The Diamond in the Rough Tri is in Perryville, MD right by the I-95 bridge over the Susquehanna river. There were some fierce storms the day before and there was some threat to cancel the swim. But we woke to a pretty perfect morning and the swim was on. Game on. The course details for the sprint event were pretty short: 0.25mi swim, 7.8 bike, 2.5 run. My race plan was something like 6min even for the swim, 25 for the bike and 20 for the run with two 1-minute transitions even though I had no idea how long the trasitions may actually take on my first go at it. So I was hoping for something like 55 minutes which would have been top 10 overall last year. I looked at this like a one-hour asskicking workout. No reason to not go all out.
I was lured to the event by my friend Adam who's been competing in tris for quite a while now. This is a training run for him in preparation for the Nation's Tri in DC in a few weeks. We were both in the sprint so we were the first wave to start the day's events. After a brief warmup in the river, we floated around until we we got the start. I don't remember if it was a gun, airhorn or whistle- I was too amped up to destroy my first race.
The swim course was around 3 buoys then a run up a staircase then about 150yds to the transition area. I felt extremely strong during the first half and could tell I was tiring fast after the second buoy. The adrenaline was fading fast and I was pretty sure I didn't swim the straight lines my Garmin suggested and was sure I swam more of a wide loop. I came out of the swim with the 15th fastest split at 8:21. I could see Adam about 10 seconds ahead of me. I really would have liked to catch him on the bike but figured that was impossible
Transition one was unremarkable. I yanked my bike shorts over my swimsuit, threw on my socks, running shoes, race belt, shirt, helmet, sunglasses and bolted out at 1:56. A bit longer than 1 minute.
It's been years since I had a road bike. About 8 since I really used to ride it. I was on my 2-week-old Trek Madone and had put about 60 miles on it before this race. The rolling hills in the area felt like mountains since the 60ish miles I put on my Trek were all on the flat Schuylkill River Trail. I managed a 28:44 ride then a 0:49 transition to the run. The best part of that transition was trying to be really cool and dismount my bike while moving and just glide off the seat and into a trot next to my bike. I swung my right leg over, slowed down, hopped off and started running. Success! Until 6 steps in when my jello legs gave out and I dumped my bike and fell right on top of it. What fun is anything if you don't lose a little blood, right. I laughed it off, felt embarrassed because there were plenty of people watching, hung my bike and ran out for a quick run.
Extremely unremarkable run and I thought I threw everything left I had at it and finished that leg in 21:54, very pleased after regaining several spots I'd lost on the bike. I'd hoped for around 55 minutes which would have put me in the top 10. I settled for 27th overall with a 1:01.46 and holy CRAP- second in my age group! I'm hooked! After housing some snacks at the finish line, I felt pretty strong. I think I had a little gas left in the tank at the finish which is regrettable but part of how to learn how I feel when I perceive more fatigue than is really there.
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| Traded a little blood for 2 finishers medals |
No races officially on the calendar yet but looking at Half-wit-half on 8/11, Boulder Dash 20-miler 8/17, possibly the North East Tri (sprint) on 8/25, then Marshman tri on 9/15. The next official calendar "race" is the DC Ragnar Relay, 10/4 & 5.
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