Loggerhead Race Report

Ok the down & dirty first:
3/8 mi swim: 12:20 (raging fast current out there!)
T1: 3:22
13 mi bike: 48:13 (bike felt horrible today)
T2: 1:24
3.1 mi "run": 50:22
Total: 1:55
Temperature was 87 degrees, felt like 120 degrees in the sun!
Alright so I got there an hour early and could not find a parking spot! Ughh. After 15 minutes of driving around, I finally parked illegally at the end of row, but I figured people were filling in every free patch of grass so what the heck.
Made the short stroll to transition, cause hey if I'm gonna park illegally I might as well park close :) Got my body marked, picked up my chip and set up my stuff. Met up with some fellow TNTers and chatted briefly. By now, its like 20 minutes before race start and I'm not even to the beach yet to warm up. Great start already I know. So of course, nature calls and I really need to use the potty, but of course the line is reallllllly long and there is no way I will make it. Yeah so that made for a really long race.
So there were 600 people signed up and I was wave 3 of 5. Our wave was pretty small: women 19 & under, 45 & over and my category: athena (short for slow (but fit), slightly overweight (but fit), very determined chics). So I managed to get in about a 10 minute warmup, because the start was gonna be a little late. The swim started out good, until i got hung up trying to get around the first buoy. Remember that ripping current I mentioned. Yeah well the thrash-fest was all pushed into the buoy and of course i get hung up on the line cause I can't even swim, I've got to tread water and eek my way out of this mess. So I am sure that hurt my time a bit. After I was free, we had a nice long straight run with the current. I was rocking it out and passing people, it was great :) And for once, they put the transition mats at the swim exit! But of course its only a short jog to the bikes, so go figure. I wore my new heart rate monitor (since its water resistant to 50m) and my heart rate was 175 at the swim exit! So coach can't say I wasn't pushing hard enough!
So I got to transition and was happy to see some of my fellow faster teammates getting their bikes ready. Wow I must of been right behind them, turns out I was only 30 sec behind getting out of the water! Yeah I was happy with that :) I think coach was happy too, because I got a slightly surprised "good job jen!".
So I got my shoes on and ran out of transition. Now the bike is my favorite and I do ok for someone over 200#. My average speed usually works out to 16.5-17 mph. Well I don't know what my body was doing, but my avg speed was closer to 16. There wasn't really any wind to blame, and figuring out my speed, I sure didn't feel that quick. I just felt like I really struggled. I managed to keep my heart rate hovering in the 160's.
So I get back for the run and make a really quick transition (for me anyways) and off to the run. So I started out quicker than usual, a good sign for coming off a sucky bike. Lots of water on the course too - thank you race director! By the way the race director is in China for the Olympics cause I think he is one of the docs for the tri team. He was trying to setup a link so the USA tri team could start the race remotely, but unfortunately it didn't work out. Our local guy that wins all the races around here, his sister is on the women's tri team for the usa. Her name is Laura Bennett. She comes from the Reback family that seems to just have athletics in their blood! Congrats to John Reback for an outstanding race today with #1 overall and a time of 56:54. Phenomenal! So anyway, I digress. So I finish the run in about 50 min. My run felt better than normal, I did more running than usual too. Singer Island a few weeks ago, I walked almost the entire course (and it wasn't a full 5k)!
So some guy yelled at me to stay to the right, but I was to the right of the traffic lane, just not all the way over into the crappy bike lane. The bike lane was full of gravel, bits of cars, etc. Of course he passes me and goes over into the bike lane and drafts behind someone for as long as I can see. There was alot of drafting going on, I'm not sure what the refs were looking at, but it wasn't people drafting.
So what had to be the highlight of the race was being passed about 200 yards from the finish by a 7 year old... yes I make no mistake here, a 7 year old. Did I mention that, I am assuming her dad, was running next to her... pushing a 4 seat stroller, yes 4 seats and they were all full! So I looked up the results and (wait for it) she comes from the family of athletes! Yes she is a Reback, destined for athletic fame and Olympic glory. So now I feel much better, haha. I saw the dad at last years Run for Pies 4 miler on Turkey Day. He also passed me then pushing the monster stroller, only the kids were much smaller then, hehe.
All for now, gotta shower and go eat pancakes. HRM says I burned over 1,600 calories and I am gonna get some back at IHOP :)
Oh yeah my workout summary says I hit a max HR of 206! I am pretty sure this was at the finish when I started to really book it! Its uploading into Motionbased now, so I'll know my speed very shortly. My average pace was 16:27, which is my best yet after a bike and swim. My speed at the finish was 7 mph so I am sure that is when my HR went thru the roof! Overall though my HR was around 86-90% of Max, so I was certainly pushing myself.
Well nerves are starting up already for this Chicago race. Ughh. We got one more day of bike training with coach and i am certain he will make it memorable and painful! After that I will have to start going back to spin to keep those legs moving!
Ok reallllly hungry now. Will post pics when they come up.