Caesaria Triathlon - 6 September 2008
Ok, this race report is two weeks late. In fact, my whole blog is out of date. Sorry!
Here goes...
I decided to do the sprint distance at the Caesaria Triathlon, because I'm planning on doing an Oly distance tri next week and my coach didn't want me to do two of them in the same month. What I completely forgot about when I signed up was that this year, in an effort to reduce the number of cyclists on the road (and prevent accidents), the start times for the sprint distance have been really late. This race started at 9:40 a.m. and it was a very hot day. The heat was my biggest challenge.
I have to admit that I wasn't in much of a "competitive mood" before this race -- no adrenaline rush or anything like that. I just wanted to do it and have fun and not die of heat exhaustion. The swim was ok. The cool part about the swim was swimming directly over ruins from the ancient city of Caesaria. The water was calm (uncharacteristically so for this race) and the buoys were red, which made them easy to spot. I'm sure I swam straight and apart from some confusion at the end (I didn't know where to get out of the water, nor did anyone around me), I didn't waste any time. So there was really no excuse for my very poor swim time. When I glanced at my watch a few seconds after exiting the water, I saw 17:45. This is a very slow 750 meter time for me. Ok...
Getting on my bike turned out to be a challenge when the crotch of my tri suit got caught on the nose of my saddle. My feet somehow got clipped in all on their own and there I was, trying to stand up and thrust forward enough to get my suit off my saddle while barely moving and hoping not to fall over. I'm sure it was rather amusing to anyone watching. Eventually, I managed to get myself properly seated and started to ride. I didn't push too hard on the bike -- I was too busy thinking about how hot it was already and how hot it would be on the run. This was a draft-legal race and at around 12 km or so, this guy passed me and yelled out, "Come on!" -- so I did. I hung onto his back wheel until the end of the course and it was a lot of fun and also helped me to make up some time.
In T2, I quickly downed two salt tablets, which I'm sure helped me with the heat, as I really didn't suffer all that much on the run. In fact, I have to say that the run, although not fast, was pretty amazing. I passed quite a few people, most of whom looked like they were dying. I felt the heat, but I never actually felt bad, just hot. The run was slightly long -- it was advertised at 5.2 km. My time for T2 (which wasn't all that fast -- I had some trouble getting those salt tablets out of the bag I'd put them in) and the run was 35:something, which is pretty slow, but not disastrous. And unlike many of the people I saw on the course, I actually ran the whole thing.
I finished the race in the fastest time I've ever done Caesaria, though it's hard to compare, as the course was changed this year (the run was longer, though, so I'm still pretty happy with my time). I felt good throughout the race, though I never did get that adrenaline rush and I really didn't care who was up ahead of me. The worst part of the day was sitting around in the heat after the race -- it had to be close to 100 degrees outside and I even suffered in the shade.
So it was a good race, overall -- certainly better than my previous race, the Women's Triathlon, back in May. I will hopefully have an Oly distance race report next week, though that's not looking 100% sure at the moment, due to some "technical problems" (bike trouble and some question about how I'm actually going to get to the race). Hopefully, things will work themselves out.
Here goes...
I decided to do the sprint distance at the Caesaria Triathlon, because I'm planning on doing an Oly distance tri next week and my coach didn't want me to do two of them in the same month. What I completely forgot about when I signed up was that this year, in an effort to reduce the number of cyclists on the road (and prevent accidents), the start times for the sprint distance have been really late. This race started at 9:40 a.m. and it was a very hot day. The heat was my biggest challenge.
I have to admit that I wasn't in much of a "competitive mood" before this race -- no adrenaline rush or anything like that. I just wanted to do it and have fun and not die of heat exhaustion. The swim was ok. The cool part about the swim was swimming directly over ruins from the ancient city of Caesaria. The water was calm (uncharacteristically so for this race) and the buoys were red, which made them easy to spot. I'm sure I swam straight and apart from some confusion at the end (I didn't know where to get out of the water, nor did anyone around me), I didn't waste any time. So there was really no excuse for my very poor swim time. When I glanced at my watch a few seconds after exiting the water, I saw 17:45. This is a very slow 750 meter time for me. Ok...
Getting on my bike turned out to be a challenge when the crotch of my tri suit got caught on the nose of my saddle. My feet somehow got clipped in all on their own and there I was, trying to stand up and thrust forward enough to get my suit off my saddle while barely moving and hoping not to fall over. I'm sure it was rather amusing to anyone watching. Eventually, I managed to get myself properly seated and started to ride. I didn't push too hard on the bike -- I was too busy thinking about how hot it was already and how hot it would be on the run. This was a draft-legal race and at around 12 km or so, this guy passed me and yelled out, "Come on!" -- so I did. I hung onto his back wheel until the end of the course and it was a lot of fun and also helped me to make up some time.
In T2, I quickly downed two salt tablets, which I'm sure helped me with the heat, as I really didn't suffer all that much on the run. In fact, I have to say that the run, although not fast, was pretty amazing. I passed quite a few people, most of whom looked like they were dying. I felt the heat, but I never actually felt bad, just hot. The run was slightly long -- it was advertised at 5.2 km. My time for T2 (which wasn't all that fast -- I had some trouble getting those salt tablets out of the bag I'd put them in) and the run was 35:something, which is pretty slow, but not disastrous. And unlike many of the people I saw on the course, I actually ran the whole thing.
I finished the race in the fastest time I've ever done Caesaria, though it's hard to compare, as the course was changed this year (the run was longer, though, so I'm still pretty happy with my time). I felt good throughout the race, though I never did get that adrenaline rush and I really didn't care who was up ahead of me. The worst part of the day was sitting around in the heat after the race -- it had to be close to 100 degrees outside and I even suffered in the shade.
So it was a good race, overall -- certainly better than my previous race, the Women's Triathlon, back in May. I will hopefully have an Oly distance race report next week, though that's not looking 100% sure at the moment, due to some "technical problems" (bike trouble and some question about how I'm actually going to get to the race). Hopefully, things will work themselves out.
posted by bari | 16:19
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