Nashua Y Sprint Triathlon Race Recap

On Sunday, I competed in the first ever Nashua Y Sprint Triathlon.  This race was great because it was close to home (yay for not having to get up early), the course was supposedly relatively flat, and it was a lake swim.  I was looking forward to getting out there.

Since it was their first year, it was to be expected that there would be some bumps in the road.  My biggest gripe was that the line to check-in was really long.  I made Patrick stand in line for me so I could set up and not feel rushed.  Well, by the time I got to check-in, they were out of goody bags.  Total bummer.  I will say that they had tons of volunteers and really made an effort to keep things running smoothly.

The Swim:
The swim was  a 1/3 of a mile and in a lake.  I think I really like the lake setting, because there is no current and it's warmer than the ocean, but is still refreshing.  The waves were 3 minutes apart and I was in the second wave.  It worked out because each wave had about 25 people, but we were given enough time that it didn't end up with all the swimmers on top of each other.

Usually I try to use the swim as a chance to get ahead because at heart, I am a swimmer.  But in my last tri, I did that and my heart rate was so high after the swim that I struggled to get it back down for the rest of the race.  This time I chose a comfortable pace and just went with it.  I actually ended up breaststroking most of the time so I could see where I was going.  That may have slowed my down a bit, but I think it was worth it to stay on course.

Swim Time:  13:08 min.  (This includes a run up the beach, which was a little longer than expected.)

T1:  1:54 minutes
The transition area was a little more crowded than I'm used to.  I just tried to get my things together and get out of there, but I kept dropping things and having to rearrange.  Yikes!

The Bike:
The bike was a 16 mile course.  This time, when they said it was relatively flat, they meant it.  I thought it was a great course and it was mostly shady.  There were tons of volunteers and tons of signs letting you know where to go, which I was super-impressed by.  I thought they did a very thorough job of marking the course.

During the ride I chomped on a pack of Luna Moons and sipped Gatorade.  Both things were new to me during the races.  I really liked the Luna Moons, especially because I could easily eat them while biking.  Although, next time, I will open the pack before the start of the race so I don't have to open it while riding.  I wasn't crazy about my choice to put Gatorade in my bike bottle.  It tasted really good, but I was really craving water.  Next time I'll either stick to water of bring both.  That and the Gatorade was making my lips sticky and about 3/4 of the way through the ride I was feeling a little nauseous from drinking too much.  Whoops! 

I really enjoyed this ride and finished faster than I thought.  I forgot to put my bike computer on before the race, so I was riding blind.  In a way it was nice to just ride.  I was able to pass a handful of people and some of the more elite athletes passed me, but it was all good.
Bike Time:  57:19 minutes

T2:  0:33 minutes
Sometimes it pays to not have to change shoes.  :-)

The Run:
The run was just a hot and miserable 5K.  My legs actually felt really good coming off the bike.  I think fueling on the bike really helped.  However, the run course was in the dead sun and it was easily near 90 degrees at this point in the race.  As much as I wanted to run, I figured it wasn't worth it to push it and end up passed out on the side of the road.  I alternated between walking and running based on how I was feeling.  I had my handheld water bottle, which was gone by the time I got to the water stop at the halfway point.  I filled up (no, it wasn't cold) and kept going.  I felt a little better when I saw lots of others walking too. 

I did push it near the end and felt that I finished strong.  The announcer called out my name (although he said Carlene instead of Carly) and I grabbed a nice cold bottle of water.  I was never so happy to see water.  I got this cute finisher's medal (although I prefer ones I have to win):

Again, my run time was faster than I thought.  Considering the amount of walking I did, I was quite pleased.

Run Time:  41:07 minutes

Final Time:  1:53.58
Place: 175/250   Age Group:  9/18

This was by far the longest triathlon I've done.  I felt really accomplished at the end of it.  And I definitely had way more fun than my last tri.  That might have had something to do with the fact that I did a lot more training.  I really hope they put this race on again next year and that they work out the kinks.

Hollis Fast 5K Rast Recap

Yesterday I finished my 3rd 5K of the season.  The race was scheduled to start at 6:30, but because it was a point-to-point race, I needed to get there early to catch the shuttle to the start.  I started getting ready around 4:45, and that when I heard it.  Rain.  It had started to pour rain.  All day it had been overcast, but had stayed dry.  Now it was raining buckets.  Great.  My mom decided to come and try to run too.  When we got in the car I was trying not to think about how long and miserable this race was going to be.  Yeah, this was the view from the car:

When we got to the packet pick-up it was still raining pretty hard.  We had to park kind of far away, but at that point, what difference did it make?  Luckily the packet pick-up was inside and we were able to hang out inside until the shuttle came.  My mom lucked out and was able to get a number!  We caught the shuttle and we got to the starting line with about 10 minutes to go.  We stood under a tree to try to stay dry. 

