Sweetheart Aqua Triathlon Race Report

I withheld something from you all. It was my A++++ race of the season, The Sweetheart Aqua Triathlon down in DC. The race itself is done WITH a partner and the distance was a 500 yard swim, 200 yard kayak (split between you and your partner), finishing with a 200 yard aquajog. I had THE best partner, Beth, who is a fish in the water, expert kayaker, and literally wrote the book on aquajogging. I was in good company :) (you can read her race report HERE)

I didn't want to publicly disclose this race ahead of time because I figured the pressure of this race would be too much on me, that you all would have too many expectations for me, and that if I had a bad race my performance in this race might affect your future performance in triathlon. I was this serious about it!

So I stayed silent, trained hard, and tapered well.

This race........WAS my season!!!

Here goes (I considered breaking this up into a 4 part race report. It is my A++++++ race of the season, after all!):

Pre-race:
I used the Jeff Irvin approach of doing an all protein diet for three days followed by 5 days of carbo loading. I think I ate every form of pasta known to man during those 5 days. I was loaded!!!

Before the race, I knocked off 3 hours on the bike to get my legs warmed up and then replenished my glycogen stores with about 15 homemade snickers cookies.

I was so nervous when I arrived at the pool. The competition looked FIERCE. They were all giving us the evil squint eye. Not just the evil eye, the evil SQUINT eye. So much worse! I had to guard my goggles in anticipation of them sabotaging them. But Beth and I were ready!!!

The Swim:
500 yards is a LONG distance. I had to pace this smarterly so as to not blow up. Fortunately I was using my Trislide to prevent chafage, so armed with that my pacing strategy is as follows: First 200 yards, Zone 1. Next 100 yards, Zone 2. Final 200 yards, ratchet it up from zone 2 to zone 5c. I was hoping to be cooking by the end!

Awesome flip turn, right?

(I actually just jumped in and hit the gas and held on for dear life for the entire thing, but! I nailed every single flip turn (really!). It was a true 6 week test of me learning flip turns. I am getting there with them! Beth dusted me with a 6:45 and I finished in around a 7:30-7:45)

T1:
As soon as I finished the swim I was gassed! (This is all true, btw) I had to haul myself out of the pool, help get the kayak into the water, keep it stable while Beth hopped in and she did the first 100 yards.

My arm tan lines clearly hastened our T1 time. Tandynamics!

She took off, did her first turn, and our referee said, "That is THE best Kayaking I have seen all day!"

WHAT ELSE DO YOU EXPECT?!?!

The Kayak:
Once Beth finished, I hopped in and took off with the rage of the DEVIL!

My turns......uh.....well.......sucked. Haha! I should have practiced them more in training. But once turned? I FLEW!!!

RAWR!!!!!! I AM ON STEROIDS!!!

The Aquajog:
Um, what is aquajogging? I soon found out! Uh, I mean, I trained sometimes up to 6 hours a day for this leg of the event. Yes, thats what I did!

We donned our belts, and hopped in.

Gonna guess that splash is Beth's? Where did she go?

I quickly learned that aquajogging is a LOT harder and a LOT slower than you think it is. I also had a bad habit of NOT staying vertical, which are the rules. Oops!

But I hung with Beth as best as I could. I may have given us a penalty...(sorry! first timer here...)

It was a SUPER fun race! That swim was a real breakthrough for me since I have been struggling a lot with my swim since I (stupidly) decided to take off 4 months from swimming last Fall. This swim brought together my flip turns and the endurance that I have. I am quietly confident my swim times will improve more.

Beth is an amazing swimmer. Her goggles filled with water, so she stopped at 200 yards, adjusted, and continued on and STILL put up an awesome time.

After the race we continued swimming (she knocked off another 3300, while I squeezed in another 2200. Then we ate some celebratory BBQ (it was so good!) and some more homemade snickers cookies.

It was a good day :) I mean, 3 hours on the bike + a bunch of swimming in the middle of February is enough, right?