Esprit de she Triathlon

Two weeks ago, on May 4th, Caitlin and I did the Esprit de she triathlon. Around the end of March, Caitlin posted on Facebook that she was signing up so I decided to as well.

It was a super sprint with distances as follows: .23 mile swim, 6.64 mile bike and 1.69 mile run. The distances weren't long and I think that is the reason I didn't really train too much. Kept up with my regular weekly running routine (5-10 miles per week), got in the pool twice and did under 800 yards each time, and took one ride on the bike two nights before the event.

The swim was in Tempe Town Lake. I thought it was going to be really cold, but it actually wasn't too bad.

My group (ages 39 and under doing the super sprint distance) was assigned silver caps. I was the first silver cap out of the water. I felt great during the swim.

Next was onto the bike portion. I knew going in that this was going to be the most difficult leg of the event for me. I borrowed a bike (thanks Heather), but it was just a hybrid bike and was not a road bike. I got passed big time on the bike.

Caitlin taking off on the bike portion. She has an amazing bike and passed me pretty quick.

Caitlin coming in from the bike leg.

I was so happy to be DONE with the bike portion. I was excited to get to the run (or so I thought I would be).

Caitlin finishing - she had a great event, finishing 5th overall and 1st in her age group with a time of 54.23.

Coming around the last turn of the run. I thought the run would be easy as the distance was pretty short, but my legs (mostly my quads) were fried from the bike and they were on fire the entire time during the run. After the first mile, I did a run-walk to the finish line because I was in so much pain.

Happy to be done.

I finished with a time of 1:04.41 which was 4th (out of 11) in my age group and 28th (out of 80) overall. My splits were broken down as follows: 8:20 swim, 2:30 transition 1, 31:33 bike, 1:15 transition 2, and 21:04 run. 

Celebrating with some mimosas.

I would definitely do this event again, next time with a little more training. I am also going to invest in a road bike, and have already been out looking and doing some research. I know that will help my bike portion as well as the run portion - the last tri I did was longer than this one, and I felt great on the run (but I was also on a $3k tri bike). Who else is in with Caitlin and I next May???