Sunday, June 26th, hubby and I woke ourselves up at 4:00am to head out to the Boulder Reservoir for my final "practice" tri of the season. Training for a Half IronMan somehow made this Olympic distance feel "easy" this year, and when the alarm went off, I actually rolled over and slept for another 15 minutes. I guess the butterflies weren't as prevalent, knowing that in just a few more weeks, I would have to do more than double this distance...
I started my swim in the middle of the pack and got a good reminder as to why I had taken myself to the back in previous events. Tons of kicking, splashing and pushing made the first couple of minutes tough. Luckily, I'd been through this a couple times before and just made myself find some patience and calm among the madness. And once the few minutes were past, I was able to swim a great time, coming out of the water right when I was hoping to.
I had some trouble with my wetsuit in transition. The dang thing just didn't want to come off, and I've always heard others say that this was their least favorite part of the race (trying to get a wet wetsuit off in record time), but I'd never really had issues with it... So this was a little frustrating, but I made it onto my bike in a good time and headed out for the roads.
My bike split was much faster than I was expecting. Apparently, all of that riding I did when my knee was keeping me from running ended up paying off! I was now ahead of my goal time, feeling great about finishing the race with just one more event to go!!
My run was not so successful though. All that riding might have made my bike leg that much better, but it sure didn't help me on my run. I missed my run goal time by 7 minutes, but crossed the finish line with a big smile on my face. I'd finished the whole event 15 minutes better than I was hoping!
Next year, I'll have to find some local Northern California races to do, but I will miss racing out at the Boulder Reservoir. It always presents its challenges, which make crossing that finish line so sweet.
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