Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Getting Excited For Iron Girl

It sounds very strange to say, but the Iron Girl Lake Tahoe sprint triathlon this weekend will be my first race of the season. Actually, the first triathlon I've done in a whole year! The last time I went an entire summer without doing a triathlon, it was because I was massively pregnant, so this has been a very different summer for me. Not without its adventures for sure!

So, although September typically has me doing a half-Iron, I am very excited to be heading south to do this sprint tri in such a beautiful location instead. I've done most of my biking on my trainer since breaking my arm, but it looks like the course isn't too hilly so that's a bonus. My legs are feeling a little fatigued still from the marathon last week, and strangely my calves were very tight during karate last night so I had to really back off of what I was doing. That's all I need is a big old knot in my calf!

Tomorrow is packing day, and so I'll be pulling out all of my gear, and checking it carefully, using my handy-dandy triathlon packing checklist. Then Friday morning it's road trip time as we head down to Reno, and then onwards to Tahoe on Saturday. I haven't been there since hubby and I took a romantic snowboarding excursion there in our first few months together (almost two decades ago) so I'm very excited to see it again. Sunday's weather looks beautiful, with a predicted high of 76, and a chilly 41 degree low that will leave the morning feeling brisk.

More than anything, I'm looking forward to racing someplace totally new and different, and enjoying the spectacular views that this course is sure to bring.

Since I always try my best to do a time estimate before a race, here's my best guess for how it will go. This time it's a little more up in the air than usual, since my bike is basically an unknown, I haven't done any speed work in running, and the first transition is a 1/3 mile in which you can optionally put on shoes (still not sure what I'm going to do about that). Also not sure yet whether I will wear a wetsuit or not and whether I will don the Pointy Helmet of Speed or just my usual red lid. So many unknowns!

Swim: 400m: 6:20  if I don't wear a wetsuit, sub-6:00 if I do
T1: 6:00
Bike: 24k (approx. 15 miles): 45 minutes
T2: 1:30
Run: 27:30

Total: 1:26:30

Let's see how good my estimating skills are on this one!

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