I guess I can swim afterall...

This past weekend I attempted my first Olympic Distance Triathlon (1.5k, 40k, 10k) in Kelowna. It was a hot and sunny day and the water was fairly calm off the start. Short version - 2h 38 m 4 s - 11/35 in my category.

long version:

Joanna, Rita and I left Rossland on Saturday morning and headed to K-Town. We spent the early afternoon shopping (obviously) and checking into the hotel. Then we headed downtown to register for the event and attend the briefing. We also dropped off our bikes in the transition area and had a wicked pasta dinner (also put on by the Apple Triathlon). It was an early night as we had to be at the race start before 7 the next morning.

All three of us were in the same wave start - at 8:10 - but we had to be out of the transition area an hour before that, as the first wave of racers went off just after 7am. We got there early and spent the time getting our transitions set up


and getting wetsuits on (everybody but me that is!)


Then we went down to the beach to watch the earlier waves take off - wow the swim course looked long!! Two laps???




So... the swim started for us, with a beach start and within the first 30sec I thought I was going to drown. Then I realised I should stop sprinting and get into a good pace. I also got used to getting kicked in the face and ingesting disgusting Lake Okanagan water. The first lap felt good - and the second lap felt even better! I came out of the water in 30:43 (slow, but not bad for zero swim training)... my transition could have been faster, but it wasn't bad. The bike was a four loop course and it was awesome. There was one "biggish" climb, which I thought was awesome and the rest was rolling hills and flat. I passed lots of people here and made up great time (the 40km in 1:15:25). The transition to run was a little slow, but I wanted to take some eload pills as it was hot out and I had been sweating lots of salt.



The run was two laps and the first one was quite painful (AND I was breaking in brand new running shoes that I bought the day before :-) The second lap was much better as I was almost done - I finished the run in 47:29 (not bad - speed work might help) and finished my first tri with a time of 2hours, 38 minutes and 4 seconds!! (according to others, this is a decent time.)

I ranked 11/35 women in my age group (25-29) and 58/189 women overall. This gave me a final ranking of 195/442 racers, which is awesome!!

top third in my group was beyond my goal of not being last! I love this sport and will train for next season... goal: REDUCE SWIM TIME!!!



PS: LOVED the sugoi tri suit!! It was not wet and gross after the swim (really thin fabric made it super quick dry), the padding in the shorts was just enough and it was wicked comfy to wear all day - even post race!!