Richmond Tri Club Sprint

I planned to attend ITU Elite Nationals in Buffalo, NY this weekend, but, ultimately my school and travel schedules couldn’t mesh. There are benefits and drawbacks of being a student athlete, and this sort of thing is certainly one of the drawbacks. Life goes on, though, and Michael (my coach) and I decided I would stay in town and race the Richmond Tri Club Sprint Triathlon. The silver lining to this last minute change was that it provided an opportunity for Tim to race again. I am so proud of him for racing and having a good time. Despite two detours on the bike due to direction confusion and a dropped water bottle, he still raced about 5 minutes faster than he did in his first triathlon a few months ago. He still needs to get comfortable in the water and get some pedals for his new clip-in bike shoes, and then I have no doubt he’ll start to see some even bigger improvements!

While I think Tim is the big Patterson star of the weekend because his race was a lot more courageous than mine, I still decided to write a race report. This was my first race as Julie Patterson, so I’m pleased to announce that JP is now undefeated in her triathlon career! A few notes about the race:

Prerace

I have developed a propensity for sleeping through Tim’s alarm. His alarm is just too friendly. It actually tells you good morning. I, on the other hand, alternate between an obnoxious noise and an obnoxiously upbeat song to wake myself up. As a side note, I used to be able to wake up before my alarm. I’ve found that the increased intensity of triathlon training, perhaps combined with the stresses of school, has increased my sleep requirement. Gone are the days where 8-8.5 hours of sleep did it for me. I spent the month of June sleeping 9.5 hours every night and felt wonderful. I’m currently getting around 8 and clearly need to get more. Tim calls me a Koala because I spend disproportionately large amounts of time sleeping and gnawing on bits of plants. Anyhow, I slept through the alarm, and while a personal wake-up call from my husband was much more pleasant than a cell-phone alarm, it also got us off to a bit of a late start. We made it to the race in time, but not in time to get a bike warm-up or enough of a run/swim warm-up. Ultimately, I probably needed those 20 extra minutes of sleep more than I needed a slower-paced morning, so I’m not complaining.

Swim

The swim was a 300m pool swim. For those of you not familiar with triathlon pool swims, they usually consist of snaking your way through the pool by swimming down one side of a lane back on the other before pushing off into the next lane and doing the same thing there. It was a 6-lane pool, so that meant 12 laps, or 300m. Racers are sent off 15 seconds apart. They are seeded based on predicted swim time, i.e. the fastest swimmer goes first, followed by the next fastest, etc. If people correctly predict their swim times, you won’t catch the person in front of you because they’re faster than you. Similarly, the person behind you won’t catch you because they are slower than you. Unfortunately, several of those who seeded themselves in front of me did not accurately predict their swim times.

Thus starts my self-indulgent rant and plea to pool swim triathletes: Please, please, please do a time trial before the race and know what you can predictably swim. As the people in front of me were being sent off, I could tell that they were not strong swimmers capable of swimming under 4 minutes for a 300m. I caught four swimmers during those 12 laps. So, I caught people that had 15, 30, 45, and 60 second head-starts on me. That means I had to slow down for four people and attempt to awkwardly pass them (although one actually stopped for me as soon as I touched her feet). In the end, does this time matter? Absolutely not. But, I’ve had a lot of bad swims lately, and I really wanted to come out confident about my swim time. My time was fine, but it was a lot slower than it would have been. As I ran out of the pool, Tim was cheering for me(he hadn’t been sent off on the swim yet). I looked at him and said, “I caught FOUR people”. The man standing next to Tim said that was great – I must have had an adrenaline rush. Of course, Tim knows me well and informed him that I was actually quite displeased about passing people. <End Blog Post Rant> 

Bike

The bike was a lot of fun for me. It was a flat, fast course. I had other athletes in my sight the entire time. I think I passed about four people here and almost passed another two. This was great because it allowed me to engage in the competition. I train and race best when I can tap into my competitiveness. I often lacked that in my early season races when I was coming off the swim behind and hopping onto a non-aero bike on which I had minimal chance of catching anyone. It’s not only demoralizing but also simply not fun. This race was so fast paced and had such a steady stream of competitors that I was having a great time for all 31 minutes of the course.  I can honestly say I haven’t had that much fun in a race in a very long time.

Run

I got lost on the run course at my last local race because I got onto the course before some of the volunteers. It cost me $300 in prize money, so I was not going to leave anything to chance on this course. I prerode the run course and then ran it again. I looked at the map. I was ready to not get lost on this course. It turns out that the course was really well marked and full of volunteers, so I probably wouldn’t have had any trouble.

I was really focusing on having a good first run mile because it is traditionally a weak spot for me. I hit my first mile at my goal time and felt really great. The run flew by.  I really don’t remember having a single thought other than trying to catch people in front of me. I don’t think that I ran as fast as I could have - I’m still trying to get used to how fast 5:45 miles feel coming off the bike vs. on their own (aka they feel like you’re flying off the bike) - but it was still a solid run for me. It was so solid, in fact, that the race director asked me if I really thought I could run under 20 minutes. I actually appreciate that she asked because I would be disappointed if I lost to someone who had cut the course short, but I assured her that an 18:35 run (the course was a bit long) was actually slower than I was hoping for.  Michael was happy to vouch for my running ability.

Overall

When the results came out, I learned that I was not only the first female overall but was also third overall, including men, behind my coach and new teammate/Endorphin intern. I was the first woman to ever crack the top three overall. The trophy I got was neat, and setting a course record is great, but, more than anything, I’m just glad that I had a good time. I enjoyed racing amongst my Endorphin teammates and fans.  I loved getting to be there to cheer Tim on at his finish. It was a well-organized race with tons of great volunteers.

Pro races are cool. I race with Olympians and future Olympians and people who have given up all sorts of careers to pursue a passion for triathlon. The courses are incredibly well marked and closed to traffic. Prize money is a possibility. But local races are full of camaraderie. Of people celebrating milestones on every possible level.  Of teammates racing against each other to make each other better. So, while I was disappointed about not getting to race at Buffalo this weekend, I really can’t complain about the way things turned out. And I can’t wait to see how much Tim improves in the off-season!

The End.