Netanya Triathlon - 16 September 2005

That's me on the left. Thanks once again to Tan for this and the following pictures.

This was a small but really nice race. We had been promised a heatwave, but instead, we got beautiful weather and a calm sea. In the morning, it was actually a bit chilly. By the time we were finished, I'm guessing it was in the low 80s -- very comfortable around here.

There were fewer than 100 people in the sprint, so there wasn't much pushing and shoving during the swim. However, there was a fairly long run into the water and I didn't start out well. I tried swimming too soon and also lost my balance and fell twice. When I finally did start swimming, I was so out of breath from running that I was on the verge of panic. It took me a while to regulate my breathing and start swimming normally. Once I did, though, I was fine.

Swimming around the first two buoys was a piece of cake. I actually managed to swim in a straight line. LOL. However, after rounding the second buoy, I had the sun in my eyes and this made things a bit more difficult. I sighted the rope that was holding onto the buoys on my right, so I decided to swim right next to it to avoid swimming too far out. This would have been a good strategy if a guy hadn't come up on my left. He was too close to me and he kept pushing me into and under the rope. I couldn't use my right arm at all because I couldn't get it out of the water. He actually stopped and apologized, but until I managed to move past him, swimming was rather difficult.

Getting out of the water was a bit difficult, as I'm really bad at running in water, but the really hard part was running up to the transition area. We had to run up a very steep hill (so steep that I'd found it uncomfortable to walk down it earlier). People all around me were walking, but I was determined to run up the hill and I did. I don't remember anything else about the transition, apart from the fact that I ran past my bike and had to turn around and go back (I realized I'd run past it pretty quickly, so I didn't lose more than a couple of seconds). My actual swim time was around 17:30 or so (according to my watch) -- not great for 750 meters, but not terrible for me. My time including transition was 20:51 (2/2 women 40-44, 63/91 overall).

After grabbing my bike and running up a tiny little hill, I clumsily got on it and eventually managed to clip in (I need to work a lot more on transitions and with the weather cooling off, I'm running out of excuses not to do this). The bike route was three loops for a total of 23.4 km. It was mainly flat with a few slight inclines (which we got to go down, too, of course). There was one very tight turn (the turnaround on one end -- I had to slow down to almost a stop to actually turn) and a few corners. Unfortunately, I had sent my bike on the bus in the morning and then driven up with a friend, so someone else took my bike off the bus and put the wheel back on and when they did so, they must have moved the sensor for my bike computer, so when I got on my bike, I discovered that the computer wasn't working. I had an idea of how far I'd gone because we were going in loops, but I had no idea how fast I was going. If I had known, I may have pushed a little harder. In any case, I actually felt pretty good on the bike and apart from the fact that I looked like a complete dork getting on and off, as far as I was concerned, this was the best part of the race for me. My time was a bit of a disappointment, though -- 56:14 (2/2 women 40-44, 73/91 overall), for an average of about 25 kph -- slower than I would have liked, though not terrible considering the number of turns.

During the bike to run transition, the little round plastic thing that holds my number onto the race belt popped off and rolled away, never to be found again. This was not a good start to the run. And it took me forever to get my shoes on. I think that was psychological -- the run was next to the bike route and I knew that the first part was a gradual incline and I didn't really feel like running it. I managed to get myself together, though (and to have a conversation with one of the officials, who is also the wife of the manager of my team) and to get out of the transition area.

The run started off badly. My heart rate was a bit high at the beginning, so I slowed down a bit, but then my shins started hurting. And I kept playing with my number, which was flapping in front of me because it was only connected on one side. At some point, I just stopped running. Walking was hard, too -- my legs really hurt. I walked and ran and walked for a bit and took advantage of the walk breaks to fix my number so it would stop flapping. A few people encouraged me to start running again (as they ran by me) and about halfway through the run (which was two loops), I picked up the pace. I slowed down one more time at the water station, but that was it. Then I really picked up the pace and finished the run the way I should have run the whole thing. My legs stopped hurting (I sometimes get pain in my shins when I'm not warmed up) and I actually felt good, though a bit pissed off at myself for having stopped running at all. And to keep my spirits up I sang a bit, both in my head and outloud (when no one was within earshot! LOL!). When I reached the water station for the last time, the volunteers offered me water and I refused, telling them that I was near the end. That was all they needed to hear. They started cheering me on just like my former coach used to do and they gave me the motivation I needed to sprint to the finish.

My run time was pretty bad -- 34:06 for 5 km plus the slow transition (I'm guessing the actual run was closer to about 32 minutes -- still slow for me). However, I did have a negative split -- according to the chip splits, the second half of my run was much faster than the first half. The run was the worst part of the race for me relative to the other participants (and in general, too) -- I was 2/2 in my age group and 81/91 overall.

My time for the race was 1:51:12 (a minute faster than I did the Caesaria Triathlon two weeks ago, although the bike route in Caesarea was more than 3 km shorter. Note that the clock time in the picture above is off by 30 minutes -- this must have been the time for those doing the Olympic distance). I came in second in my age group (big surprise -- if you've been following the report, you know that I was 2/2 for the entire race!) and 80/91 overall.

For the most part, it was an ok race for me, but not great. I had no expectations of getting anything other than second place in my age group (the woman who came in first is really really fast -- the guys on my team were amazed at how fast she was on the bike and she later told me she'd had a bad ride!), but my poor entry into the water and my mental breakdown during the first half of the run were disappointing. The run thing especially bothers me, as I've had this same problem over and over and it's the run that's going to keep me from moving up to Olympic distance any time in the near future. I can handle the 1500 meter swim and I've done 40 km on my bike plenty of times, but there's no way I'll be able to finish up with a 10k run until I've upped my training mileage and done some serious mental training.

My coach actually asked me after the race when I'm going to do an Olympic distance tri. I don't know if he was serious or not, but he did say that when I do it, he'll do it with me (that part was serious).

Back to the race... Despite my disappointment with parts of my own performance, I really enjoyed this race. I like the atmosphere of the smaller races and it was really fun to be there with such a small group from my team. I have no idea why, but some of the parents and kids who were watching instead of participating this time brought cameras and they were snapping pictures of us all day long. It was rather amusing to watch them running around with the cameras. I suspect that there will be several pictures of me in the next team Powerpoint presentation.

The next race is two weeks from today at Carmel Beach. That's it for triathlons until the national championships in early December, but there are two duathlons coming up. The idea of doing a duathlon doesn't appeal to me all that much right now (the running...), but I will probably do both of them because it will force me to start running more and hopefully build up my confidence a bit before Eilat in December.