Lions Spring Sprint Triathon Race Recap

I know you're all just dying to know how I did, so I won't keep you in suspense any longer.  For those of you who missed it, on Sunday I competed in the Lions Spring Sprint Triathlon down in Marlborough, MA.  This meant we had to get up at 5:30 to be there in time.  My #1 Fan was not so thrilled.  But he brought a chair and a book and waited it out.

The Swim:  250 yards - 4.28 min
The swim was a pool swim.  I thought this would be completely to my advantage because I'm a swimmer and I can do flip turns.  However, the way the swim worked was that you were seeded by your swim time (so my bib was 24, oh yay!) and you swam up in down in each of the 5 lanes and had to go under the lane lines at the end of each 50.  Except that we were swimming on the opposite side of the lane than you normally would if you were at a pool lap swimming.  This totally messed with my head.  Never mind that I was only the third female in the pool and I was surround by big, buff men.  I was just thankful I wasn't going to get caught up in the pack.  My only other complaint is that the swim ended in the deep end of the pool and I could hardly get out.  I'm thinking that scene was not so pretty.

The Bike:  9.3 miles - 39.24 min
When I read the race info it told me that the bike course was relatively flat.  Yeah, well, it wasn't.  Not in my humble opinion anyway.  I turned the first corner only to have to start climbing.  I was really struggling at this point because I couldn't get my heart rate down and I could feel my heart beating so fast.  Of course I'm trying to get up a big hill too.  The ride itself was very pretty.  There were lots of horses and pastures to look at.  And by the time I got turned around on the loop, I hadn't even realized that I was almost done.  And once you hit the down hills, that was great too.

The Run:  3.2 miles - 39.42 min
Again, this was supposedly a flat course with one hill.  You guessed it, there were multiple hills.  Honestly, at this point I was just thinking of finishing.  I walked a couple of times on the hills, again trying to get my heart rate down.  My legs finally loosened up for the last mile and I felt like I was able to finish strong.  Here I am about to cross the finish line:

The final time: 1:23.34.
And after all that, I won my weight class.  That means I got a medal and a prize.  Woot!  Here I am post-race enjoying my medal and my new running sunglasses:

I'm really looking forward to being able to train harder now that I'm home and doing a few more triathlons this summer.  In the meantime, I'm focusing on  recovering this week.  Hope everyone's week is off to a good start!