who knew...

I set out this morning to do a trial run of my triathlon. I wanted to see what it would feel like - minus the proper transitions since I wouldn't be able to set up my station. I haven't had the chance yet to swim in my tri shorts and shirt and then jump right on my bike while I am still wet, or run right after biking.

So, I left my house and noticed there was quite a wind. I knew that would be somewhat bothersome, but aside from that the day seemed perfect. I got to the park and threw on my swim cap and goggles and jumped in the water. Believe it or not, the water was so rough from the wind it could have been mistaken for the ocean! Who knew that there could be such a current and so many waves in a little gravel pit lake! I think I probably swallowed close to a gallon of lake water, and got water up my nose several times. Those two things are my least favorite part of swimming, and they both happened a lot today. I suppose it was good to train in the water when it was choppy like that since it is possible that with everyone swimming around me on race day it will just as bad, if not worse.

Anyway, I made it through the swim in 20 minutes and ran out of the water back to the bench where I had left my items. I started to feel a little nauseous because of all of the water I swallowed - I wasn't exaggerating about how much I swallowed! So, since I had to keep everything but my towel and flip flops in my car (so no one would steal it) I rinsed my feet off, then ran to my car - about 1000 feet away. Then I put on all of my cycling stuff, and jumped on my bike. The bike went fine - I didn't really have a planned route, so I ended up shorting the bike portion by a mile, but I figured for my first test run, 13.8 miles was fine.

I did start to get tired by mile 10, so I will have to work on my biking a little more than I had originally thought. I got back to my car again and checked the time and noted that the bike took me an hour and 4 minutes. I took off my helmet and gloves, took my tire off so I could lock my bike back into my roof rack, changed my shoes and started out to run the 5K.

My quads and gluts were already burning from the bike, and as I ran, they started to hurt even more. The first mile was pretty rough, but then I started to loosen up a little bit and the last 2 felt better. I am not going to lie, it didn't feel good and I felt pretty tired. I will really have to work on biking, then running right away. It was harder than I thought it was going to be.

All in all, I felt pretty good with my performance. I finished all three disciplines in an hour and 58 minutes, even with my ridiculously long transitions. I am hoping that for race day I can keep it under an hour and 50 minutes. I would be happy with that.

I am looking forward to the next time that I get to do a trial run of the triathlon. Hopefully I can improve my time. I also plan to take a few hours to just to practice the transitions, so that will hopefully help me to streamline them on race day. It is getting so close - only 26 days until race day!! At least I know I can do it.