Pflugerville Triathalon

Last August when Mary did her triathlon I thought it looked much more interesting and fun than running a 1/2 or full marathon. I got a bike back in December of last year, and have been training for the Pflugerville tri for the last 6 months.

My training had been going pretty well throughout the spring, however a combination of traveling for vacations, traveling for work and higher than normal summer heat really started impacting the quality and consistency of my training. Either way, the triathlon was today, so the quality of my training was over.

Mary's Parents and my parents all came over on Saturday for a father's day weekend. I made pesto linguine from scratch to carb load and wehad a big family meal the night before.

We arrived at Lake Pf early to get ready for the morning. I was disappointed to see that when we got out to the lake there were 35 mph gusts which made small whitecaps in water and was going to make the entire event challenging.

Being my first triathlon, like most people I was the most concerned about the swim. I swam a decent amount in the pool, however only swam twice in open water in training and swimming in open water with people around you is a totally different game. I had a game plan of slow and steady in the water with a strategy that I would push hard on the ride and try to hold a 10 minute mile in the run.

My time in the swim was really really bad, however as it was my 3rd time swimming in open water and it was really windy, I am ok with it.

My support crew

Immediate transition into the ride. Unfortunately, the chip timing company hired to do the race messed up and the splits/transition times were not captured correctly so I don't know my specific swim time, transition 1 time, ride time, transition 2 time and run time. All I know is my final time. It felt like I took forever in the transition area, however it must have been pretty fast because I was done before Mary or Joe could make it over to take pictures. On to my strongest category (due to I have trained the m

ost on the bike and have a really nice bike)

I have done the Pf Tri loop many times in training,

so I was very familiar with every hill and turn which I think was very helpful as I knew when to push and when not to.

I finished the ride faster than everybody thought because I had rode back into the transition area and ran out before any of my family noticed a

s they were still waiting for me to finish the ride whe

n I was running out of the transition area.

Ran out of the transition area, uphill and into 35 mph gusts. The run was very hard, however I was able to run the entire leg without stoppin

g to walk and finished it in about 30 minutes.

Overall, my final time was 1:46, not exactly outstanding, however it was my first tri, I finished strong. I never walked and I kept a consistent pace the entire time. I will do more in the future and hopefully improve my times.

My #1 fan

My favorite girls meeting me at the finish line