Los Alamos Triathlon

Friday night I drove out to Los Alamos (stopping in Albuquerque to pick up my mom) for the Los Alamos Sprint triathlon. This was a different race for me, first I've ever seen that is bike-swim-run, first I've done that is any weird order.

The bike started out through a little bit of town, then it goes onto the Los Alamos National Labs, and then it goes up a ginormous hill. This hill was brutal. I had decided to go without my Forerunner, so I couldn't tell how slow exactly I was going, but I was going dead slow. I think the top of that hill was at about 2 miles in, then the course was a succession of some rolling hills, then a good sized downhill. Then back up a bit to the turnaround. Getting back up that last downhill was nasty too. Then I could just start building to the huge downhill where I was flying... always my favorite part (I'm sure some sickos like the uphill parts). Was a good cruise back to transition.

So, after racking the bike, I had to take off my first set of shoes and socks and run around the building to jump in the pool. The water was very nice after the ride. I made my way down the first lane, then at the end I started to turn around and go back on that same lane... I didn't realize these were 50m lengths. When I saw I was going to soon be running into people I ducked under the lane line to go back down lane 2 (or 7, whatever it was). Oh, and it felt like both of my legs had anchors on them... so I was pretty much all arms. I had a pretty good swim overall, I didn't have to backstroke or stop at all, I was very happy with it. My time on the swim was 13:41, but that includes both T1 and T2, so I think that was pretty good.

So, on to the run. I got out to the second transition and put on my running shoes and running stuff.... and had a bunch of water. The run was okay... I didn't go super slow (well, not for me), and not blistering fast either. I had to walk quite a bit, so I did... run course was nice and pretty flat.

So, overall I was happy. I didn't make my goal time of 1:30 (finished at 1:44), but I think most of that was due to the monster hill that I didn't account for, and that I'm currently not well suited for (someday!).