My, but it's been a while since I've written on the old blog. We're insanely busy at work and we've had a ton of shit going on at home too.
Sooooo, I'm going to try to write two, count 'em, two race reports today. We'll see how far I get.
The first race report will be about the Pigman Triathlon. The week before the event, I was dealing with a little anxiety. I haven't had many problems before, but the last year or so, I've noticed a mild anxious episode or two. I'm just going to go ahead and blame it on perimenopause, because that's handy. Anyway, I was feeling anxious for about a week before the race and I woke up that Sunday with a mild migraine. Double whammy.
I decided to try and do the triathlon anyway to make up for last year. As you'll recall, I had a bad cold last year and the water was really choppy and also, I gained quite a bit of weight over the Winter so my wet suit was too tight and there wasn't much room for my lungs to expand. I couldn't breathe very well during the open water swim and panic ensued. I ended up giving up and climbing onto the boat, ending my triathlon before it had really started. I didn't want to do that again this year.
I worked with John and a woman named Lanney on open water swimming a few days before the triathlon. I also bought a new, larger wet suit top. Of course, the morning I woke up at 4 am the day of the triathlon I had a little migraine. It wasn't horrible, but I forgot to bring Advil with me and when I went to take a couple before the start of the race, I realized it wasn't there and lost it. I told John that I just needed a minute and I sat in the car and had my little meltdown. After that, I pulled myself back together'ish and got ready for my race.
I decided the best way to keep me from panicking was to just go slow in the swim. I wouldn't let myself worry about how much faster everyone else was going or if they were all passing me. I just did the slow and steady thing and just kept swimming. I was exhausted when I finally made it out of the water and felt like I had a little asthma. It felt like there was water in my lungs when I breathed. So, I walked up the hill instead of running like most of the other women I was competing against. I'm usually strongest on the bike, and I got to pass a lot of people, who were way ahead of me in the swim. The run was slower again for me. That's the area where I really feel the extra weight I'm carrying. It try not to worry about it. I'm in my 50's, I'm probably not going to all of the sudden lose a bunch of weight in any healthy way, so I go more slowly in my amateur old lady category race. I'm sure it won't kill me.
Since I was the oldest in my category, you'd be surprised that I actually got third. Part of that is that there are a few really strong women in the next age group, so next year when I move up, my results won't be so great, but that's okay. I finally won a pig after all these years! I'll take it. The biggest thing for me, is that I fought my anxiety/insecurity demons and won this time. That was the biggest prize for me.
The next race we did was three days after the triathlon. It was the second installment of our Time Trial series. I've been working hard at Time Trialing this year. Last month, I was 5 seconds faster than my fastest time the year before. My goal was to be under 30 minutes and I went 29.44. So, this time my goal was to be under 29 minutes. Since the month before, I didn't go as hard as I should've, and I had been pretty good at training, I didn't think that would be too hard.
I made a point to try and focus as hard as I could for the full ten miles, which is hard for me. I also tried to use everything I had left to go up the last hill. It turns out, I finished in 28.30 minutes. I beat my best time by a minute and 14 seconds. I also beat my other goal of averaging 21 mph. I know that there are plenty of people who wouldn't think that time was all that fast, but that's okay. I am always trying to do better than I've done before, no matter how fast anyone else can go.
Once again, I'll keep trying to write on here more...So many things to work on.
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