Desert Triathlon - was it a success?

I completed the Desert Triathlon in Palm Springs, CA a few weekends ago. It was my first International distance triathlon and it was a good weekend, the weather was beautiful, my husband was there and I met a lot of cool people. Successful? I don't know, it all depends on your definition of success. Did I complete the competition? Yes. Did I meet my time goal? Almost. Compared to last year when I had my first DNF, this was obviously better. I am in much better condition than I was at this point last year and I learned a lot from the weekend. As you can see, my training group has dwindled, but we are spirited! We'll get to lessons learned later on.

Let's review the race. This International distance race had a 3/4 mile swim, a 24 mile bike, and a 10k run. The open water swim was in a shallow, man-made lake, there were no waves except from the other competitors. My wave was pretty large, the entire field of women 40-49 started in the same wave. I have no desire to get to the front of any swimming wave, so I let the real competitors take it out at the start. I was slow and steady, I started to feel good after about 500m. My sighting was excellent, I stayed right on line with all of the buoys, so I didn't swim any extra distance. The only issue with swimming close to the buoys is that when the men's waves caught up to me, they just swam over me, especially when they were trying to get back to the correct side of the buoys. I just sat up for a split second and let them pass. This was my first swim where I didn't have to stop to take a breath to look around and gather myself, I felt pretty confident. The other tricky spot was the end of the swim where everyone sees the finish and starts to swim faster. I just maintained my pace, so it was a little unnerving trying to get to T1. The first transition was difficult for me. I was able to get everything off while I was running to my bike, except for my wetsuit. I finally had to sit down to get the wetsuit off over my timing chip. I hate sitting down in a transition. Anyway, I finally got the suit off and everything else on for the bike and I had a gel and some water/gatorade. The bike started off smoothly, my right foot was asleep, but I am not sure if it was because the water was cold or if it just didn't want to cooperate - it didn't really affect me at that point. Apparently, I had my bike in the correct gear. The start was on a steep uphill and I saw a guy almost fall down. People didn't have shoes on and others couldn't use their pedals properly. This must have been a stroke of luck for me, I even passed a few people who promptly passed me once they got going. The bike route was very flat, it was two loops in a valley near the lake. I was able to drink water without slowing down too much and I ate about half of my shot blocks. I was also comfortable enough to get down in my aero bars for about 1/3 of the distance. I didn't think that would be possible because I knew that there could be cars on the route and I am not super steady in my aero bars yet. I passed a few people, but I got passed by many more. There were a couple of large groups that went by me, there was no way for me to keep up with them. T2 was a lot easier, very routine. I drank some gatorade, had another gel and I was on my way. My right foot was still asleep, but I was just moving forward at that point. My plan was to pace myself for the first half of the run and then just run as fast as I could the second loop. The plan worked, my regained the feeling in my foot and I was passing runners the entire way.  I got passed by one person in the last quarter mile, but that wasn't so bad in the big scheme. I felt good the entire race and I finished with a smile.

What did I learn? I used the information that I learned from so many mentors in the last year. Get your good night's sleep the night before the night before the race. I stayed up watching a movie the night before. It didn't matter since I didn't sleep anyway. Make sure your nutrition is on point. We ate lots of carbs the 2 days before the race. Learn how to hydrate, this was important since this race was in the desert. We hydrated too much, thus being unable to sleep the night before - constantly getting up to urinate was not cool. I was up going to the bathroom 4-5 times. Consume calories during the race - either eat them or drink them. I was able to consume the gels and a cliff bar, so I did well. I know that I need to start breathing on both sides during the swim - my sighting was good, but my neck was sore from constantly looking in the same direction. The other thing I learned was that if you hydrate and consume calories during the race it is a lot easier to recover. It was taking me 2-3 days to recover from the sprints that I competed in previously - this one, I was fine the next day. Also it seemed like the international distance was less of an impact on my body since it was longer. I definitely paced myself. I found that in the sprints I am going all out the entire race. I wasn't all that sore after this race. Lastly, relax and have fun!

The end results weren't exactly what I wanted, but I know what I need to do in terms of training. My goal was 3 hours. I finished in 3:00:15. I want to get to where I can finish in the top half of my age group. Apparently, as I increase in race distance, the competition gets even harder. I need to work at it. The next few weeks I'll be deciding what to focus on for the next several months. It might get serious about master swim, or I might concentrate on training for a half marathon, there are lots of races in Southern California so I won't be hurting for opportunities. We'll see.

What do you consider a success when it comes to competitions?