Spring Training Triathlon

Above: Bike Diva exiting the lake and running under the Muscle Milk swim exit arch.

Spring Training Triathlon

On Sunday, April 3 I competed in my third sprint triathlon. The event was the Spring Training Triathlon which was held at Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek, Florida and put on by Multirace.com. The other two triathlons I've competed in were both part of the Club Med Race Series in Port St. Lucie, Florida. If you read my race reports for those two events, you will see that I had a lot of anxiety during the swim portion.

Above: Bike Diva during her favorite part of a triathlon, on the bike!

Swim Bike Diva Swim

Sunday's Spring Training Triathlon was the first triathlon I participated in where I didn't freak out in the water. I finally felt like a real triathlete after completing the race. The race could be done as either a sprint triathlon or a sprint duathlon. The duathlon was also the qualifier for the USAT Florida Regional Duathlon Championships.

The swim was a short 400 yards straight across Tradewinds Park lake. It was such a non-technical swim that they didn't even put any buoys in the water. You could see the giant Muscle Milk arch, marking the swim exit, while looking across the lake from the swim start. I was pretty slow on the swim, but I didn't freak out this time and I wasn't the last one out of the water, so that made me pretty happy.

Above: Bike Diva trying to pretend she actually enjoys running.

Fun Times During the Swim

The bottom of Tradewinds Park lake, which is really the size of a large pond, is squishy, nasty mud filled with roots and other vegetative matter. A friend of mine in the men's Clydesdale division cut the bottom of his foot during the swim, but luckily didn't notice it until after he completed the race. Swimming in the lake was like swimming in a giant pot of coffee, zero visibility. There were 107 girls in my swim wave, 95% of them were faster than me, so I just had to tune them out as they went sprinting across the lake and swim at my own speed. I also knew the Clydesdale men were in the last swim wave, right after us. They started only 3 minutes after we did so I knew most of them would catch up to me during the swim, so I tuned them out too.

I also had to tune out the swim exit for most of the swim. Every time I went to sight the Muscle Milk arch, it didn't look like it was getting any closer which freaked me out for about half a second. So I just went to my la-la-la happy placed during the swim and got through it just fine. It was also the first triathlon I did without a wetsuit, due to the lake being an obscenely warm 82 degrees, ah, south Florida. So now I'm thinking that some of the anxiety I experienced during my first two triathlons might have been due to feeling claustrophobic while wearing a wetsuit.

Above: happy times, Bike Diva crossing the finish line.

Bike Diva's Results

Multirace.com gives instant race results to all race participants. They had multiple computer screens, on a table near the finish line. The computers were continually updating the race results. Next to the computers was another table where volunteers were sitting with a laptop computer and what looked like a credit card receipt printer. You told the volunteer your race number, they punched it into the computer and it produced a print out of your race results - COOL!

Multirace.com also emails your race results along with a link to the overall results, a link to a race completion certificate you can print out and a link to the site with the official race photos. Here are my results from the Spring Training Triathlon which was a 1/4 mile swim - 10 mile bike - 3 mile run:

Swim: 13:40
T1: 1:04
Bike: 31:32 = 19.02 MPH
T2: 1:21
Run: 30:08 = 10:02 pace
Total time: 1:17:46
Overall: 234 out of 320
Gender: 61 out of 107
Age group: 10 out of 17

Broward Championship Series

The Spring Training Triathlon was part of the Broward Championship Series of 5 races. I registered for all 5 races in the series, as you got a pretty nice discount for registering for the entire series. Our goody bags contained a nice technical t-shirt with the event logo and all race participants received a dog tag style medal as they crossed the finish line.

The other 4 races in the Broward Championship Series include: