Tonight was the volunteer BBQ for the volunteers of today’s race as well as for the volunteer bike coaches for the women’s beginner triathlon group. My training buddies came to pick me up to go and asked if I had checked the results. I was a little hesitant to look at the results even though I had been refreshing the Saskatoon Triathlon Club’s results page throughout the day. I asked them if I had done badly and they said that I hadn’t. Sure enough I didn’t do “that” badly. I got 6th out of 17 in the 20-29 category, which really isn’t bad at all.
What surprised me the most was my crappy swim time. 500m in 10:41 is BRUTAL for me. Three days ago I did the same distance in less than 9 minutes. That means that I was almost 2 minutes slower. TWO MINUTES!?! I was shocked and a little appalled at that. I will never really know why, but I have a feeling it has to do with the warmer pool and feeling crowded. Also, I didn’t once think about my pull or my form or anything. I think it was because I felt really rushed. I kind of want to do the swim over again. Oh well, I guess it will have to wait until next year.
What surprised me the second most was my run time. 5km in 26 minutes! WOW. If I had kept that pace, I could do 10km in 53 minutes. For me, that is very fast. I definitely did not feel that fast. I’m sure my second lap was faster than my first by a lot, but maybe not. Apparently I had no self-awareness for this race.
At the BBQ someone said that a crappy short race before an Ironman is a good sign because it means that you have trained correctly for the long-distance. Hopefully this is true and in three weeks time I will be completely ready for Ironman Coeur d’Alene! Now it’s time for tapering.
