No Ham, Just Fun

Once again, I welcome my guest blogger, Melissa. 

It's been three weeks since the Smithfield Sprint, and I've had some time to reflect on it. A sprint distance race, Smithfield was intended to be my season opener, a race that would get me back in the swing of things after a long break from racing. My last race was in June of last year, when I did the "I Love the Tavern" sprint tri in Richmond. That race had a 650 meter open water swim, downstream in the river, 18.6 mile bike leg, and a 5k run that I died on due to the heat. 


So, on April 6th, we traveled to the ham capital of Virginia. Yup, a place where the water tower says "Smithfield: Ham, History, and Hospitality". That's right. HAM was first on the list, not history or hospitality. Too, too funny. Too bad I don't like ham. Or bacon. Or pork chops...but I digress.

 

Fortunately, the weather for Smithfield cooperated nicely. The temperature was in the low 50's, which was perfect as far as I was concerned. We arrived early and had our transition area set up in plenty of time, so we proceeded to warm up in the pool. For a race like this, the warmup (for me) is really just about mental comfort. The race started at 10 am, but because racers are "dropped" into the pool about 10 seconds apart, my start time was actually 11:38 am. The pool closed for warm ups at around 9:30, so that gave me two hours to wait around for my start time. As you can imagine, all the benefits of warming up your muscles have worn off during that waiting time. So, for me, the warm up is just mental-- making sure I feel mentally prepared, plus it helps me relax too. AND, the pool was warm! Almost warm enough to be called a bath. Kind of nice, actually. Had the swim been longer than 300 meters, I would not have liked it that warm. But 300 meters is not long enough for my body to really get too heated up, so it worked out ok.

And this time around, I had something to keep me occupied during that wait: My Dad and brother had come to see us race! What a treat. It was really great to see them, and I enjoyed their company as we waited together. I was glad that I was able to share this event with them, and that they could get a better feel for how these races work.

My swim time ended up as a 6:33.  Not terrible, but not the best I can do either. In retrospect, I did not really dive under the lane lines on the turns, like I should have. This probably added to my  time quite a bit. So much for mental preparation! I am not sure how I missed that one, but I did.

As I exited the pool, there was my Dad and brother cheering for me. Awesome! It is always so nice to have someone cheering for you. I ran into transition #1 and did not dilly-dally. Even though I know I am not going to win (or place) in these races, I don't like to waste time in transition. I was able to keep my T1 time to a 1:37, so I felt good about that. The funny thing about transition, though, is that while it's happening, I always feel like I am moving in slow motion. I ranked 3rd in transition times (in my AG), so I guess I was going faster than most.

The bike course- FUN, FUN, FUN! I loved this bike course. As I headed out of T1, again, my family cheering for me. Awesome. What a boost that gave me. The course was mostly flat, with one steep but really short hill, so I powered through it and kept on going. I averaged 15.4 mph on my bike leg, which is really good for me (10 miles, total time 38:11). In my races last year, I only averaged between 13.9 - 14.5. So, I am improving, which is sort of a relief, because sometimes it's hard to tell!

My T2 time: 1:27. No time to powder my nose-- I had a 5k to run!

The run course was a fairly easy out and back. Even though the sun had come out, it was still cool enough out to have a good run. According to my Garmin data, it was 52 degrees at the time of my run. I had my best sprint tri-run to date at a 9:59 average pace. The course was a tad short at 2.96 miles, but I didn't care. At that point, shorter is better.

Overall, it was a great race experience, and I would highly recommend the Smithfield race to anyone who wanted to dip their feet into the tri-waters, so to speak. I realize this race report is a bit dry, and is a rather straightforward reporting of the event. I don't have a moving story of overcoming cancer and finishing my first tri, like this guy. But I do, at least once per race, reflect on how lucky I am to be out there, doing what I'm doing. I'm not the fastest, but I am happy with the incremental improvements I've made, and grateful that I have the ability to at least be in the race at all.


What's up next? The MonticelloMan Olympic distance triathlon on May 5th. This will be roughly double the distance of the sprint tri, and my FIRST olympic distance. This of course, will be a good warm up for my main race this year, Raleigh 70.3 (another first). I'll be back again as a guest blogger after the M-Man tri, but in the meantime, you can read about another first for me this year in a previous post, where I wrote a race report about my first half marathon. Cheers.