Jay Benson '07

First race of the season for me was today: Jay Benson. This was my first race ever last season, and one of my first blog posts. The course was exactly as I remember it.

I had 3 goals today:
1) have a stronger bike ride.
2) do not crash
3) have a better swim time

Here's last year's splits:

Total   Run     Pace   T1      Bike    Mph   T2      Swim  
 1:21:52   25:11  8:24    1:38   41:14  18.1    2:03   11:48       

Here's today's splits

Total   Run     Pace   T1      Bike    Mph   T2      Swim    
1:18:35   26:37  8:53    1:35   38:16  19.5    1:59   10:10  

Here's the Cliff's Notes on the Race:

I met all 3 goals!

Pre race: many, many butterflies regarding goal number 2. As Geekgirl reported, I visited the toilet many many times pre-race.

Run
It was a sucky run. Legs hurt - my shins REALLY HURT. Run was a struggle. I've started running without my orthotics (because they aren't helping), but the rest of me hasn't caught up yet. Ow! No knee pain, but shin pain and now calves. Much work to do...

Bike
It was an awesome bike! Can we bike some more? Please? I seem to remember freaking out about some hills on the course last year. This year all I could think was, what hills? Where did they go? It helped that there was a tailwind uphill. Oh. Yeah.

Swim
It was an OK swim. No freakout, no panic, just swim. I'm not a fast swimmer yet. I actually started to feel stronger and more warmed up by the last lap. Too bad I couldn't swim longer, I might have made up some time.

Short summary: I'm tired, but didn't get the heinous blood sugar crash I sometimes get after hard training or racing. I think it's because we had a team picnic afterward, and I was able to stuff my face with good food directly after racing. This is crucial! Many of my Outlaw brethren and sisteren did really well today - we had a strong showing, and even recruited some more. I tried to tell them that joining the Outlaws will require them to endure a hazing ritual, but nobody believes me.

My beloved also had an awesome race - he didn't blow up in the first 5 minutes like he did last year. He smoked 'em and he's still talkin'!

It's a known fact that I am a poor sprinter. Small children can outrun me in 100m distances. I'm looking forward to some longer distance races - the kind where it's not seconds that count. The kind where I can cruise. I'd like to see what that's like for awhile.