Race Report: Girl's Best Friend Triathlon

Ah!  This was such a great race, I'm so excited to tell you about it!  The Girl's Best Friend Triathlon is put on by 3 Disciplines Racing.  This was my first 3D event and I only have wonderful things to say about them!  Everyone was so friendly and helpful, and they really knew what they were doing.  The event was well organized, and they did a great job keeping participants updated leading up to the event, and during the event.  If you have the chance to do any 3D event, in the words of Nike, JUST DO IT!

First of all, I had such a great, normal week leading up to the race.  I was on my normal schedule, and was able to stay on track (mostly!) eating healthy and not drinking (not even one drink!).  Despite being crazy busy at work all week, my body felt great going into the race.

I woke up around 5:15, had a quick breakfast of overnight oats, put on my racing gear, and left for the race.  The park was only about 20 minutes from my house so it was a quick drive.  Since I got to the park so early I got a great parking spot (it sounds silly, but for my last race, I had to park really far away) and headed over to registration.  Once I had all of my relevant information, I went and just hung out in my car for awhile since the race didn't start for another hour or so.  About half an hour before transition closed I got my bike out and set up my area.  After that, I headed down to the waterfront.

Transition Area

The lake for the swim was great.  It was pretty warm and the water was clean.  The swim start was in the water.  I loved this because it eliminated the problem I had last time of wasting all my energy running into the water.  I did much, much better in the swim portion this time.  I was able to swim in proper form most of the time and even passed a few people!  Coming out of the water I glanced at my watch and it said 11:04...I was happy with that!

The transition area was just a short run away from the water's edge and I made my way up there and onto my bike.  I flew on the bike course.  It was flat as a pancake and awesome.  I also had some extra motivation.  Another competitor in my age range and I played cat and mouse the whole time on the bike.  I'd pass her, a few minutes later, she'd pass me, and so on and so on.  It really encouraged me to work hard and go as fast as I could!

Once back in transition I switched my shoes and was off for the run.  I was looking forward to the run since I've been doing more running for my half marathon training.  Well, I bonked the race because of the run.  It was mostly trail running (ew) and had a lot of short, steep hills (double ew).  There really isn't much to say about the run, so this paragraph is over.

Anyways, I was so happy to cross the finish line!  My official finish time was 1:34:11.  My goal was 1:30, so I wasn't too far off.  There were some great post-race snacks after the race, so I stuck around for a bit and enjoyed those.  :)  They posted some of the times while I was still at the race.  I was VERY HAPPY with my swim and bike times compared to others.  Out of 196 participants, my swim time was 36th and my bike time was 38th.  Not too shabby at all for my second tri!

Official race results were posted later in the evening and I was excited to see those.  Everything was listed just in order of finish, as opposed to age groups.  So it was all one big list, like this:

 
So, being the nerd that I am, I made myself a separate Excel file with just the people in my age group so I could easily compare.  Here come some numbers, so get ready...out of 11 girls in my age group, I finished 5th overall.  My swim time and bike time were each the 2nd fastest.  My run time was the 8th fastest.  In the overall race, I was 89 out of 196.  High five for this chica!

While reflecting on the race, I am sad the triathlon season is over for me this year.  I did so well in the first two sports, I just want the chance to do well in the run again and have a blowout race overall!  Running is definitely my weakest area when it comes to the sport of triathlon and I plan on devoting a lot of time to improving during the winter off season.