Jersey Girl Triathlon

Let me start this blog by making two statements:
1) I have a midterm tomorrow morning that consists of a two fold test, practical and written in anatomy and clearly I should be studying, but instead am blogging.
2) My train up for the triathlon was 1% due to school.  So keep that in mind.

On July 29 my good friend and I competed in the Jersey Girl sprint triathlon in Long Branch, NJ.  This was my 4th triathlon ever and my last one was two years ago.  The Jersey Girl is all females (much more gentle of a race) and was a 300m swim in the ocean, 10.5 mile bike, and 3 mile run.  Short and fun!

If anyone wants to do a tri and lives in this part of the country this is a GREAT starter tri.  It is so user friendly and makes you feel very comfortable.

Generally speaking, I'm a strong swimmer, okay biker, and strong-ish runner.  I don't really do any of those on a regular basis any more.  When I do find time to workout now that I'm in school, I lift.  I love lifting and what it does for my body.  I get in an occasional ride, but nothing too crazy fast or long.  I rarely run.  I swam twice in a pool prior to this race and before I started school, so in May.

I never know if I'm going to just do a tri for fun or really go at it to be competitive before I start.  It probably wouldn't have been fair in this race to really try to crush people considering out of the about 2000 females racing, a little less than half this was their first tri.

The swim was fun.  Always when I race the swim plays games with my head.  Not being able to see, racing, breathing, other people around.  I have to mentally pep talk myself.  This pep talk this time wasn't as bad and the swim was actually relaxing.  I probably could have pushed harder as my heart wasn't pounding out of my chest when I exited the water.  I was 1st or 2nd in my heat in the swim and had caught up to the majority of the heat in front of me.  When I exited the water, I decided to be competitive.  Especially when a lot of the ladies were walking out of the water.  Oh hell no!!!!

I took off on the bike.  A relatively flat course and just started passing people one by one and decided to not let anyone pass me.  A small group of girls caught up to me with about 2-3 miles left, so I was determined to stay with.  I rode aggressive [for me].  Remember, biking is not my strongest event.  By the looks of the girls in my pack I was going to leave them on the run.  Just saying.

My run time was not impressive at all, three miles in 25 minutes.  I finished the race in the top 20 of finishers, but since we started in heats there were people behind me with faster times.  I ended up 47 overall out of almost 2000 athletes and 8 out of 154 in my age group.  That is the one that kills me.  I always try to place in my age group.  I'm trying to not complain too much considering I DID NOT train for the race.  My swim and bike were competitive with the other 7 in my age group, I would need to shave 3-ish minutes off my run to really get up there.  And since I now prefer lifting for working out, I probably won't practice on that run for the next race in a couple weeks.

I enjoyed standing at the finish line watching ladies finish.  So many were filled with such great emotion to now become "triathletes."  Despite body shape, body size, age, race, athletic ability.  I loved seeing the smiles on ladies' faces.

If you are thinking about doing a tri, give it a try.  I promise you can do it.  Pick a low key sprint triathlon.  The reason I love them so much is b/c as soon as you get bored with a sport, it's time to change to the next event.  I would NEVER chose to run a marathon again when I find this so much more thrilling.  You don't need to have the best equipment.  You can simply do it just for you and crossing the finish line.

Next up, the West Point Tri on August 19!