Ok, so this race should be a lesson to me. Ocean Beach obviously wasn't enough of a lesson in not-preparedness! :) If I had any doubt in my mind, Niantic cleared that for me. I can go out and complete the race without training much, but I can't compete. It was the hardest course I have run yet, the swim was a piece of cake, but I wasn't able to push as hard as I wanted to. The bike was tougher than I expected, I wasn't ready for that, and then... I lost my chain. Rookie shifting mistake on a hill and next thing I knew my chain was on the ground. It took me a couple minutes to get it back in place and to get myself up the hill. The run... well, I wanted to die. I looked at the people running past me on a couple sections of the run and couldn't help but think... no one would know if I just turned around and follow them. But I didn't, I finished it out, and despite walking along a couple of sections of the race, I still finished it with a pace of 10 minute miles. Now of course that pace is still slower than most on the course. Swim rank was 187, bike 294 and run 410.
Now, on to training for the Olympic. I need to be more serious about this and get my time in, because I can bandaid my way through a sprint, but its never going to work in the longer distance. The reality that I am facing is that it is no longer enough to just go out and put in the distance, not if I want to compete, I need to do intervals, hill repeats, and a lot of leg work. No more amateur hour, I have five weeks to get it in gear and see what I can do.
In the meantime, we need to hunt down a bike for Tim. He has started talking about training with me and maybe getting into the triathlons next year. I am very excited to not only have this thing in common, but also to have a training partner, especially someone who will definitely be able to push me on the bike and the run.
For now though, off on a bike, swim later. Ready to go!
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