I thought it was quite nice of them to organize a triathlon down the street from me right on the morning of my 31st birthday. I knew from the beginning of the summer that I would participate again this year, and trained for the sprint length triathlon, an extra quarter mile swim on top of the super sprint distances I did last year.
I am proud to say I participated in each of the Wednesday night training sessions with Raise the Bar, for which I needed to purchase a tri wetsuit. Every other week we would do mock races. We had the option to swim up to a mile, in quarter mile increments, followed by a 2k or 3k run. During the swim-only sessions we could choose between a coached workout, or technique training. I opted for the technique training each time, and not only did I improve my stroke quite a bit, but also learned how to sight and swim straight, and worked on establishing a rhythm as I swim to improve efficiency.
Going into the race, I felt that the cycling portion, which was my strongest leg last year, was my weakest this year, due to a lack of training, and more of a focus on swim technique and running. My “commuter” bike that I used this year is far lighter than my hybrid bike, and the tires are much thinner. Still, I only managed to shave off about 3 minutes from my cycling time. Thanks to the mock race sessions, my body was far more adapted to multi-sport sessions, and I spent far less time in transition huffing and puffing!
My overall times:
Anna Batorsky
208
Swim: 17:03.3
T1: 3:45.3
Bike: 56:59.7
T2: 1:21.6
Run: 29:33.9
Total: 1:48:43.8
Oh, and I still like real food before, during and after my race!
On that note, of course my claim to fame on the video is a camera pan of me munching on a pancake… which I waited about an hour and a half after I finished the race to eat because the line was so long!
World Tour 2011-2012 Travel Blog 