Apparently this is possible when there are only 12 people in it!I switched things up last week so I could do a long open water swim which included a 1/2 mile race and a 1 mile race on Saturday morning. It was so odd to not wake up early and do a long run on a Saturday! Sleeping in a bit was nice though. Tri On the Run hosted the swim race and it was a great idea for everyone doing fall half or full ironman races.
I got in before the 1/2 mile race and swam 13 minutes (I kept doing out-and-backs to make sure I wasn't missing the race start!), then I waited about 2 minutes and started that race. I realized soon there weren't many other girls around me but knew some guys were still ahead. This race was just 1 loop on the course they had set up. Towards the back and all the way back, they were even able to give us some "realistic" training - as in the wind was howling and it actually managed to get choppy in a small neighborhood lake. I also picked it up a bit on the way back and I saw one other green cap near me as I was getting close to the finish. She was the only girl around me, but I figured there were still many ahead. I kicked it in and finished to find out I was the first girl? Really? That doesn't happen! That is my first first place in anything like this. Kind of fun, but also not really a huge deal when there weren't many people in the race.
I got out to quickly get some food, ate that, then got back in and swam 7 more minutes. I thought I had 8 minutes to the start of the mile race, but apparently miscalculated a bit because as soon as I got back to the start line I heard "3, 2, 1, GO!" So I turned around and went right back out. I was a bit tired this time around and swam slower than the 1/2 mile race, but I guess that would be expected. I ended up 4th place in that one, out of 18 girls. I went out to swim a bit more after that one and ended up with ~2.5 miles for the day. Good enough!
I had planned to do a short bike/run brick after the race but ended up with an awful side stitch/cramp/who knows what that I have had once before on a Saturday morning after running long and then swimming. Lying horizontally was the only thing that made it go away that time. I tried to ignore it and hopped on my bike, but only lasted about 12 miles because I could not bend forward into the aero position without major pain. Odd, but oh well.
Sunday we did a fantastic ride leaving out of League City. We toured half of southeast Texas! We changed the route a bit mid-route so I didn't know exactly where I needed to go to get to 100 miles....it was actually quite disturbing for me to not have any idea (surprise?). I ended up coming back with Greyhound because most of the group was going 112-115 and I only wanted 100 or so. Well, I ended up with just 98 miles because we basically had to guess where to turn around and head back. I guessed 2 miles off. We came back up the 45 feeder to get to the finish, so there was not really a safe option for finding those 2 extra miles. Everyone said to let it be a "lesson in letting go!" Boy, that was hard to not make it a full 100. Yes, clearly I, along with most of us crazy triathletes, am slightly anal about a few of these things! I did hop off and run 2 miles and decided that when I added the 12 miles from the day before I was still at 110 for the weekend...but I did consider riding around my parking garage or on the trainer when I got home...
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