Lonestar Triathlon Race Report

Sorry I have been so boring lately - lots going on, but not much to say...which for me is very odd!

I'll give a quick recap on the race weekend though, because it was a good one. I drove down to Galveston Friday night after traffic had cleared and had smooth sailing all the way...straight into the Taco Cabana line for dinner! (hadn't had fast food in forever....tortillas and queso certainly hit the spot!).

(Jon's new decked out rig)

Jon was racing the sprint Saturday morning and I raced the quarter on Sunday. It was weird having us race on different days. Saturday morning came obscenely early, especially when I wasn't even racing! I have as much fun spectating/volunteering these days as I do as racing, so it was worth it. Jon's age group was in the first wave of the swim, so they would be easy to spot and track through the whole race. I saw him off, bloody feet and all (he cut his feet on the oyster beds during his warm up) and then took off to the swim finish. Their swim was around 500-600m and it took us almost as long to walk that far as it did for them to swim that far! The first swimmer popped out of the water and we figured we'd see Jon in another minute or two. Wrong! He was #2 out of the water. Such a sandbagger...as in he was even with me at masters swim the one time he came and then he busted out with this...

It was neat to see him as #2 heading out on to the bike course. They were back in no time and a few people had passed him during the bike, but not many. He held on strong on the run and ended up in 4th place in his M30-34 age group, out of 60 or so people. Not too shabby for someone who was having knee surgery five days later and who had not really trained in over a month.

The rest of Saturday was spent picking up my packet for the race the next day, eating, resting, etc. A group of us went to dinner at an Italian Restaurant later that night and we had a good time.

My race was pretty uneventful. I was in the first wave of women, but all the men had gone first, so the course was plenty crowded by the time I got out there. I did not swim well at all. Not 100% sure why, but I am sure it has something to do with the fact that I have not swam much yet this year. I am not going to beat myself up about the first race of the year, but I definitely need to do something about it between now and Gulf Coast and IMCDA.


The bike sucked. I had to work the entire time, as in I was never able to stop pedaling more than a second or two at a time. I'm not entirely sure which direction the wind was coming from, but it was hard going out, and there was not a whole lot of relief on the way back in. I passed some people and some people passed me, or well I'm sure a lot of people passed me. Oh well. I was upset with my speed though because I averaged 18.5mph on the same course last year going twice the distance (56 miles). I was at 18.4 this time around (28 miles). Go figure.
I had hoped to run the 6.5 mile course in just over an hour and managed to do it in 58:04 which helped a little to make up for my crappy swim and crappy bike. I had set a goal of 2:53 for a finishing time and ended up with 2:52, so overall, I cannot complain at all, it just did not happen exactly the way I had envisioned it would. I had wanted to run around a 9:20 min/mile pace and ended up pulling off a 8:56 min/mile pace. I was a bit worried coming off the bike that I'd messed up and gone too hard and wouldn't have anything left for the run, but I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled out my first mile around 8:40.
After a quick shower and checking out of our room, Jon and I headed back to the HRTC aid station to volunteer and cheer on the athletes racing in the half ironman. Their run was a 4 loop course, so we saw most everyone several times over. We had a great time, but also ended up pretty tired before it was all said and done.

Lonestar continues to get better and better every year and I'll definitely keep coming back for more. They spoil you like no other race and truly do put on a top notch race.