Race report: Lake Tye Olympic Tri

This is mucho overdue - last weekend I participated in the Lake Tye Olympic triathlon and youcha - it was HARD!  I haven't been able to run for about 3mo because of the sprained ankle, and I have only swam a couple times ... mainly because it's just not fun for me.  Oh my.  The race started with a rather small field for the "under 39 year old women".  One thing I am starting to really love about tris is at the in-water "starting line" people are always really nice, chatty, and sharing angst about the swim ahead.  Running people don't chat quite as much, I feel like, and biking there's more metal breaking up conversation.

The first two strokes of my swim were OK ... until I got water in my nose and throat and started panicking about what was in the lake.  Then I felt like my wetsuit was closing in and from then on the swim was horrible.  I did breaststroke the majority of the swim and occasionally flipped over to do the backstroke - both were a terrible idea but backstroke was an extra terrible idea because somehow I kept getting flipped around and backstroking in the WRONG direction.  At around the 3/4mi mark in the lake I noticed the kayakers who paddled around making sure swimmers were OK were starting to paddle close to me - I think they were prepping to save me.

Getting out from the swim my transition took a little too long.  If I'm honest, my transition took a minute longer than it should have mainly because I was trying to catch up with myself - catch breath, etc.

The bike was OK.  I rode my new (old) Fuji bike and loved it.  The ride was ~26mi, and at mile 13 after swigging water I dropped the bottle on the ground.  Boo.  No more water for the rest of the ride was not awesome, especially as the heat started spiking.

Getting off my bike I felt like I had just dismounted a horse - saddle walk was in full effect.  It took me a minute to get int he groove of running but when I got going (about halfway through the run), I felt solid.  Fast forward another 2mi and at the last mile of the run I had a different chant: "I'm never doing this again, I'm never doing this again..."

In the end, I did OK on the bike and run and horrible on the swim.  And now I can't wait to go again.