As planned, I completed the Litchfield Hills tri today - and had a blast. It was hard, but it was one of the funnest experiences I've had in a long time. The swim was great. I was one of the few participants without a wet suit, but the water wasn't very cold and once you get moving you get warm pretty quick. Apparently, even the short time I had to work on my swimming form really paid off. I finished the swim in 25:41, some 15minutes less than I expected (that's a big difference for a 1.5km swim). Bike ride was also a lot faster than I thought, 1:20:45 (at least 10-20min faster than I expected). The run was a little rough. My legs felt incredibly heavy, especially in the first 10minutes or so, and at the end I got a stitch in my side I couldn't get rid of, so I had to slow down. But, I knew I should be able to do six miles without too much trouble, so I kept running and finished in 47:49, which is still better than I expected (I was expecting 50-55ish). Including both transitions, my total time was 2:39:16 which I still can't believe :)
I'm already getting excited for the next one and I definitely want to try a half ironman next year. Who's in?
oh, and I think I want to get an actual road bike :)
6 comments:
Hi Karl (I don't think we've met; I know Ryan through Dan B.). Anyway, yes! Triathlons are really a lot of fun, and I'm glad yours went so well. I do want to do at half iron at some point, but I'm not sure next year is the right time for me. If you end up doing one, though, I'll look for insights on how to balance training for all those distances simultaneously.
Awesome job! I checked out your results before you posted them here. :-)
Em! Hi, it's Karolina here (Karl von Bahnhof is a dog from a movie I really like). Well first of all congratulations on your second daughter and the adventurous delivery!
second, I've been thinking about a half iron for quite some time, but never had the guts to actually register and train for one. Now I found another person at UConn who wants to do it, so I think next year I'll have enough motivation :)
It seems like a lot of time for training but I'm sure if my goal is only to finish I can get away with a bit less than recommended by the standard plans. After all, I didn't train in any consistent manner for yesterday's tri, other than the running part.
If you're interested in sharing training experiences, I'd love to have another motivator :)
How many times did you change your shirt?
Haha, yeah, from the pictures (btw, thanks Dan for posting these) it looks like I was plenty busy changing my outfit, but in reality I just put on the jersey in transition 1 to have a pocket for bike stuff (tire lever, spare tube...) and then took it off again in transition 2. the blue t-shirt I put on after the race because I was cold. otherwise I just had my swim suit on (and shorts for the run and bike).
Congrats on completing that challenging course with such a remarkable time! I know several fellow runners that would be ecstatic to simply run a 10K in the time you did. Great job.
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