July 2nd I did the sprint tri at Five Mile Lake put on on by Budu Racing. They always have a fun and well run event. It's a party the entire time. I did alright. Honestly, I haven't really been training. I've been going to the gym, but most of my workouts have been indoor. At that point, I'd only done one lake swim and my rides had been longer rather than shorter, hard and technical. And don't get me started on running- I never push myself. Well, I came out of the water about where I expected, rode a little slower than I hoped but actually put out a good run time averaging 7:52 per mile. Not too shabby since at the treadmill I warm up at a 10min mile pace and will usually only drop it down to 8:45 or so. Needless to say, I'm being pretty hard on myself for that.
However, that didn't motivate me enough this week before my second race. I didn't swim even once, ran twice (only once outside) and only rode once. Man! I'm lazy. I went 16 minutes and change on the half mile swim, 39 and change on the 12 mile, hilly and actually pretty technical ride and then over the 4.2 miles (probably 15 hills) and average an 8:03pace. Woohoo! And crazily- I was in third place headed on the run!! BRUTAL run. BRU-TAL. Passed by two girls and they were amazing! I wound up 2nd in my age group and 5th overall. And I will say, the girls that beat me.. Holy crap. They were some fit looking chicks. I should not have been up there with their lean muscles selves.
So, the race was a SheRox triathlon, all women. Similar to the Danskin which is for breast cancer research, this one is for ovarian cancer research. My Mom's oldest sister died of this about eight years ago so I everytime I've done this race I've found myself tearing up. However, I was surprised to see how small the race was this year. Only 109 individual finishers. A couple years ago when Subaru was the title sponsor there were two distances (I REALLY wanted to do the super-sprint today if they had it!) and each distance had near 300 women. It's heartbreaking, this is one of the only events I know that support OCRF and no one knows about it. The money that is raised is just a drop in the bucket compared to breast cancer- and today I learned something. This is an undetectable disease. Mammograms for breast cancer, paps for cervical. There is no real way to check for this. Many of the symptoms mimic a gastro-intestinal issue so women wind up at the wrong doctor and are told they're imagining it and they're fine. That is crazy to me!
The event is phenomenal and I really hope that it grows. I would recommend it to anyone I know who does tri's or wants to try one. Although, this is probably the toughest sprint course I've ever done, it's well worth it. The half mile swim is in a flat and relatively clean lake. The run-to-transition is insanely long and kills your feet. The bike has some rollers and fabulous sweeping turns along with beautiful scenery. Also, some quite technical turns. The run. Oh, the run. It has so many hills. You leave transition only to climb a crazy unpaved trail out of the park, and then a slow gradual climb to drop down a good sized hill, turn the corner and there's another four hills or so (the last a steep uphill), turn another corner and a very short distance of flat- probably not a quarter mile, turn the final corner and a couple more rollers which drops you back into the park. Which you run through and do it all again. Ouch. But seriously. It's a doable course that really challenges what your made of. I have no idea where I pulled 8 minute miles from.
She swims. She bikes. She runs. She ROX. And I definitely recommend it!
That's me on the far right. My butt actually looks good today!
Ewww...pretty.....
Yeah, almost to the finish! Gritting my teeth and trying not to trip!
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