The Rookie Triathlon 2017 race report.
I didn't really plan to do another triathlon 2 weeks after Ironman Texas, but when the rest of the band is getting back together (minus Trista, who couldn't justify another trip back to Texas for a sub-sprint triathlon), you can't just not participate.
I actually felt really good post-Ironman. I was recovering well. I was swimming, biking and running again, albeit slowly and shortly. Then I decided to go try out Project Austin. It's a free bootcamp at the Capitol, and they needed some numbers at one of their workouts in order to join November Project. So I gamely showed up, got counted, and did a little bootcamp workout that ended up consisting of 60 burpees, 60 squats and 55 pushups, intermingled with some running and jumping jacks and v-ups and other assorted things. That was roughly.. 60 more burpees, squats, etc than I had done in forever, so I was a little sore for the rest of the day. Then sorer the next day. Then even sorer the next day, meaning on Friday I couldn't walk down stairs because my calves were so sore, I had to plan ahead before lifting my arms above shoulder height, and when I went to swim, my arms actually felt fine to swim, but I could NOT flip turn, because that requires a level of ab-participation that my abs were not willing to consider. I was in sorry shape. Evidently none of those muscles are used in an Ironman, and they were all very angry that I had woken them up.
I was a little afraid I wouldn't be ABLE to do The Rookie, but 3 days later, on Saturday, my body FINALLY settled down a bit. I was able to ride on my trainer for 30 minutes and do a 1 mile run off the bike with no ill effects, so I declared myself capable of doing The Rookie the next day.
And it went fine!
The swim was astonishingly wetsuit legal, but I couldn't take the race seriously enough to consider wriggling into a wetsuit for a 300m swim, nor bothering with a speedsuit. It was actually my first HighFive race with a time trial start, which really just shows how long it's been since I've done a HighFive race (since they've been doing that exclusively for a couple years now). I lined up, waded into the water, and took off swimming.
Sunrise over Decker Lake, earlier that morning.
And then like four seconds later, I was DONE. Seriously, a 300m swim 2 weeks after a 2.4 mile swim (that had seemed even longer) is MAGICAL. Stroke, turn, stroke, turn, stroke stroke, done. That's what it felt like. I pushed as much as I could without potentially angering any of my bootcamp muscles, and felt good about my swim.
When I came out of the water, I started running up the hill, scanning the line of shoes for my Oofos. I had walked through the grass in transition earlier and immediately gotten 8 stickers stuck in my soles, so I decided to leave some shoes at the water's edge to save my feet.
I knew the stickers weren't so bad until you entered transition, so I scooped up my shoes as I went by and carried them up the grassy hill. When I got to transition, I dropped them on the ground and slid them on, then took off at an awkward run. They weren't easy to run in, and then when I went to turn the sharp corner, I discovered that the frontrunners were running out that way, and I had to bank even sharper. That turned one of my shoes so that I was running on the edge of it awkwardly, so I ended up limping my way to my bike. Fortunately I didn't hurt my shoe or my foot in the process.
Got to my bike and put on helmet and sunglasses, then bike shoes. I had actually put my bike shoes on my bike in the morning, then I stepped down onto the ground barefoot to re-rack my bike and immediately got the 8 aforementioned stickers in my feet, so decided to just put my shoes on in transition. Slow transitions as a result, but I was just out to have fun with my crew, not beat any of my former times.
My amazing new transition towel, courtesy of Trista's friend.
Crossed the mount line and got on my bike, then settled in that bike course I hadn't done in years, but know so well. I marveled at how much faster Decker Lane goes by on a bike than it does on the run. I passed some folks on the hills, and was passed like I was standing still by some of the folks behind me. I ate a gu around mile 8. And then it was done! Again.. 11.1 miles so much better than 112 miles.
Some people asked afterward if the bike was windy, and honestly I couldn't even have told you. It was so NOT windy compared to any of the rides I'd done in preparation for or on raceday for IMTX. Didn't even appear on my radar. Thank you, wind gods.