Next thing I know, we're at the starting line and ready to go!  It was still raining steadily, but not nearly as hard as when we left the house.  Thank goodness.  Honestly, I've never run in the rain before (because I'm a wimp).  But I paid to race and I wasn't going to miss it.  I've been wanting to do this race for a couple of years because it's one of the top 3 fastest 5K courses in the US.  I thought that was pretty neat.  The start was a little congested, and I definitely felt stuck.  It took me about a half mile to break free from the crowed.  I had to do a lot of weaving - what an energy zapper!

The race itself is entirely downhill.  Talk about the best race ever!  It's almost impossible not to PR.  I was bummed that I didn't have my iPod because of the rain, but I was able to chat with other runners instead.  I did wear a hat (thanks for that tip) and I managed to stay relatively dry.  I was having a blast.  I had a smile plastered on my face and I was loving it!  And by the half way mark, the rain had almost stopped completely.  I just kept chugging along and before I knew it, I was crossing the finish line.  Here are the results;

Miles:  3.1 miles
Time:  29:31 minutes
Pace:  9:32 minute/mile
Place:  446/684
Age Group:  13/21

That time is about 1 second off of my PR.  But I set my PR when I was about 15 pounds lighter, so I am quite satisfied with this performance.  I haven't run this fast in a long time and it feels really good.  My mom did awesome too!  This was her first race since having foot surgery about a year and a half ago.  She had to recover for an entire year!  Her goal was to finish and she did it.  Maybe I'll be able to sucker her into coming to more races with me.

I hope that I can run this race again next year and shatter this time!  I also wanted to mention that this race was pretty well organized.  With not a lot of space to work with, the race directors got everyone parked, shuttled, and gear shuttled back to the finish line efficiently and the race started right on time (which I appreciate!).  They also had all 3 miles marked, as well as markers letting you know that there was 1, 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 of a mile to go.  That really helped me push it at the end.  Overall I think it's a great event for anyone in the area to try out.  Since it was raining at the start we didn't take pictures until the end:

Mine Falls Trail Race Series - Week 1 Recap

First, I need to start this post by saying hi to my mom (Hi Mom!) who told me she "found" my blog yesterday.

Last night kicked off the Mine Falls Trail Race Series that our local running club, The Gate City Striders, puts on.  I did this two years ago, but that was before I was blogging.  The series is two 6-week sessions.  It's really low key and low tech.  There's a 5K and a 5M race and they go through Mine Falls, which is an area trail system.  It's really quite nice and it's only $5 per race.  I like to use this series to work on speed.

Yesterday brought perfect running weather.  The race started at 6:30 and by that time, it was probably in the low 70s and the humidity was low (thank goodness!).  The trails are also really shady, which is a plus.  The 6:30 start time does make fueling interesting.  I had a larger lunch, which kept me full through most of the afternoon.  About an hour before the race, I had a Kashi bar and a Hammer gel (banana flavor this time).  I also tried to drink lots of water throughout the day and I brought my new handheld water bottle to the race as well.

Overall the race went really well.  For one, I wasn't dead last.  When I did this series two years ago, I was dead last, every single week.  Lovely.  Last night I was even passing people!  I think my competitive side is starting to come out during races and I'm liking it.  I felt good through pretty much the entire race.  My strategy was to start a little slower and finish strong.  During the last mile I felt like I was really holding my pace and maybe even picking it up a bit.  Although it's hard to know because I don't have a Garmin.  And considering the brick workout I did the day before, my legs felt surprisingly strong.  Today, however, they are in need of some rest.  Here's how things shook out:

Miles: 3.1 miles
Time: 32.43 minutes
Pace: 10:33 minutes/mile

This is the fastest I've run in a long while, so I was quite satisfied.  The beauty of this is that I have 5 more weeks to work on my time for this course.  Next time I also hope to have some photos.  Patrick, my photographer, was in NYC last night so I didn't have anyone to take pictures.

