Dog Days Sprint Tri Race Report
- Race Name: Dog Days Sprint Tri
- Race Date: August 7, 2011
- Race Location: Ashburn, VA
- Race Distance: Sprint (400m swim,12 mi bike, 5k run)
- Division: F 30-34
- Total Time: 1:27:03
- Time Breakdown: Swim – 9:02, T1 – 3:09, Bike – 41:29, T2 – 1:53, Run – 31:32
- Age Group Placing: 13/32
- Overall Placing: 48/148 (women only)
Pre-race
Race registration was online only and was fine. The race was $85 originally. I got a discount for doing both of their races. The course maps were available online and at packet pick-up. Packet pick-up for this race was pretty good, annoying because you had to bring your bike & helmet to pick-up to be checked, so everyone’s standing around with their bikes & helmets trying to walk through the line to get their packets, again. Also, the first table, where they checked your id and USAT membership, they had divided into 2 lines, alphabetically… except, none of us knew that, again! You only figured it out once you got to the table. The swag was ok, t-shirt, water bottle, a fizz tablet, and a lot of paper.
The race was pretty well organized. There were plenty of volunteers and officers on the course, which was great. The bathrooms at the start/transition/finish were in the pool house, which seemed to be fine. There weren’t really any pre-race activities, which was fine.
The race was at the Broadlands pool. The transitions were long again, but I was prepared for that this time. The bike course was local roads and the run was on a neighborhood trail.
Race morning, I got up around 5:00, got dressed, ate breakfast, put everything in the car, and headed out. We got to the parking area at around 5:45. We started the walk to the transition area, got my timing chip, did body marking, and went into transition. I got in, set up my bike and all of the other stuff, and had plenty of time to relax. The weather was ok, mid 70s with a LOT of humidity. It made the race really difficult. There were about 300 people there, which turned out to be a nice size.
Swim
Today’s swim was a 400m snake swim in a 50m pool. The pool water felt great, especially since the humidity was making it feel a lot warmer than it was. Obviously, no wetsuits for this swim. I didn’t do the warm-up for this race, mostly because by the time I started, the warm-up would’ve worn off. I wore clear goggles for this race. I got passed by one person. I felt better coming out of the water this time. It was a long run into transition and I got reoriented pretty quickly. I feel like the work I’ve been doing on my swimming has been paying off. Now to keep at it!
Bike
The course was a double loop, some hills course. They had the right lane closed to traffic, which was great. In the June race on the same course, I had a car pull out in front of me despite police direction. In this race, I had a car pull out in front of me AGAIN! And again, it was despite police direction. Thankfully I was paying attention and anticipated her idiocy. I was going 23 mph, slightly downhill, and would’ve t-boned her and ended up worse for the wear than her car. At least she pulled into the correct lane. I still have some hill work to do, but I’m getting more confident in my bike handling. The longer I spend on it, the more comfortable I get.
Run
This run was awful. Even coming out of T2, I felt like hell. It was so humid out, I couldn’t get my breathing to slow at all. I ended up walking one minute of each mile just to get my breath. I also felt like I was going to puke for at least the last 2 miles of the run. It was not a good run at all. Still need to do more BRICKs, but apparently, I need to start running in the middle of the day or in the afternoon, even when it’s nasty humid out.
Transitions
The transitions went pretty well. I managed to cut some time off of T1 from June. T2 went well – I remembered to throw the watch on as I’m running out of T2 instead of waiting for it to do its thing while I’m in transition. I also had both GPS units get the satellites before the race, so I think that helped. Next race, I may just throw on the swim watch and wear it for the entire race.
Post-Race
I felt like crap after the race. My entire body felt drained, and not in a good way.
As soon as I was finished the race, I was handed a bottle of water and declined the smoothie. I found the table of bananas and assorted carbs, grabbed a banana and came back later for a bagel. They were posting the results every 15 minutes or so, so that was nice. We left before the awards ceremony. The distances were all accurate. The race officials were fair; two DQs because they only did one loop on the bike course.
Official race results were posted that night. No word of when the race photos will be posted.
Summary and Lessons Learned
I had a really bad week the week before the race. All of my workouts felt like I was putting in so much more effort than I probably was, and I was just dragging. With the humidity, it just made that feeling worse. This is the first time that I could’ve DNF’d and been ok with it. I’m getting more confident on my bike, but there’s work to be done there too. All in due time.
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