns about blowing up from going to hard. My power range was large but I really wanted to stay at least in the middle part of it with hopes to go higher. Being it was a sprint, I knew my time on the bike would be short so I didn’t try too hard to hold very steady power numbers. If I felt I could go harder, I went harder. If I needed to back off to take a turn, I didn’t freak out about how quickly that drops the average power.

The main thing I noticed on the bike was I felt like I was flying past people. Only two guys passed me in the beginning but I was passing people like crazy. And it wasn’t like I would very slowly approach someone and then have to pass them. It was more like I’d stay to the left and pass two or three people at a time without worrying about getting a penalty for taking too long to pass. Now I’m not trying to say I’m some amazing cyclist because I’m not. But this is the one area I’ve probably seen the most consistent growth. That’s probably because it’s the only sport where I haven’t had to back off due to injuries and I also had the most room to grow. It was nice to see that all hours and hours I’ve put in the saddle is paying off and it’s clearly my strongest area now. So the bike portion felt like it was over in a flash. Sprints seem so short to me now but it was a good amount of time to dig in and feel the burn. I was happy with my effort. I rode hard. I even rolled a back into transition with my mouth hanging wide open and probably some snot still on my face so there's the proof of a solid effort.

T2 1:16 
Running into this transition and T1 felt more tiring than the actual run. That is all I have to say here.

Run 29:10 
Goal: Protect the run. The goal wasn’t to go so easy that I didn’t feel like I was in a race but the goal was to not go so hard that I pissed off my healing injuries. I was so excited when I got a higher HR cap than I was expecting. The higher HR enabled me to actually run without having to stop and walk every 3 minutes. There was one super steep hill that I had to walk up which even walking up it my HR wasn’t dropping at all. The run was still a solid effort though since all I’ve done for months now is very short easy runs. Felt good to push a bit more and the HR cap ended up putting me at a very good pace in regards to how my legs wanted to run.

As I expected, a lot of people passed me. Although I can be really driven to truly race when around competition, I was totally ok with it. I wasn’t upset that I couldn’t try to pass people and run until my heart felt like it would explode. I was simply happy I was running, in a race, even though I wasn’t “racing”. I was happy my body was allowing me to do that. It might have only been 3.1 miles but to me the distance didn’t matter. Of course at the end I couldn’t resist the urge to push a little more than I was supposed to for the finish but I didn’t go all out. I got to see my husband and friends and other locals cheer me on at the end and I was happy. Content. 

Overall 1:21:05

I ended up getting 2^nd place AG, only 29 seconds behind 1^st. Would it have been nice to have pushed during the run to fight for 1^st, of course. But still not complaining one bit. It was a good race and a good morning. I topped it off by stuffing myself at IHOP while feeling like I was going to fall asleep and then riding my bike back home to which everyone thought I was crazy. Seriously, where do you people think I ride all the time? I managed to not throw up breakfast or end up in a ditch like family worries about or overheat and I wish I could say not get lost but I was having GPS issues. So another successful day in the Ironman training bank!