Sweetwater Triathlon

I finally got a recovery/taper week prior to this race!!! It was my first recovery week since the week of Gulf Coast and my body was begging for it! Going into the race I felt pretty decent, my back is getting much better. I have had a very nagging knee pain all week in my left knee that was brought on by a 11.5 mile run on Monday. But other than that, I felt pretty good! Everyone said "You have to do this race at least once!" and I know understand why. It's a minimalist race, but the atmosphere is very relaxed and there was no pre-race tension at all.

Swim: Seriously, this was the world's shortest triathlon swim. The ladies started one-minute behind the men and I caught up to about five guys that were just treading water. The turn-around was kind-of hairy and this woman grabbed me and her hand went into my back pocket of my top and she pulled me down. I was less than thrilled because she should have just let go, but instead she kept swimming, pulling me in the process. I exited the water right next to Henry, my mailman. He wasn't happy to see me. I was the second woman out of the water and I could see Keith putting his shoes on and mounting his bike. I wanted to catch him SO badly!

Bike: I tried and tried to catch Keith but all the little twist and turns were not in my favor. I caught the first woman out of the water within the first mile and was leading the race. I caught almost all the guys and at this point, there were only about 5 people in front of me, including Keith. The bike course was changed to make it a little longer, but it wasn't long enough for me! Keith stayed about 30 seconds ahead of me the entire time. Bummer. I only averaged 21 MPH on the bike, which wasn't as fast as I would have liked, but it's hard to build up too much speed on a course this short. Although there were not any substantial climbs, the course was not flat at all either.

Run: Prior to the race I asked about the run (which was also a new course) I was told it was "a trail run" Trails?!? I have never run on a trail before!!! I am deathly afraid of anything that involves off-road running because my left ankle is so weak I am paranoid that I will roll it. The minute we went off road on the run I was totally out of my comfort zone. The gravel, rocks, and sand sucked and I almost fell going up a hill. I slowed myself down a bit but was still totally sucking for air. I thought that I was having a heart attack or asthma attack, because that's how hard I was working! I knew that there were women behind me that could probably run faster than me. It was getting so hot and very humid and I was pouring sweat. My shoes were sloshing even though I hadn't poured any water on myself! I got caught by a couple of guys by the first mile. Once we started running on grass I saw a chick that was smoking the course. She was grinning ear to ear. Not a good sign! I tucked my head down and tried to run harder, but I was giving it everything that I had. The run seemed to last forever and the chick caught me with about 3/4 of a mile to go. There was nothing I could do, I was running as fast as I could at that point and just wanted to hold onto second place. When we got back onto the pavement I rounded a corner and saw another lady digging really deep to try and catch me. I started sprinting and made it to the finish line, literally 10 seconds ahead of her. I felt sick to my stomach and curled over, almost throwing up.

I was the second place overall female and I can honestly say that I raced this race pretty hard! The run was a little bit long (3.6 miles) and my average pace was 7:46 min/mile. That's actually my fastest run pace ever and the fact that it was on a mostly trail run is great! I will post more pics soon! Congrats to Keith for winning his AG!