triathlon #2 in the bag!

Just got back from triathlon #2. Overall I felt more exausted than last week's race, yet I still put in a faster time. This race course was mostly the same as last week with the same exact swim portion, a bike course that went in the opposite direction, but a completely different run. I think my approximate finishing time was in the 1:42 and change area.

I think I felt more exausted because I raced last Sunday, tried to recover as best as I could during the week and then raced again. I felt strong and hopefully recovered going into the swim, but quickly realized that things were going to hurt more right from the start my arms hurt, and I mean bad. I kept going and was happy to finish. The real clincher that I was more exausted was the transition out of the water. I just couldn't run out of the water and had to walk. Then on dry land running to the transition area was really difficulty.

Transitioning from swim to bike took forever it felt like, but whatever, it was just a transition (I am going to start working on faster transitions when I start racing to place better).

The bike portion felt a lot faster than last week because the uphill this time was more of a stairstep up after I flew down the huge hill that I climbed last week. I just couldn't find my rhythm up the hill. I was passing people (and was passed more this time) so that was good that I was moving faster, but still I didn't have the legs that I normally would have. I am going to attribute this hurting to again not recovering fully from last week. I am curious to see what my time is for this leg.

Now for the run. I just wanted to walk from the start. It hurt so bad, almost as bad as the brooklyn duathlon, but still not as bad. But I still wanted to walk. It was hot @ this point and the water that one of the volunteer's poured over my head saved me @ the very beginning.

At the halfway point of the run they had more water (thank GOD!) and I actually walked through this little section. Mentally I hardened up from this point on. I said to myself that others will pass you, that you are racing at your pace and now try to block everyone out and think of this as just another run through the neighborhood. This helped A LOT and I started to find my groove and run a bit faster and with some more determination.

At the finish I just wanted this thing to be over with and to get some water. I felt HUGELY relieved to be done and am glad that I have 5 weeks until my next race.

This race was a good learning tool in that racing two weekends in a row is hard. Very hard. Mentally it drains you. I need to spend this next week recovering and not doing any hard work.

My supervisor at work knew that I had a race today and on friday was coming up with a list of things to work on come monday, and I got this feeling that he was trying to take it easy on me because I was going to be tired because of the race. I thought that was funny.