Another sprint triathlon in the bag!

Today was the Giant Acorn Sprint Triathlon, held at Lake Anna State Park in Virginia.  It was an absolutely gorgeous venue with a lake swim out and back, a rolling hill bike, and a trail-road one loop run.

Nathan had an event he was preparing for, so he opted not to race this one, which was fine with me…  I enjoyed the constant cheering and the dog-sitter!

We started early, and at first I was concerned about the weather being chilly and the swim being cold.  I opted for my wetsuit, which I hadn’t been using recently, so that was new.  Nathan had bought me a wetsuit for my birthday from a triathlon shop in Lexington, Kentucky while we were there for a friend’s wedding in May, so at least I had come with one.  The water was cold but I couldn’t really feel it with the wetsuit- after swimming a while it was almost too warm.

My swim time was decent and it was a PR, which is ultimately the goal for my races.  I came in at 19:52 for the 750 meter (405th overall).  Compared to my time of 25:21 from the Colonial Beach sprint (we’ll refer to it as CB), that meant I improved my swim time by more than 5 minutes!  My first transition was also a bit faster, which would have been a lot faster if I didn’t have to peel off my wetsuit.  During the CB sprint, my swim to bike transition was 3:26 with no wetsuit.  I improved that time to 3:17 this race including wetsuit (273rd overall)!  Definitely a win there.

My bike time was definitely impacted by the extensive amount of rest and little training since the Luray International.   I was hoping to improve my bike time, but actually stayed pretty consistent which was a bummer.  The bike ended up being 52:45 for 16 miles (270th overall).  Definitely not a PR for me, but it’s hard to tell since I had never biked this distance in a race before.  During the CB sprint, I biked 14 miles in 44:55, which meant I was at an average of 18.7 mph.  This bike was an average of 18.4 mph.  So, not much improvement here.

My bike to run transition was a TON faster this race.  I made it in 1:44, as opposed to CBs time of 2:16!  That’s 32 seconds of improvement.  Doesn’t seem like a lot, but that was the difference of 334th position overall from 473rd for the transition!

Finally, my least favorite part of the triathlon, the dreaded run.  My legs felt like JELLY coming off of the bike, and I almost had to pick each leg up with my hand to move it.  However, I PR’d again, with a time of 30:43 (413th) as opposed to my CB time of 32:44.  So, 2 minutes better this time.  I know that pace sounds slow to most people, but I am a slow runner!  Not only am I slow on a normal daily run, but combine that with a previous hour and 18 minutes of non-stop leg movement and you can understand why my times are slow!

Overall, the extra mileage on the bike made my times almost identical.  The CB race time was 1:48:42, this race ended 1:48:20.  Which meant with 2 extra miles and a wetsuit, I still came home 22 seconds faster 🙂  I consider that a WIN!

Onward and upward they say, so I will comply.  Time to hit the trainer for some spinning power for the Miami Man International in Miami, Florida on November 10th!