My very first Olympic distance triathlon, and it was a success !!!
Race Result: Oakland Triathlon
| Swim Time – 0:45:53 | T1 Time – 0:12:34 | Bike Time – 1:42:53 | T2 Time – 0:03:48 | Run Time -1:16:22 | Total Finish Time – 4:01:30 |
How did I feel at finish line: I could go for another 6-miles run.
Swim:
- No goggle issues. Woohoo !!! I finally figured it out after a couple of events ( Tri Santa Cruz and Lake Tahoe Swim)
- I was at my usual pace and pretty consistent to the most part. I did go off the course once because of poor sighting, but I quickly brought myself back on track.
- To the most part swim was smooth, I was not at all intimidated by people running me over, tapping my leg, kicking my hand/face etc., thanks to Shashi and coach Char for getting us ready for this part.
- One thing that I did newly this time was to stretch out the swim cap a bit to fit my thick hair/big head situation. I picked it up the day before and put it on a soccer ball over night. And it really worked and I swam with no headache (Heard it didn’t work for Badhri and Shashi…and I don’t want to comment on their head size
)
T1 / Bike:
- Run to the transition from swim finish through the bridge was not that easy I thought, not to mention the fear of stepping on glass pieces, because I went bare foot.
- Getting out of the wet suit did take me a while. Last time I took it off in the water itself at Tri Santa Cruz, but at this event, swim finish line was not really conducive for that.
- The course was flatter than many of my training rides, still I took a while to warm up and pick up speed. Plus the course was pretty boring.
- On the 2nd loop, I was very pissed to know that someone ran into Deepu and didn’t even stop when she fell. If he ran into her at the 2nd loop, I am pretty sure he was not at a winning pace anyway. Why couldn’t he have at least stopped for basic courtesy ?!!?
Run:
- My running was the best of the three on that day. I felt great and 1:16:22 is my PR for a 10K. I usually run at a 13:30 pace.
- I ran through it without stopping and absolutely no pain on shins, glutes or achilles.
Nutrition:
- I ate two hours before the race start time and didn’t feel hungry at the swim unlike Tri Santa Cruz, where I was very hungry half way through.
- I ate a GU gel before i got on the bike at T1 and had taken two clif bars with me. On the jumpy road, I lost one. It fell from the bento box. Grrr…
- GU gel before the run start and one after an hour worked perfectly.
Now enough of bragging about myself……
Finish Line:
- Stan was waiting at 0.2 miles before the finish line and ran with me from there.
- Kavya and Vyas with dads ran up to me to cheer on before the finish line.
- And the whole gang was yelling my name when I finished. A grand thanks to Venki, Prakash, Thillai, Rucha, Abhijit, Veena, Krishna, Srini, and Rohit for being there just for cheering.
Kudos to Deepu for not getting discouraged by the bike crash and completing her first triathlon as strong as she did.
What better way to give back to the triathlon community than volunteering ?!
Chakri, Mouli and Stan were at the swim finish pulling people out of the water at the rocky finish line.
( And USA Production gives a 50% discount for the future event too. Seems like a good way to start saving money on the registration fee. )
And a proud moment for Mouli, Stan, Chakri,Coach Char, Abhijit, Chetan, and Krishna, when we all finished successfully !!!
