Monday, July 22, 2013

My first triathlon recap: THE BIKE

Part 2: The Bike
Distance: 11 miles

So I make it onto the beach. Disoriented but the swim is done!

Yay. I made it to land!
And I get to transition and again, this photo speaks for itself. I'm still dizzy, a bit shaky and trying to pull it together. Gotta love my speedy, hustling transition. HA.

Wow. Wet, in tiny unforgiving Tri clothes, and sporting
the whitest legs in America. LOOKING GOOD. ;) lol
So I get out on the bike and because I felt so slow out in the water, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last on the bike course. But I was wrong. There were still plenty of people behind me to pass me by and remind me of my slowness. Though I did count 3 people who I passed on the bike including one silver-haired lady of 67 - who obviously had a better swim in her wave than me since i was only now passing her and she was two waves behind me.

Once passed, I was on my own a lot of the time on the ride. I had space for miles. So I guess that's a benefit of being a back of the packer. No jockeying for elbow room and the volunteers are very kind in support. 

I have to look at my bike later. I think it felt harder yesterday but that could've been because of the swim first? Not sure. I felt like I was pushing harder than usual.

Also - I have to adjust the water cage. Since changing my bike seat height, I can't reach the bottle! I was getting so thirsty and had this bottle of water out of reach. I was too stubborn to pull over to swig so powered thru. 

I counted down the miles and was so happy to make the turn into the final stretch: 



Yay! I'm almost done!



Oh yeah. I still have to run.
I have to get cage things for the pedals - look at my knee and I felt like I kept slipping off the pedals. The only cramping of the day I had was in the arches and top of my feet during the bike. Not sure what to make of that but something to figure out.  I may need even more seat height. My knees feel a little achey today.

All in all the bike was pretty good. I wish I was faster but this was only my fourth time on an outside bike since I'm 10 years old so I can't complain. 

Total time on bike: 49:34 (13.3 mph pace) 


XO
Jen

3 comments:

Colleen said...

Way to be so determined! Love the fist pump at the end!

Anonymous said...

I'm doing my first sprint tri in just a few weeks... can you comment on what you wish you would have known prior to this race? Or what you'll do differently for your next race?

Unknown said...

THANK YOU linda and Colleen!

gerbsblurbs, congrats on your first upcoming tri - I'm in the middle of writing a post about my after-thoughts and will include some of that. It'll go up later today or sometime tomorrow!