Rev3 Knoxville Triathlon

This weekend, I competed in my first professional triathlon of the year. Spoiler alert: I encountered some obstacles but had a good overall early season race and walked away with improved confidence and my first real pro triathlete prize money.

Travel.

My husband was stuck studying all weekend, so I made the trip down to Knoxville, TN alone. I was fortunate to have family friends who offered me a home-cooked meal and comfortable bed on Friday night to break up my drive to Knoxville, and I arrived in Knoxville on Saturday without any issues.

Pre-race.

Walking into transition to take cover from the steady rain that continued all morning, my brake pads started rubbing on my back wheels such that my bike was making a loud, shrieking like sound. I had to spend a good portion of my warm-up time attempting (and failing) to adjust my brake pads. I finally ended up in the bike mechanic’s tent. He appeared to fix the issue. Unfortunately, I was left with essentially no warm-up time. I squeezed in 10 minutes of running before transition closed, grabbed my wetsuit, and hoped that I got all the snafus of the day behind me.

Swim.

The water temperature was 59 degrees (as of the prerace swim). The last time that I raced in sub 60-degree water, I experienced profound vertigo, even with earplugs and double caps. Fortunately, the cold did not affect me the same way this time around, and I never felt cold on the swim. Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to pinpoint my inability to translate gains in the pool to the open water. My swim was embarrassing, and I should have been minutes faster. Last year, this discouraged me, but I’m coming off of a solid winter of swimming, so I feel confident that I’ll see big improvements once I start focusing on open water.

Bike.

My bike time was approximately two minutes faster than it was on the same course a year ago. I am somewhat satisfied with this result, especially given the following two scenarios:

1) Mechanical difficulties. Shortly after flying over some rough railroad tracks at a pretty fast pace, my brake pads started to rub again. I got off my bike and attempted to fix them. They started audibly rubbing again a few minutes later, so I had to get off my bike a second time. After my second mechanical stop, I managed to at least prevent the brake pads from audibly rubbing. They were slightly rubbing on one end, but there really wasn’t anything else I could do at that point.

2) Weather conditions. If you don’t remember my race at Rev3 HalfFull last fall, I’ll give you the one sentence summary: I couldn’t handle the conditions (50 degrees and raining). Enter the Knoxville weather forecast: 52 degrees and raining. This time around, I swam with arm warmers on underneath my wetsuit, and they kept my arms insulated on the bike. I just never felt as cold as I did at Columbia, and the only time I even considered the conditions was when I was conservatively approaching major downhill because I was afraid of crashing on a wet descent.

My power was not what I’m capable of hitting, but it was still a respectable start to the season, and I managed to pass several women on the bike course. Still, I expect higher numbers as the season progresses.

Run.

After struggling immensely to get my frozen feet into my shoes in T2, I entered the run course. I had the third fastest run split of the day, about 75 seconds faster than last year, which is notable because the top of my right foot was experiencing severe, shooting pain.  This pain took me by surprise because I had no advance warning that anything was wrong with my foot. I performed a quick risk-benefit assessment in my head, realized that I had the opportunity to make enough money to fund my travel to my other races this season, and continued onward. Today, I cannot walk on my painful and discolored foot, but with ice and NSAIDs, I hope it will soon assume its normal look/function. After all, I have five toenails on my right foot and only three on my left foot, so I really need that right foot to be looking top notch.  

Overall.

As a whole, I’m encouraged by this race. A lot of things went wrong and almost nothing went right, but I held it together and finished in fifth place.  I went into the race with fears and came out with improved confidence, a respectable finish, and prize money that will make sure that I have the funds to travel to the rest of my races this year. My fitness in each of the disciplines is there. I need some tune-ups to my open water technique, some extra confidence on the bike, and a healthy foot, and I know that things will start to come together on race day.