Rock Your Socks 10K Race Recap

Ok, so Tonia over at Racing With Babes hosted a virtual 10K and half-marathon this weekend.  I figured, what the heck, why not?  It was a great excuse to get in some more miles.  However, this turned out to be a giant FAIL for a couple of reasons.  I'll share those before I get to the stats.

1)  I don't have any pictures to share.  Sorry.  My photographer is currently out of the house and I'm too lazy to take pictures of myself.  You'll just have to use your imagination to envision my sweaty goodness.
2)  I forgot my sunglasses in the house.  I had a hat, but I always run with sunglasses.  Mostly so no one can see the anguished look on my face while I'm out there torturing myself running.
3)  Last night I mapped out a loop and it was exactly 6.2 miles. Perfect.  Yeah, well, except for the part where I forgot that I needed to turn into a neighborhood to get the mileage in.  When I got home and looked at my watch, I just knew I didn't get the full 10K in.  Hopefully Tonia will forgive me and still enter me to win a prize because at least I tried, right???
4)  We were supposed to rock our socks in honor of Tonia's fabulous sock collection.  Well, the only socks I rocked were my Drymax socks (which I LOVE!!) that I wear on every run.  It was way too hot to wear socks that go up to my knee and have patterns on them.

So here's how it panned out:
Miles:  5.53miles
Time: 1:03/53 min
Pace: 11:33 min/mi

I will say that I am very satisfied with my performance.  Throughout the run I took walking breaks that added up to 10 minutes total.  I knew I needed to do this if I wanted to finish because I haven't run this far since January.  So my overall pace turned out to be pretty good considering I walked as much as I did.  I'm really hoping to get a Garmin soon (I may or may not have asked for one as a wedding present from Patrick) so I can actually know what my running pace was.  Anyway, so that's my major fail of a 10K.  Oh well.  Off to fun weekend activities!  Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend too!

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!

Healthy High 5K Race Recap

So my first race of the season is under my belt and it feels good!  Here are some of the pros and cons of the race:

PROS

The weather was perfect.
It was free.
It was along my normal running loop so I knew the course.

CONS

It was in the evening and I normally run in the morning.
My running buddy is a lot faster than me so we didn't get to run together.
The big hill in the last half mile of the race.

Here are some pictures pre-race:

Look at all those runners.  That's my head in the bottom right corner, in case you were wondering.

Warming up with my buddy Andrew.

See how pumped we are?  Andrew is also my shopping buddy!

And of course, one of Patrick and I!

So now I'll tell you a little bit about the race itself.  At the starting line I noticed a lady with a stroller that had 2 kids in it.  I said to Andrew that I was not going to let her beat me with that ginormous stroller!  Then the next thing I know, we're off!  Obviously, since the race is free it's pretty low-budget.  However, I had no idea we were about to start.  Yikes!  The lady with the stroller started off ahead of me, but I made sure to keep her in my sights.  I usually don't choose people to try and pick off, but I tried it out this time.  In the first mile I picked out a woman and I picked her off.  Yes!  Then, in the second mile, I chose another younger girl to overtake, which I did.  Yes again! 

Now, the woman with the stroller was still ahead of me.  I knew I needed to make my move soon.  Well, we got to the big hill and there was no way she could run up the hill with the stroller and another runner had to help her push it up.  When she got to the top she continued to walk.  I started gaining on her.  At the final turn, I finally got in front of her.  And I stayed there and pumped it to the end.  Success!  I didn't let her beat me!  At that point, I didn't even care about my time.  I was so proud of being able to push myself through the race.  Here I am trying to look cheery at the end of the race:

Here are the stats:

Mile 1: 9.38 min

Mile 2: 10.49 min

Mile 3.1: 12.01 min

Overall Time: 32.18 min

I beat last year's time by almost 3 minutes, exactly.  I would have liked to be under 32 minutes, but there is room for improvement later on in the season.  Looking at the stats, I think I may have started out a little too fast and I just didn't have enough juice for the end.  I'm going to try to work on this during my training runs so that my next race is even better! 

