IronBabe Super Sprint Triathlon

Sunday May 11, was the IronBabe ladies only super sprint triathlon (200 yd swim, 8 mile bike, 2 mile run). Originally I was going to volunteer at this race, and when I told the race director, she said “Why don’t you want to race Heather? We’d be happy to have you as a volunteer, but you should think about racing” I said, if you’re going to twist my arm, then I’ll race! Didn’t take much twisting!

Race morning my alarm was set to go off at 4:30, at 4:11 I jumped out of bed thinking I was late! Then I realized the alarm was supposed to go off at 4:30 and I had to leave at 5, not 3:30 and 4! There was also thunder and lightening outside, not a good sign. This is the first race I’ve done that Jeff didn’t come with me. So I had my google directions printed out and took off, turns out the directions weren’t exactly right and I got a little lost and had to stop and ask for directions, I was pretty frustrated about it, but I ended up getting to the race site with plenty of time to get set up and check everything out.

By the time I got to the race site the rain had stopped and the lightening was obviously moving away, but the wind was really picking up! Lake Houston looked more like the ocean than a lake! They actually started a little late because the buoys kept blowing out of place! I dipped my feet in and decided it was about mid 70’s so I wasn’t going to bother with the wetsuit.

My wave was the second to start, it really did feel more like an ocean swim than the nice calm lake swim I was expecting! I found it funny that when the water went up my nose/down my throat, I expected it to be salty and make me gag. The toughest part of the swim was getting around the turn buoy. Even though it was rough, I felt fine, not sick like at San Jacinto a couple weeks ago. It was definitely an interesting swim, I was hoping to finish the swim in 5 minutes my time was 8:48, not that bad considering some of the faster times were over 6 minutes and there were a lot of 15-20 min swims on the results pages. A lot of people do this as their first tri, so I really felt bad for the girls who had never swum in open water before.

T1 was 2:23, I didn’t know what to expect on the bike course with all the wind. I was hoping to average 16 mph and finish in 30 min. The bike was fun. There were spots with a headwind and spots with a tailwind, but it was short so I could just go as fast as I could. My legs felt a little tired from the start, I’m sure because I did a 35 mile ride on Saturday. I did a sprint on the same course last year and I had forgotten how many turns there are on the bike course. I finished the bike in 30:39 (15.66 mph).

T2 was 2:03 and Dave Rainey the leader of the Zephyr rides was working in the transition area and saw me and started “heckling” me. “Come on Heather, MOVE IT! Let’s go!” and pointing at his watch, too funny! I started the run at a pretty fast pace and wasn’t sure I could keep it up so I slowed down a little. The turn around point was at 1 mile and there was a pen of buffalo right by the water station, I had forgotten about them from last year. I picked the pace back up after the turn around because I realized if I pushed it I still might finish in 1:05. I just kept it up to the finish and finished in 1:04:20! My run time was 20:24 for 10:12 min/mile, that’s the fastest I’ve ever run in a triathlon so I’m really happy about that!

Sorry no pictures this time, since my photographer, pit crew, and cheering section (Jeff) couldn't make it. But I'll post a link to the website with the official race pictures when they put them up.