Sunday, July 08, 2007

12 seconds worth of effort

okay, i will sneak my post in here before Danielle posts her own tri race report. [see, we are versatile in that if we cannot run the GRR course we can SWIM IT. or something like that].

the background is that i did an early season sprint tri in May and placed second in my age group-but awards were only handed out to the winners of each age groups. i lost by 12 seconds. there were a multitude of reasons this occurred, and i am giving equal weight to reasons 1 and 2:

1) i didn't train enough
2) a cop who could care less it was his job to direct bikers on the race course totally watched me go the wrong way until i pedaled back and said, hey, um, excuse me, is this right??? at which point he half tilted his head in the direction i was supposed to go in and i finally got back on track.

today, the top 3 people in each age group at this sprint/olympic [the distances were in between] received awards. i was number 4. i was 12 seconds behind the third place person in my age group. however, i can only attribute today's showing to me not going fast enough and also being too lazy to put my tieless shoelaces into my shoes last night.

i can also say that i really really really deserved fourth place. in my age group i was 4th in the swim, 4th in the bike, and 4th in the run. i mean, i am REALLY 4th. now that i write this i'm actually kind of alarmed...were there more than 4 people in my age group??? i will check and get back to you. [edit: there were 8 of us]

in shocking news, it appears i'm not too bad at swimming. in huge relief news, my biking is okay. it turns out the bike course i bombed in June [Olympic] was 8 trillion times harder than today's course and i averaged a more respectable for me mph (today ~18.2 as opposed to a ~15.7 at Mooseman) . and my running was average. i got hot.

from miles 2-4 into the run i did my usual internal chant of: NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. i considered cancelling my registration for my 1/2 IM later this season. then i finished, chippered up, met some new potential tri club teammates, and headed home to do more LAW RESEARCH!! YEAH!!!!

7 comments:

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

I save only 4 seconds per shoe with my elastic laces, so that would put you 4 seconds behind third ;-)

Audrey said...

i am glad you shared this! but can only wonder how you know this... :)

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

I'm a scientist - I did time trials with regular and elastic laces :-)

Larissa said...

I think fourth is awesome. Also, apparently 12 seconds is an important increment of time for you. Someday, it may be very meaningful.

Also, 18.2 mph avg on the bike is awesome.

There ya go. Awesome. Nuff said.

Laurie said...

Nice job Audrey. Give yourself a little more credit though ;)

I loved the 'i got hot' line. You are too funny.

Unknown said...

Way to chipper up and get it done!

Robin said...

Oh. My. God. Look what I found. A RR from Audrey! NICE JOB! What race was this???? And are you still doing Timberman Half? I am doing the aquabike, since my running sin;t where it shodul be and I need to stay healthy for Reach the Beach. Yeah, I think every bike course is easier than Mooseman. Way to go on the bike!