Plymouth Indoor Tri with 3 CVA Tri Club Students!

Yesterday morning, I picked up Rachel and Hannah, and we met Katrina at the Lifetime Fitness in Plymouth. We were ready to race!!

It was NOT an "A" race for me for a few reason:

- I had FEW workouts in the 2 weeks prior to the race.

- I spent 5 hours working in the yard on Friday, and my legs were sore TO THE TOUCH after that! I raked leaves and made 3 trips to the compost site with carloads of leaves and branches.

- I spent a fair amount of time on Saturday night shoveling heavy, wet snow after getting back from teaching a 7 hour workshop at CVA and meeting with photo students for a few hours at the U. I thought my obliques were going to pop from my sides!

I was just in this race for fun. And I thought I'd try something new: this race offered a "90 minute challenge" as opposed to the normal 60 minute indoor race, so I opted for the 90 minute race.

We grabbed a photo before the ladies started:

Rachel, me, Hannah, and Katrina.
(Yep. The "Tutti-Frutti" shorts came out for this race!)

The girls were in the last "regular" wave, and I was in the final wave which was the "90 minute challenge." So I was snapping photos as those 3 were getting ready to start:

They had all done an indoor tri before (Hannah had done THREE before this one!), so they didn't need me barking all kinds of advice at them. They knew what to do. I just reminded them that 10:00 is a long swim, so they should start off E-A-S-Y. Then I snapped awkward / nervous photos of all of them:

Rachel and her giant head


Hannah laughing (or something...)


Katrina yelling at me

"READY... SET.... *whistle*"

Hannah, Rachel, and Katrina starting off

They were in a wave that should have had 7 people in it, but there were only 5 there. So CVA was going to take over this wave! ;) Here they are over half way into their swim:

Hannah pushing off, Rachel workin' the backstroke,
and Katrina going strong in the foreground

When the whistle blew at the end of their swim, they had all done really well! Hannah did 15 lengths, Rachel did 17 lengths, and Katrina did 20 lengths!! They ran off to the locker room on their way to the spinning studio.

It was time for me to start thinking about my race! I realized I had forgotten to eat (my wave started at 10:00 am which is practically lunch time!) and I was getting a little hungry. So I grabbed a quick gel. I hoped that it wasn't too close to my start time to be having a gel.

There were SUPPOSED to be 5 people in the "90 minute challenge," but I had only talked with one guy named Matt. When it got closer to the starting time, we realized it was just going to be the 2 of us! We thought that was pretty funny. And Matt had a "low-key" attitude like me, so he wasn't going to be "going for blood" throughout the entire race. This was gonna be FUN!

Matt and I hopped in. The lady on the pool deck gave us a few instructions / reminders, and then just casually said "OK, go."

15:00 SWIM:

We were swimming!! Matt quickly took the lead. At about 200 yards, he was about half a length in front of me. I knew that meant one of 2 things: he was either a better swimmer than me, or he was going out a little too hard and I could catch him. It ended up being #2. I realized I was gaining at about 350 yards into the race; and at 400 yards in, I passed him. I tried to keep it strong throughout. Here are my 100 yard splits:

1:27
1:37
1:39
1:40
1:40
1:40
1:40
1:41
1:38
0:13 (last 1/2 length)

I had done 36.5 lengths (or 912.5 yards) in 15:00

10:00 T1:

I ran into the locker room, got naked, threw on my bike shorts, wrestled with my tri-top as I was trying to put it on (seriously, it was comical), and headed out to the spinning studio. Before getting my bike set, I grabbed a photo of the ladies who had just about 8 minutes left in their 30:00 spin:

I got my spinning bike all set up, and was ready to go.

45:00 SPIN:

45:00 of spinning ISN'T a big deal. But it IS when there's no resistance and you're spinning at a cadence of 156 RPMs! Seriously! It KILLS my back! I had warned Matt about this in the pool ahead of time. You can set your own resistance on the bikes, but you want to keep it as "loose" as possible - the computer only counts revolutions of the flywheel, so you just need to GO NUTS and spin that sucker as fast as possible! It's NOT like road riding. I counted my cadence over 15 seconds a few times, and I got 39 each time. That equals 156 RPMs. The computer said I was averaging around 38 mph. Again, NOT equivalent to road riding.

About 15:00 in, Matt sheepishly asked how far I had gone. I had NO problem sharing. We were totally neck-and-neck! I glanced over to his computer a few more times throughout the ride, and we were always within 0.1 of a mile of each other! Sometimes I had a slight lead; sometimes he did.

Katrina and Hannah popped in to say hi when they finished their run, and they grabbed a photo of Matt and I:

Sweaty thumbs-up about 35:00 in, with 10:00 left

I told Katrina to step back and get a wide shot of our GIANT wave:

Yeah, it was pretty dead in there...

Well, the volunteers gave us warnings at 6, 4, 3, 2, and 1 minute. I knew it was going to be close between Matt and I! When they called "time," I glanced at my computer and then at Matt's. We finished EXACTLY the same!! Nice! Matt laughed and gave me a fist-bump.

5:00 T2:

I changed my shoes in the spinning studio, refilled a water bottle, and made my way up to the treadmills. I had a few minutes to spare, so I wrote a letter to my Congressman regarding the current state of our healthcare.

30:00 RUN:

When given the cue, we started our treadmills. I cranked mine up to 9.5 mph. After 10 minutes, I bumped it up to 10.0 mph. I didn't know if I'd be able to hold that, but I figured I could always bring it back down. Soon, Rachel, Katrina, and Hannah showed up, and they grabbed my camera to get some photos:

Smiling and hurting


Beard and bicep power


A nice shot of Matt and I side-by-side


Yes Hannah, that's me. Thanx.

I realized I still had a lot of "Jen Harrison run training" still in my legs. At the 20:00 mark (the normal stop time), I was at 3.22 miles. At my last indoor tri this spring, I finished that 20:00 run with 3.21 miles total. So I had out-done that run (barely) AND I still had 10:00 left to run! Jen still lives on.......

Anyway, I held onto 10.0 mph from 10:00 - 26:00, and then I cranked it up to 10.5 mph for the last 4 minutes. At the end of the 30:00 run, I had about a mile on Matt (around 4.9 miles total). So I guess that means I won and he took second! ;) Matt gave me a shake-your-hand-and-hug-you-with-the-other-one thing, and we congratulated each other on a great race! We were both just there for a solid, hard effort, and we were both happy with how it all panned out.

I ran through the shower, and all 4 of us headed home. It was a fun / successful day for the "CVA Triathlon Club!!" But we all had to get back home because there was school-work to do....

Back with the full results as soon as they're up! Thanks everyone!!