Tie Dye Tri #3

This Sunday I will again be participating in the Tie Dye Tri, it's a sprint triathlon that is put on by the Norman Y. I am super excited to be participating again this year. (I guess if I am not doing the Redman Triathlon, I should probably be doing something.)

I thought I would take a look at my race results for the past two years. Here's the breakdown:

Date	Time	Swim	T1	Bike	T2	Run
9/26/2009	1:29:49	0:08:14	0:03:59	0:48:43	0:01:19	0:27:32
9/26/2010	1:31:51	0:08:30	0:03:39	0:49:26	0:00:47	0:29:29

 

You might not be able to tell, but last year I didn't really train much for it. In 2009, I joined the training program at the Y, meet a couple of my favorite people, Tommy & Tara, and actually did a few brick workouts to get ready. The fact that I was terrified of screwing up really helped to keep me motivated to train that first year.

Last year I felt like an old pro. Ha ha! I think I might have ridden my bike to the OU Stadium a couple of times, ran the stairs and then rode my bike home. Nothing hard core though, and I think I only rode 12 miles on my bike once, maybe two times. The result was a little slower time. Can I defend myself by saying I ran my first half marathon eight weeks later? Probably not, but I did.

So here are my goals for this year's race…

• I would LOVE to swim a sub 8-minute 500.
  
• I would LOVE to not suck so bad with my first transition. Seriously, what am I doing for over three and a half minutes?
  
• I would LOVE to not completely suck on the bike.
  
• I would LOVE to run a sub 25-minute 5k.
  

Here's what I've done to help me meet those goals…

• I have gotten in some good swim workouts. Not just going in and swimming laps, but something a little more organized that actually got my heart rate up a bit.
  
• I bought a tri suit on eBay. (Love eBay!) I even swam in it this morning and I biked/ran in it on Sunday. Now all I have to do is get my Injinji toe socks on my wet feet in a timely manner and throw on my fancy bike shoes and go.
  
• I bought a better bike this year, and I know how to use it. Fingers crossed I can get both feet clipped in to my fancy pedals, but if not I am a pro at only being clipped in on one side.
  
• I have been running A LOT. My 12 mile bike/5k run on Sunday ended with a 5k in 24:48. Sadly, this is only about 20 seconds slower than the Brookhaven 5k that I ran just a few weeks ago, and I had ran 10 miles the morning before.
  
• It's taper time. I ran 4 miles Monday, slept in yesterday, swam 1,200 yards this morning (before they started lowering the temperature in the pool for Sunday), and I'm going to run about 4 tomorrow and 2 (READ: very slow) miles on Saturday.
  

So at 5:30 this Sunday morning, think of me, and hope that it's not raining or too cold as I set up my transition and get checked in for the race. One good thing about the snake swim in the pool is that it's seated by registered swim times which mean I am usually near the front. I can't imagine having to wait to be number 250 to jump in the pool. It sure seems unfair that #250 has to check in starting at 6 am too.