Memphis in May: introduction & race report #1

Somewhere along the lines I thought it would be an excellent 22nd birthday present to pay to allow myself to race in two triathlons back to back. I'm not sure at what point I thought this sounded excellent, but I did. Memphis in May hosts two very nice but also very expensive races every year during the festival. The Northwestern team always goes down and it's the one non-conference race we do as a team. I was originally debating racing at all, and then I thought "Well, it's my 22nd birthday. I want to race - it can be a present to myself." They also host an event called the amateur challenge. About 20-30 people of each gender sign up to do this each year and the top-15 ranked men and women get prize money. I thought, well, if I'm going to spend a ton to race, I might as well go all out. Happy Birthday! I knew I had the training and would be able to do it, so I signed up to compete in the amateur challenge.

Saturday was the sprint race. This is a shorter distance: 500-ish meter swim (they really messed up the measurement on that one), 20k bike, 5k run. Going in to this, I set a few goals. Because of how short the swim is, I really just wanted to push through it as hard as I could. The distance was sort of up in the air, so I just wanted to come through at an ok time comparative to my teammates who are better swimmers. The bike I just wanted to hammer. I hoped to break 20 mph because I think I am capable of holding that in a longer distance, and needed to prove it to myself in a shorter one. The run I just wanted to at least come in around 26-27 min. 

Originally, we thought the swim was about 400m, so I set a "reasonable" goal of 8:30 seconds. Then during warm up, much faster members of my team were doing it around 8:15. I knew quickly that I had to adjust my goal. I stopped caring about time, though secretly considered about 10 min. I worked VERY hard on that swim. I focused on my form (which is usually what I do during practice when we have fast sets) and was nervous that my labored breathing would make me freak out. Thankfully it didn't, but I was bummed when I came out of the water at 11:52. I left it behind me and ran into transition. Looking back, is the swim really WAS 525-550m, this is right on for me for pace.

I almost missed my row coming into t1, but thankfully didn't. I did, however, notice that my garmin which I left on so it would have found satellites and been ready to tell me my speed, had automatically turned off while I was warming up and swimming. I quickly pushed the on button and ran out. It finally came back about 1/2 mile into the bike. I DIDN'T leave my velcro done and was able to pretty successfully get in my shoes... and out of them.

The bike course, though flat, was a bit windy at times. I definitely felt some resistance and ultimately was a bit disappointed by my performance. I believe I only kept about 19.5, so that was a bit of a bummer, but I felt pretty excellent heading out on to the run. The course started up a hill, then back down a hill. I didn't find any of this challenging, until I had to turn around and run back up that hill - definitely had to mentally talk myself through that one. Immediately after the hill we went on a sand/dirt/rock path that was incredibly uneven. I saw a number of people fall. I'm sure that terrain really slowed us down before the end of mile 1. Miles 2 & 3 were just on concrete. Around half way there was a rain tent, which was pretty refreshing. The whole run is honestly a blur. I knew I was working hard and felt strong for a lot of it.

I ended up finishing the run at 25:44. It's debatable as to whether or not it was .1 miles short. If it wasn't that was a pretty excellent 5k PR for me at 8:17 pace. If not, we're looking at 8:35 pace which is right on par with how I have been running 5ks lately. 

My finish time was 1:19:20 and earned me 3rd in my age group, just after my friend Kendyl who came in at 1:15. We were both competing in the amateur challenge. Rich (also doing AC) also placed in his age group with a time of 1:01 - unbelievable. We also had a first time triathlete finish her first sprint, which was awesome and a second time sprinter set a new PR.