The long version

Besides making it through the race yesterday and spending the rest of the day feeling smug, here's the rest of the story if you're interested.

First of all, it was rather anticlimactic. I didn't feel like I accomplished anything notable--it just felt like a nice, varied workout with a lot of other people around.

I started the race with a serious sleep deficit. Connor apparently heard I was doing this triathlon to support autism research, so to celebrate he showed off his best autistic behavior--up until 4 a.m. on Friday night, then until 2:30 a.m. Saturday night (I guess that's actually Sunday morning), then I had to be up at 4:15 to get ready, eat, and load my bike on the car. I wanted to be down in Bethesda at 6, and while it should only take 40 minutes, you never know what might go wrong. Like having no gas in the car, which, as it happened, was the case. But I got there in plenty of time and had time to cool my heels (and then warm up--don't want to do a race with cool heels), lay out all my stuff, wander around, talk with other uncertain first timers, etc.

I had been most worried about the swim since I really hate swimming, but since I wasn't trying to be competitive at all and since the swim was so short, this turned out to be the nicest leg of the race. I put myself in the slow group (I heard someone define fast as being able to do 500 meters in 8 minutes. I figured I'd be lucky to do the 250 meters we had to do yesterday in under 8 minutes!) but it turns out I'm average or better for the slow swimmers--only one person passed me but I passed multiple people. When I got in the water, everything I ever learned about form and keeping my head down went right out the window--my primary goal was to just not get kicked/hit or kick/hit anyone else! Even though we were starting 10 seconds apart, I kept ending up in these gaggles of swimmers blocking certain areas. But everyone is so darn nice (at least in the slow group!) so it was fun--lots of chit-chatting as we worked through these areas. I finished the swim in 6:43, about exactly what I expected.

The bike leg was three laps on the road around Georgetown Prep. It was a nice ride--one long but not steep incline, one flat section, one road with a couple of rolling hills, and then a section on Rockville Pike that had an incline down then back up, but again very shallow. The first lap was fun because there weren't many people on the course. By the third lap it was getting crowded. I got passed quite a bit by people on fast road bikes, but did a lot of passing myself--mostly of people on rusty mountainbikes and hybrids. I know they say the engine is more important than the bike, but I can't help thinking that MY engine would run more efficiently on a lighter bike! Almost all of the passing I did was going uphill--touring bikes have GREAT gears for hills. And these were easy hills compared to my commute, and I wasn't hauling panniers filled with clothes and my lunch. I'm pretty sure mine was the only bike there with fenders. I have no idea what my time was on this section (or on the run, just so you know)--I looked at my watch at the end of the swim and that was pretty much it until the race was over.

The run was the hardest for me. I did that brick a couple of weeks ago with a two mile run after a ten mile bike ride, and this wasn't much different for distance (slightly less than 10 miles on the bike, 2.5 miles running) and that brick was not a problem for me at all, and the 6 minutes of swimming shouldn't have taken that much more out of me. But the course was hillier than I normally do--it was a steep downhill to start, then up and up and up for the next mile and a quarter, then a quarter mile down, then a half mile flat or slightly downhill, then more uphill until you hit the track at Georgetown Prep to finish. It really felt like a lot more uphill than down, and I think the lack of sleep was catching up with me. I was tired and couldn't keep my heartrate where I usually do while running and slowed down to walk a few times to get my heartrate under control. I remember passing only five people, and four of them were mother/disabled child couples!

My final time according to my watch was 1:17, but I have no idea what my official time was--I don't know how long I took in transition, and I'd like to know what my times were on each of the legs. I hope they post that information soon. I'd also be curious to know what the top speeds were--I figure if four minutes would be a fast swim time, and winning cyclists generally average 22 - 25 mph, that portion could be done in under 30 minutes. Top runners are usually doing 5 to 6 minute miles, so another 15 minutes there. So I'm betting the top times were well under an hour. Pretty humbling.

I was finished with the whole thing just after 8:30 and home just after 9:30--when everyone else was just starting the day! I'm glad we got the weather we did--we could have been doing this race in today's weather (rainy, chilly, windy for those of you in Norway). I'm not sure I would have gotten out of bed at 4:15 if that were the case.