Race Report - Freedom Fest Mini Triathlon

Saturday I participated in our a little triathlon in my own town. $10 to leave my house at 8:30 for a triathlon? Yes please. My mom came up to help out with Sophie, so I was excited to have some race fans.

The swim is at the local beach - a place I swore I would never swim in until last summer when I started doing triathlons. Go figure. I swam here a couple of weeks ago after work and it was cold. And then we had crappy weather and rain for about two weeks, so I was expecting the water to be freezing. And it was. Brr. You could swim out to the freeway and back for a 1/4 mile or out to the swimming raft and back for 1/8 mile. I told myself that I should do the longer swim for open water swim practice. And then I got in the water and the coldness sucked the will to live right out of me and all I could think about was getting out of that damn water as soon as possible. So I did the short swim.

Sophie helped with out with the first transition. And by help, I mean she was all excited to see me and cheering until she realized the race wasn't over and I was leaving again and started screaming bloody murder.

The bike is a 10 mile loop around some country roads. I told myself since I did the short swim I had to make up for it by really working hard on the bike. And I did. I pushed consistently the whole way and had a really great bike. Unfortunately, my bike computer had a minor malfunction and I don't know how wonderful it really was. But I passed everyone I saw in front of me (which actually wasn't that many people) and only had two people pass me. My mom told me I was the 3rd or 4th person off the bike, and the 2nd woman.

Sophie was there to help me at the second transition too. No screaming this time, thankfully. They changed the course this year, so instead of the bike ending back at the beach, we ended near our county fairgrounds basically on the side of the road. Bad course change. There was no real place to leave your bike - I leaned mine up against a tree, glad my mom was there to provide security. And there was a car show going on at the fairgrounds at the same time, so there was a ton of traffic on the road while we were getting off the bike. Scary.

The run was two one-mile loops around the fairgrounds. Or you could do one lap if you wanted. Don't worry, I went around twice! I could feel that I had pushed hard on the bike because I was tired on the run. But I kept pushing and really feel like I left it all out there.

No times (this is REALLY low key event and I didn't wear my garmin) but I finished in either just under or just over 1 hour. Lots and lots of fun. When I woke up Sunday morning I thought "what is wrong with my legs?" Oh, yeah, they're SORE! I wasn't expecting to be sore, but I guess that's a sign that I worked hard. A great workout on what was finally a nice summer day!