Ordinarily I prefer to greet the Summer Solstice with pizza and a dirty vodka martini. Maybe light a few candles. This year, however promised to be a little different. A friend of mine missed registering for a sprint tri she wanted to do in New Hampshire and happened upon one closer to home. On Friday night. The Summer Solstice Sprint. Did I want to do it, she asked on Monday. Not really, I said. Maybe, I thought. NO, my more rational scaredy cat brain shouted. OK, my credit-card wielding hand decided. And before I knew it, I was signed up. Thanks a lot, Amy. Damn peer pressure!
I had no intention of doing any races involving running this summer (or ever?). Last time I ran was 2 months ago and I still feel the pain! Well, just a little, but still. But then I thought, why not? I always say that anybody in reasonably good shape can do a Sprint. I’m in reasonably good shape. Sure, this race wouldn’t be pretty, but it wouldn’t kill me either. And really it’s just the run that would totally suck. Oh, and swimming, biking, running a lot harder than I usually do, but whatever. So what’s a day spent recovering from muscular pain?! That’s what NSAIDs are for. Such was my thinking BEFORE the event…
Oh, and here’s what I did the week going into the race. I figured I’d treat the race as just another workout.
- Monday: biked ~25 miles
- Tuesday: Interval Challenge class before work, 3700 yds @ masters swim practice at lunch, Total Body Conditioning class after work (fun day!)
- Wednesday: 1.25 hr hot yoga class (I was trashed from Tuesday!)
- Thursday: biked ~38 miles, ~1 mile OW swim
- Friday: RACE DAY!
- 30 mile bike ride scheduled
The Race: it was pretty fun to race in the evening for a change (except for dealing with Friday afternoon traffic).
I met Amy and Annette and set up in transition. Went for a warm-up swim and waited for the race to start. Other than a slight start delay, the race went off pretty well. We were told to self-seed, faster swimmers first, for the 1/4 mile swim. We’d be going off 2×2 with about 5 seconds in between. All the men went first, then the women. Interesting way to start, but made sense, I guess, given the size and orientation of the course. I was still swimming through lots of men, but at least there wasn’t a huge clump of them in my way! I tried not to swim over too many… or at least not too roughly. Run up to transition was just that: UP. ugh. Then a 10-mile ride on pretty good roads. Not too much traffic and only one area with bad pavement. There were a couple VERY sharp right turns, though, that demanded caution. Finish it off with a 5k run – or shuffle, if you’re me.
And done. I (surprisingly) placed 2nd in my age group. My friends started and finished together – one of them slowed down on the bike portion to help a newbie with shifting. How nice is that?! AND they stuck it out to the bitter end with me to see me get my medal. Thanks!
One downside: no veggie burgers left by the time we wandered over to the food tent. Oh well.
It was a perfect evening. Temperature was just right. Gorgeous full moon. Small manageable number of participants: about 145.
The 30-mile bike ride on Saturday, barely more than 12 hours from finishing the Solstice Tri, was a bit tough though…
Will I do it again next year? I DO like my pizza and martini ritual, but maybe there’s room for both!
is not quite enough and hurts every time!
Just a quick post.
After last weekend’s swim in the tri (I was part of a relay), I realized that I MUST swim with faster others if I hope to get faster myself. So I went to a master practice yesterday. Wow. Kicked my butt. I’m a little sore today, but that could also have something to do with the pre-work interval challenge class or the post-work total body conditioning class I went to! It seems to be all or nothing some days. I might just swim at the pond today to stretch it all out.
Escape the Cape sprint tri, June 8th. Tropical Storm Andrea, June 7th-8th. Hmmm, not a good combo. For most of the week I was obsessively checking the weather predictions – 10% chance of rain, 70% chance of rain, 100% chance of rain. UGH! Would we race? Would the race be cancelled completely? Postponed? Moved to the next day? If we raced and the waves were up, would the event be changed to a duathlon? I was only going to do the swim part of a relay anyway, so a duathlon would have left me out. Yesterday (Friday) afternoon, the race director sent out an email: the race would go on, but start at 10:30am instead of 9am. Fine with me! Sleep in (in theory), the rain should be done, possibility of actually seeing the sun. I prefer to swim a little later in the morning anyway, so thanks!
So, after all the weather stress – fun day. I swam (first out of the water in my wave! – granted the wave was only newbie women, female and mixed relays), my sister rode, and another Team EnVision member ran. And… we won! By about 5 minutes over the next all-women’s team. Hurray for us!
And, even though I only swam 1/3 of a mile, I’m ready for a nap. There was a good Team EnVision showing and other TE members placed in their age groups too.
Results (splits) aren’t up yet, so I can’t see how this year compares with last year yet. Last year I did the whole tri, and wore a shorty wetsuit. This year: swim only, full wetsuit. I think I was in better shape last year, for whatever that’s worth.
Just checked – results are up: only 5 seconds slower this year!
swim.bike.read. 