Lifetime Fitness Minneapolis!

I am fresh of the heels of the lifetime fitness triathlon earlier today so i am going to use my time vegetating on my couch to do a little post race recap.

It was a great weekend! First time in Minneapolis and i got to see an friend and race, all in one weekend! pretty awesome. Minneapolis is a great city and the race was well organized, staffed and super convenient. A little more hectic than the more local races i have been doing, but surely far from the monstrosity that is the Chicago Triathlon ( which i am taking an indefinate heitus from participating in. i think 2 times acing with 10 thousand participants is quite enough). 3 thousand racers is far more manageable.

I got to the race around 530 this morning, about par for the course. I set myself up in transition and check out the competition. My friend justin and I were discussing that it was actually pretty easy to spot the strong athletes from the weaker athletes despite the fact that everyone now a days seems to be decked out in fancy tri gear. I definatly spotted a few people in my age group that were going to smoke me- and i saw the potential podium finish slip through my fingers.

got in the water about an hour and 20 minutes afte rthe fifrst wave ( i was in wave 27- sweet jesus). And luckily the warm waters ( though still wet suit legal) were calm. the swim was a fast one for me, and i was the 5th girl out of the water in my age group. I started on the ride and started out really strong, but my apprehension with fast turns and rough road made me loose a little momentum. That said, I paced at about 20 miles an hour.

the run was strong this tmie around. i felt like i was really moving and kept up a decent pace a 7:58. this was a pretty good race for me (not my best olympic, but definatly up there as far as my split times go) but given the really strong pool of racers, which i had predicted that morning - i came in 7th from about 30 girls in my age group. All in all a pretty good race! the most important thing is i felt the race went well, and racing again really strong racers is always humbling, eevn if its annoying too.


so here we are 2 down, 2 to go ( includin ironman) and one century ride in august. Its been a great season so far- i feel good, and despite the fact that my times havnt changed THAT much since last year- i feel ALOT stronger. i have to come to terms with the fact that at 4 foot 11 inches and not a naturally born triathlon prodegy, there is going to be a limit to how fast i can go- but i can always make the racin experience a better one. so im gonna keep plugging along with the same intensity and hope i keep seeing positive changes :)

Im taking my normal sunday off tomorrow then back to a week of training on monday. we will see what this week brings....