Trying to be laid back about a race.

Saturday I did another sprint. This is my 8th multi-sport event of the year. I still have two more races to go in the next 4 weeks. This was my try to be laid back and casual race. I was rather casual about it. Normally 2 days before a race I do no training, and then do something easy the day before such as a 15 to 20 mile bike ride at an easy pace. This past Thursday I went out on the Unemployment Ride. My intention was to do just the 1st half of the ride. Normally when I want to take it easy I do the 2nd half by meeting them on the route, but I had a meeting to attend at 1:00 PM. So I did the first part, but was feeling so good, and felt like hammering with the tri-gals so I ended out going much further then planned. I ended out with 43 miles which was less then the usual 53 miles, but more then my original plan. (No wonder I don't want to work with a coach! I wing it too much.)

The funny thing about my casual approach to this race was that I did something that was more in the line of taking it seriously. My training partner and I actually drove the bike course on Friday, and then went and swam at the race site. I almost never review a bike course, though I know for new races it would help. Not previewing the 1/2 iron course was part of my problem at Timberman last month. So here I am driving the course of a 13.5 mile bike leg. Go figure! Actually I think it was mainly because my training partner wanted to show off the area that she has recently moved to.

Race day morning I didn't get up until 5:00 AM, and didn't arrive at the race venue until 6:05. It was a 7:00 AM start. Arriving that late reminded me of why I normally like to be early.

It was open racking, so I ended out with a lousy location.
I didn't have enough time to orient myself completely to the transition area lay out.
I had no time to do any sort of warm-up.
I was still standing on line for the bathroom at 6:40.
I did a half ass job of applying Body Glide before putting on my wetsuit.

Despite all those little mishaps I still managed to have a decent race, and win my age group.

8 triathlons down, 2 to go. One will take 15 minutes to travel to, the other will take about 12 hours to travel to.