Race #1 750 K swim
Wednesday morning at 8 am the 60+ ladies wave plunged into Lake Carolyn. Winds were strong at ~15Knots so there was a slight current and some waves of 2-4 inches. Not really turbulent but enough to cause one to take on water instead of air occasionally. It was a mass start from the pier. We all jumped in and held onto the pier until the start whistle. I set out fairly confidently. I had decided to use my wetsuit, HUUB long sleeve. The water was 68F so somewhat chilly. I felt fine but must have started out too fast and my HR went up and I began to feel a bit breathless with a panic edge, so I had to slow down a bit. I did a bit of breast stroking to regain my breathing. I was able to resume free style pretty quickly and rounded turn buoy, did a couple of breast strokes to spot the second turn buoy and headed out again. I was passing people pretty well and felt good that I was swimming pretty quickly after these minor delays. Unfortunately my left goggle began to fill with water and while I could ignore it for awhile it began to make me feel somewhat panicky again; like I was drowning and somewhat panicky again so I had to stop and empty and reposition them. I was off again pretty quickly and finished in 19:50. A bit longer than I would have hoped. That is about 2:25 min per 100 yds by my calculation. Not my best open water time but for my first open water swim in a wetsuit, I'm okay with how I did.
Race #2 Super Sprint 250 m swim, 5k bike, 1.2 k run
Thursday morning we were entering the water in threes in a time trial start. I began toward the middle of the pack and again started out too fast I think. I decided to not use the wetsuit that morning. Water temp was 70F and I felt the race was so short it wasn't worth fooling around with stripping it after the swim. I noted my swim time at 7 minutes. That included some running but gives a time of 3:10/100 yds. Not the greatest but I felt strong and confident and was able to get out of the water and to my bike with the middle of the pack. I passed a few folks on the swim. I got to my bike but had to sit to get my shoes on, grabbed my helmet and put my garmin on the bike. Unfortunately my garmin was not advancing like it is supposed to for multisport...it is a very old 910XT and sometimes doesn't work properly, so I had no speed on the bike or timing. I knew my total time because I also had my Fenix on my left wrist for info on HR and time so I had an idea of what my total time was through the whole race. The bike was extremely fast, although there was a headwind on the way back that slowed me a bit. I felt very fast and happy while I rode my bike down and back to transition 2. I wasted several second hunting in the wrong aisle for my shoes and stuff for the run until I figured out I was in F not G. (both labelled F 66-69) so I can forgive myself for this mistake. (There were a lot of us old ladies racing!) Finally grabbed my stuff and got a holler from Chris and Shelley at the exit of T2, laughing at me for running around hunting for my shoes! I yelled back "I'm terrible at this these days!" and just laughed. I'm happy to be alive and still able to race honestly. I got myself to run a bit but my HR would spike up to 188 very quickly forcing me to slow down. I saved enough juice to run across the finish with a big smile though. I did it, I'm happy I'm here and able to race at all.
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