Hy-Vee Triathlon and the St. Paul Sprint Triathlon

So we originally signed up for the Maple Grove Sprint Triathlon figuring putting the $$ down would make us get off our asses.  Well then we found out we screwed up because we have to work at a race that day.   Crap...... At least we will get the shirts ;)

So we waffled about it a bit and then put down another chunk of change to upgrade to the HyVee Triathlon which is a week after Maple Grove but an Olympic distance instead of a Sprint.... crap, crap, crap.....have I mentioned we really haven't been swimming like, at all for about 2 years?!?  But we've been on an abbreviated training plan that was created for us by our pal Vahid at In the Moment Triathlon Training and with two weeks to go, we're feeling pretty good.  Plus for being down there as a vendor for USA Triathlon, we get one free entry so that makes the cost much more bearable!

This will be our fourth year down in Des Moines for the HyVee Triathlon manning the USAT Midwest Region Expo Booth and Officiating the race so I am actually very excited to be a participant this year.

We've been getting in some long lake swims at Nokomis since now the Parks and Rec are allowing beach to beach swimming for free on Tuesday nights.  600 yards between the beaches so 2 laps gets us over our distance for HyVee.  It's been great for getting us used to open water swims again and having to deal with arms/legs/feet around us while we swim.  Oh and Nokomis is horrible for algae so after last night's 2400yd swim I came home sneezing and sniffling for a few hours.  Ugh!

Lake Nokomis OWS have been really good for me as I have never been a great swimmer. Having the opportunity to swim beach to beach has really given me confidence in the water. 

We also decided to look at the calendar to see if there was a sprint distance available for us to do prior to HyVee and luckily we could jump in on the St. Paul Sprint Triathlon.  Small-ish event but gave us a good opportunity to remember how this all works.  I wasn't going slow but I also wasn't trying to over push myself throughout the whole thing and was happy at the finish.  My swim times were much slower than they used to be but my bike was a 18.5 average and run was 8:53.  All of that got me in 5th place out of 22 in my age group so I'll take it as a success.  I just need to put in place my faster transitions again.  I easily know how to do those better :)

Our setup in transition

St. Paul was a decent event, the bike course is VERY rough (which is no fault of the event) and if you have ever done Lifetime Tri Minneapolis, you know how bad the river road is? The St. Paul bike course is WORSE. I managed 19.4mpg avg. but I wonder how much better it might have been with out the road conditions. I was very happy with my swim and honestly it was my best segment of the Tri for me, which is really strange for me to say. Other than the road, my only other complaint as a participant was that it took them more than 24 hours to post the results.

So less than two weeks to go and I'm feeling pretty good.  It's all just about finishing at this point and I don't care too much about my times at this point.  Looking at the field results from last year I should comfortably land somewhere in the middle of the pack I think.   The past few years we have been down there, it's been quite hot so I'm planning for a walk/run situation at the end and some cool swag to take home :)