Accent Fitness: September 25, 2011

Very excited to complete a fun 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon down in the beautiful coastal town of Capitola. It is an interesting story about how I ended up doing this race. After Nationals in August, I have every intention of doing at least a couple more races to close out the season. But due to circumstances and illness, I ended up missing Pacific Grove triathlon on 9/11 and was unable to do any run training for over 3 weeks. I was so sick that I lost all sense of taste and smell for 9 days! It was longest 9 days of my adult life...not being about to taste any food was so depressing. Talk about losing the will to eat! I was thinking the whole time that I'm surprised no one has made a diet pill which suppresses your taste buds. People go to such extremes like plastic surgery, stapling stomachs stuck and wiring their jaws - all in the name of losing weight. Even if simply just take their taste away, I can guarantee they would lose weight. I digress but to continue the story.. I got better by Wednesday so that basically gave me 3 days to get ready for this race. I knew I would have to bank on major base training since there was nothing much more that could be done with such short time.

Overall, the race experience was good. The swim start was located on the Capitola Beach, to the right of the wharf. We swam around the wharf and then made our way back up to the transition area. I was 3rd female out of the water and 2nd out of transition to the bike course. As usually, one of the challenges about being out in front is that there is no one to follow. I was quite confused and worried that I was not on the proper course several times. I missed one right turn even though there was a volunteer there...so I had to u-turn around. I continued on, hoping that I would stay on the course. It was much more hilly and technical than I had expected so in retrospect, I should have used by rear 404 wheel instead of the disc wheel, since that didn't add any value. I could definitely feel the effects of my lack of training on the bike since I felt tired earlier on. However, once I caught up to the first place girl and passed her, I felt more energy.

Of course, I knew the run would be the hardest to keep up a pace since I had no base miles in me for weeks. I actually end up with the reverse problem of too high heart rate..my heart rate was too rate but combined with the feeling that it was high.. so not a good combination for holding pace. It didn't help that on the run course, I was again worried about taking a wrong turn. When we returned to the beach for the first time, participants who were doing the shorter sprint distance crossed the finish area.. our group had to turn left and do another 3 mile loop. This turn was marked but I was worried as I was running on the beach that it would even be there... I asked a couple volunteers but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. Then I started back up on the hill for the 2nd loop. Unfortunately, I took a left turn and starting heading down a hill when John yelled that I had taken another wrong turn. So I had to backtrack and head south for an out and back. This definitely added 3-4 minutes on to my time, which was lame. I wish a volunteer or anyone had corrected me sooner about the wrong turn.

The run in general was pretty scenic, running through the town and residential areas before finishing on the beach. Not a huge fan of running in the sand..the girl in my age group literally passed me in the sand within meters of the finish line. In any case, I was glad to be done!

There were some areas for improvement in this race, mostly in marking the bike and run courses more clearly since I took wrong turns on both. I also got to catch with an old friend of my pre-Madison,pre-triathlon, going out clubbing in the city days. Funny how our lives evolve and we reinvent ourselves as women. Overall, the energy and spirit of Mermaid events is great so I would definitely recommend them!

CHECK OUT MY RACE VIDEO!

Complete Photo Album from the 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon

RANK: 3rd in Age Group, 5th Overall Female
TOTAL TIME: 2:51
SWIM: 24:36 - 3rd fastest overall swim
T1: -
BIKE: 1:19 - 1st fastest overall bike 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon Bike Course
T2: -
RUN: 1:01 2011 Mighty Mermaid Olympic Triathlon Run Course

Run turnaround