Again, kept my shoes on to spare my feet, and managed to find my spot in transition with no problem. Racked my bike, took off my shoes and helmet, then spent far too long trying to jam my feet into my Hokas. I didn't bother with yankz or speed laces, because I hadn't used them for IMTX, and I had no future triathlons on my schedule. But I also remembered how long it took me to tie my shoes at IMTX, so I tried to cut my losses a bit by tying my shoes loosely that morning, then slipping my feet out. And it worked great.. except that my dry feet did not want to slip into the shoes. I eventually got them on, crossed my fingers that 2 miles of off-road sockless slipping about having spent no time building up those callouses wouldn't bring me future regret, grabbed my number and headband, and ran out.
Oof, I hate that first dowhill/uphill powerline thing. But it let me cheer for other people, which helps, and I got to pass a photographer and then Ryan in rapid succession, throwing out jazz hands to the first and then a doublebird to the second.
Doublebird, taken by Ryan. Because I am classy. Also what is the guy behind me doing?!
That first mile lasted forever. For all that 300m and 11.1 miles seemed so short, that 2 mile run felt like at least a half marathon. Sunny, off road, no speedwork in forever.. it just didn't feel great.
But there's only long that even the longest 2 miles can last, so eventually I hung a left out of the woods, happy to be able to finish up on the road for the last bit. Only to find.. we didn't get to be on the road. The whole thing was offroad now. Bleh. But I tried to stay strong and not faceplant, and crossed the finish line victorious! No finish line jump. Used all that up at IMTX.
IronRookieFriends!
Overall, it was a really fun race, a nice way to see a lot of people I've not seen in ages, and I did better than I figured I would.
Swim: 5:40 (1:53/100meters)
T1: 2:56
Bike: 38:06 (17.6 mph)
T2: 1:37
Run: 16:25 (8:13/mile)
Total: 1:04:46
Certainly not a Rookie PR, but not too shabby for 2 weeks after an Ironman. 9th of 47 in my age group. 4th in my age group for my swim, which felt fairly comfortable. My bike was solid for me. And my run needs a lot of work, if I'm going to continue doing short, fast things, but I'm not sure that's where I'm headed, so maybe not! I'll totally take 8:13s, when it's been ages since I bothered to try for a sub-9 at all.
So yay! Fun race, and I'm glad I did it. Now to go do whatever I feel like doing, and enjoy the Absolutely Nothing on my schedule for the next few months! (Of course there's a "what's next". But that's for another post.)
I actually felt really good post-Ironman. I was recovering well. I was swimming, biking and running again, albeit slowly and shortly. Then I decided to go try out Project Austin. It's a free bootcamp at the Capitol, and they needed some numbers at one of their workouts in order to join November Project. So I gamely showed up, got counted, and did a little bootcamp workout that ended up consisting of 60 burpees, 60 squats and 55 pushups, intermingled with some running and jumping jacks and v-ups and other assorted things. That was roughly.. 60 more burpees, squats, etc than I had done in forever, so I was a little sore for the rest of the day. Then sorer the next day. Then even sorer the next day, meaning on Friday I couldn't walk down stairs because my calves were so sore, I had to plan ahead before lifting my arms above shoulder height, and when I went to swim, my arms actually felt fine to swim, but I could NOT flip turn, because that requires a level of ab-participation that my abs were not willing to consider. I was in sorry shape. Evidently none of those muscles are used in an Ironman, and they were all very angry that I had woken them up.
I was a little afraid I wouldn't be ABLE to do The Rookie, but 3 days later, on Saturday, my body FINALLY settled down a bit. I was able to ride on my trainer for 30 minutes and do a 1 mile run off the bike with no ill effects, so I declared myself capable of doing The Rookie the next day.
And it went fine!
The swim was astonishingly wetsuit legal, but I couldn't take the race seriously enough to consider wriggling into a wetsuit for a 300m swim, nor bothering with a speedsuit. It was actually my first HighFive race with a time trial start, which really just shows how long it's been since I've done a HighFive race (since they've been doing that exclusively for a couple years now). I lined up, waded into the water, and took off swimming.
Sunrise over Decker Lake, earlier that morning.
And then like four seconds later, I was DONE. Seriously, a 300m swim 2 weeks after a 2.4 mile swim (that had seemed even longer) is MAGICAL. Stroke, turn, stroke, turn, stroke stroke, done. That's what it felt like. I pushed as much as I could without potentially angering any of my bootcamp muscles, and felt good about my swim.
