Race Report: PlayTri Festival

This race was in Dallas, about three hours away from Prison City, so JC and I made a weekend of it (since we were also going to a Deftones concert). We drove up Saturday afternoon for check in and to check out the area. Then we grabbed My Fit Foods for dinner (it is really tasty, healthy food…something that doesn’t come easy for me), and hung out at the hotel for a the night.

Pre-Race:
Because the hotel was only 15 minutes away from the race site (which is awesome!), I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn…I got to sleep in until 5:30am before rolling in the car and heading out shortly after 6am to arrive with plenty of time to set up transition and hang out. This race had both olympic and sprint distances…since I was racing the sprint, I had to wait until 8am before getting in the water to start.

Swim:
The 500 meter swim went well, something I was happy with since I haven’t spent much time on speed. It wasn’t a PR but it wasn't the worst time either. This swim had two ‘firsts’ for me. The first was the water start, they had us jump in the water and tread for 5 minutes before starting. The second first was exiting the water on stairs…unnatural stairs. I managed not to fall or slip while exiting so it was all a success.

Bike:
It was a nice course, fast, flat and with few hills. The wind was calm and I was cruising and in a good mood. I was also busy on the short ride, after settling in, I moved water bottles around, took in a Gu (strawberry banana, yum), and rearranged my watches (regular watch and Garmin). I love doing stuff while on the bike…bike handling skills are awesome to have. Overall the bike was uneventful. Soon I was heading back into the hotel area and was unstrapping and hopping off the bike.

Run:
While I made good time on the bike (I did better than I had expected), I suffered severely on the run. I have not been training properly at all this year (life happens unfortunately), as I’m sure you have picked up due to my absence on the blog and rearranging of race schedules, and with the lack of training comes lack of bricks. Also, I still just hate running. The course was flat, but unfortunately, it was almost entirely in the sun, which even at 10ish, was pretty harsh. Again, other than the sun, the run was uneventful. I can’t even say that I thought about anything interesting, except for ice cream, which you all know to expect by now.

Post Race:
Despite my poor run, I managed to not only podium in the Athena division, but I managed to land first place. Not to shabby for this chick! So we stuck around for an hour or so for the awards. I, of course, rocked the Iowa Hawkeye shirt, which is now my official post race triathlon shirt. I gotta represent!

(All pictures courtesy of JC)

 

In other news, the family was just here for a week. Everyone (parents, brother, his girlfriend, sister and her boyfriend) came to hang out in Prison City before we all went over to Houston for a family reunion. It was awesome to have the visitors and see family (both immediate and extended). Of course, thousands of pictures were snapped. Instead of throwing up a bazillon pictures, I’ll just put up one of the family:

(sister, her boyfriend, mom, dad, brothers girlfriend, brother, me, JC)

Finally, in the next few days I’ll post again about the remainder of my season and hopes for next season. Don’t worry, I’m not dropping out, but once again, my priorities have shifted.

Happy Training!