Where do I start? I’ve
fallen a little behind as this month has been nothing short of insanity when it
has come to my racing and training schedule…. I’ll go over Galena in this post
and follow up with the other races. So
Galena went just awesome, it was my first real triathlon with full equipment
and it did not disappoint!
The morning started early as my brother Nate and nephew
Gavin picked me up around 5pm and made our way across the bridge to Galena… on
the way to the T1 (transition 1) beach I got my first view of the biking course
and it confirmed my suspicion that this would be a very challenging
course. I was not complaining though as
the views were just as breathtaking as the hills would be during the race. Once there I registered, dropped my gear and
we headed back out to T2 which was in Galena. This
would be my only complaint about the race, having the transitions in two different
locations that were 15 miles apart caused a logistics nightmare… very lucky for
me I had Nate there to drive me. I got
my run gear dropped and hopped on the last shuttle back to the beach.
On the shuttle ride to the start I was pressed for time so I
put on my wetsuit mid-ride. The shuttle
arrived at the beach a minute or two before 9am and I had a 9:03 start so I
sprinted to the beach and chatted with some friends quick before prepping to
start my race. I will mention I had some
great last minute tips given to me by a very nice guy riding the shuttle with
me to the start… I was nervous asking questions and coming off as a newbie and
he was very cool and really steadied my nerves before the start.
I took off in the swim portion toward the front of the pack,
I’m pretty confident in my swimming ability and didn’t have any reservations
pushing myself up to get a good position.
What I did not expect was the cold temp of the water made me instantly
start gasping for air, this combined with my goggles fogging up made the first
100 yards or so a little scary… I
flipped over, hit backstroke for a bit and removed my goggles only to find I
was still sitting in good position… I slowly got my breathing into rhythm and
caught a couple people toward the end finishing 7th. I ran up the beach and transitioned smoothly
although a little slow into the bike.
Off on the bike I tried to put myself on cruise control and
enjoy the race. I’ve only had my road
bike for about a month and have barely been able to get on it, I knew this
would be my weak area and decided to take it easy rather than pushing myself and
getting injured. The ride was awesome, there
were many hills but I tackled them fine, I only averaged about 15mph and came
in the middle of the pack but I was just fine with that… I transitioned a
little quicker into the run and took off for the final leg.
Running is obviously my strong suit and I took off out of
the gate at a 5:30 pace… I felt very strong right until I looked up and
realized I had a 150 foot hill barreling down on my to start the running
leg. I shortened up my stride and
powered up the hill passing a few on the way, I then settled into a comfortable
running pace and finished off the remainder of the course running strong but
under control… my average was 6:28 which I was just fine with.
Upon finishing the race I felt just awesome and was delighted
to see my DRC friends cheering me onto the finish!! I knew right away I was hooked and have been
thinking about doing my next one ever since.
I learned a lot and possibly the most important thing was I learned I
have a lot more to learn… I am
determined to train hard and improve and look forward to seeing how I progress
this year.
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