When I came out of the water, I started running up the hill, scanning the line of shoes for my Oofos. I had walked through the grass in transition earlier and immediately gotten 8 stickers stuck in my soles, so I decided to leave some shoes at the water's edge to save my feet.
I knew the stickers weren't so bad until you entered transition, so I scooped up my shoes as I went by and carried them up the grassy hill. When I got to transition, I dropped them on the ground and slid them on, then took off at an awkward run. They weren't easy to run in, and then when I went to turn the sharp corner, I discovered that the frontrunners were running out that way, and I had to bank even sharper. That turned one of my shoes so that I was running on the edge of it awkwardly, so I ended up limping my way to my bike. Fortunately I didn't hurt my shoe or my foot in the process.
Got to my bike and put on helmet and sunglasses, then bike shoes. I had actually put my bike shoes on my bike in the morning, then I stepped down onto the ground barefoot to re-rack my bike and immediately got the 8 aforementioned stickers in my feet, so decided to just put my shoes on in transition. Slow transitions as a result, but I was just out to have fun with my crew, not beat any of my former times.
My amazing new transition towel, courtesy of Trista's friend.
Crossed the mount line and got on my bike, then settled in that bike course I hadn't done in years, but know so well. I marveled at how much faster Decker Lane goes by on a bike than it does on the run. I passed some folks on the hills, and was passed like I was standing still by some of the folks behind me. I ate a gu around mile 8. And then it was done! Again.. 11.1 miles so much better than 112 miles.
Some people asked afterward if the bike was windy, and honestly I couldn't even have told you. It was so NOT windy compared to any of the rides I'd done in preparation for or on raceday for IMTX. Didn't even appear on my radar. Thank you, wind gods.
Again, kept my shoes on to spare my feet, and managed to find my spot in transition with no problem. Racked my bike, took off my shoes and helmet, then spent far too long trying to jam my feet into my Hokas. I didn't bother with yankz or speed laces, because I hadn't used them for IMTX, and I had no future triathlons on my schedule. But I also remembered how long it took me to tie my shoes at IMTX, so I tried to cut my losses a bit by tying my shoes loosely that morning, then slipping my feet out. And it worked great.. except that my dry feet did not want to slip into the shoes. I eventually got them on, crossed my fingers that 2 miles of off-road sockless slipping about having spent no time building up those callouses wouldn't bring me future regret, grabbed my number and headband, and ran out.
Oof, I hate that first dowhill/uphill powerline thing. But it let me cheer for other people, which helps, and I got to pass a photographer and then Ryan in rapid succession, throwing out jazz hands to the first and then a doublebird to the second.
Doublebird, taken by Ryan. Because I am classy. Also what is the guy behind me doing?!
That first mile lasted forever. For all that 300m and 11.1 miles seemed so short, that 2 mile run felt like at least a half marathon. Sunny, off road, no speedwork in forever.. it just didn't feel great.
But there's only long that even the longest 2 miles can last, so eventually I hung a left out of the woods, happy to be able to finish up on the road for the last bit. Only to find.. we didn't get to be on the road. The whole thing was offroad now. Bleh. But I tried to stay strong and not faceplant, and crossed the finish line victorious! No finish line jump. Used all that up at IMTX.
IronRookieFriends!
Overall, it was a really fun race, a nice way to see a lot of people I've not seen in ages, and I did better than I figured I would.
Swim: 5:40 (1:53/100meters)
T1: 2:56
Bike: 38:06 (17.6 mph)
T2: 1:37
Run: 16:25 (8:13/mile)
Total: 1:04:46
Certainly not a Rookie PR, but not too shabby for 2 weeks after an Ironman. 9th of 47 in my age group. 4th in my age group for my swim, which felt fairly comfortable. My bike was solid for me. And my run needs a lot of work, if I'm going to continue doing short, fast things, but I'm not sure that's where I'm headed, so maybe not! I'll totally take 8:13s, when it's been ages since I bothered to try for a sub-9 at all.
So yay! Fun race, and I'm glad I did it. Now to go do whatever I feel like doing, and enjoy the Absolutely Nothing on my schedule for the next few months! (Of course there's a "what's next". But that's for another post.)