Tufts Health Plan 10K for Women Race Recap

I did it! I finished my first 10K race! On Monday, October 12th, with 7,000 other women, I ran the 33rd Annual Tufts Health Plan 10K for Women in Boston, MA. I ran the whole thing and I didn't have to walk once, which I was very happy with. My official time was 1:05.31 min which was a 10:33 pace. I was extremely happy with this time. Although they seeded people, the course was very crowded and I had to do some weaving and get out of some jams. Overall, the course was scenic (it went by the Charles River and through a nice neighborhood) and the weather was perfect (52 degrees and sunny). Look at all these runners:Here I am about .3 miles away from the finish. I'm the one in the blue shirt and black shorts. Honestly, I look like I'm dying.And here's my behind. I think I look like I'm trotting more than running. But damn, look at those toned calves.I should also mention that this race had great free stuff. Although, when you think about it, it's not really free since you pay to enter, but whatever. The t-shirts were nice, long-sleeved tech shirts. I was really happy with this since I don't like to run in cotton t-shirts. And the post-race refreshments were good too. I had never been so happy to see a bottle of water and a bagel in my entire life! I would definitely like to do this race again next year and finish under and hour. I think the key to this goal is to find someone to run this race with me. I felt like a lot of people had running buddies so I felt kind of lonely.

Susan G. Komen Race For the Cure Race Recap

I kind of signed up for this race on a whim last weekend, but I figured it would be good since my 10K is only a few weeks away! It was the perfect temperature for a race and the whole second half of the race was practically down hill. My official time was 29.30, which would be a personal best. However, I timed myself and I got 30.36 minutes. Maybe they took some time off because at the start of the race it takes quite awhile for you to break out of the pack and actually be able to run. This was, by far, the largest race I've ever participated in. It was a pretty cool experience and I think I'll stick with the official time because it sounds better. Now for some pictures!

This first one is neat because you can see that there were tons of people. If you look really close, I'm in the middle with the white hat and sunglasses.
This next one is of our favorite runner. This guy painted himself pink and ran in a tutu. I was a little concerned about the chaffing issue that could have potentially arisen.And this is me after the race because Patrick missed me crossing the finish line. I kind of don't blame him since there were so many people.

Wildcat Triathlon Recap

I just want to say that I had an absolute blast competing in this triathlon. It was hard and I was pretty tired by the end, but I really enjoyed it. I promise pictures at a later date, but my camera is currently stuck at the beach with my family. In the meantime, I can share my stats with you.
I finished the event in an overall time of 1:17.52. I wanted to finish under 1 1/2 hours, so I was pleased. As for the break-down of events:

Swim: 1/4 mile 5:57 min
Bike: 11 miles 40:02 min
Run: 2.5 miles 31:51 min

I am proud to report that I was the fastest swimmer in my division and I passed people from all the heats on front of me. And I should add that the first heat started 6 minutes before me and I was passing some of those guys! And I placed 2nd in the Athena division. I got a medal and a prize! I was really excited about that one! The weather was perfect for the event as well. When I get my camera back, I super promise to post pictures!

Merrimack Sparkler 5K Recap

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from the event because my cheerleader stayed in bed while I went to my race. That's ok though.

So this race had chip timing, which was a new experience for me. The little chip is worn on your ankle (that was a little obnoxious) and the timing is more accurate. However, at this race, the timer started for everyone at the same time. I was under the impression that it started for you when you started the starting line. That way, if you were near the back at the starting line, your time wouldn't be affected. That was not the case. So at the start, I was running slow looking for the "official" starting line so I could start my own stopwatch to pace myself. I realized that there was no "official" starting line and that I better get moving!

My time was 31.16 min. This is by no means a bad time for me, but I really wanted to beat my last race time. What was more disappointing was that at the end I felt like I could have pushed it more throughout the race. Considering I had never run the course before, I was satisfied and it's something I would do again next year. Besides, I got to feel much less guilty about all the eating I did later on in the day!

Salvation Army 5K

Patrick and I at the end of the race.

Saturday was the Salvation Army 5K in Nashua that I was semi-training for while training for my triathlon. Let me just say, it was amazing! For once, I took photos so I can actually remember the event. It started at 10am, but that turned out to be perfect. It had been a bit cloudy that morning, but the sun started peeking out during the run. The temperature was just right and the course was in a neighborhood that I normally run in. So despite the hills, it was a great run. And the most amazing part is, for the first time EVER I broke 30 minutes! My official time was 29.53. I cried at the finish line I was so excited. Patrick just didn't know what to do with me! And now onto the pictures!

Patrick, my cheerleader was a little sleepy.

This is my co-worker Sebby, who also ran the race. I kicked his butt, but then again, he is more than twice my age.

Just before the race began. Coming up on the finish line. I can see that clock ticking away and like hell I was going to let it go over 30 minutes! Look at that stride!