Loveland Lake Sprint Tri - Race Recap!

It was an early AM on Saturday when the alarm rang at 3:40 AM! I had solid sub 6 hours of sleep, but was feeling pretty good. Made some oats and coffee and AA and I were out the door by 4:40. The hour-ish drive to Loveland was uneventful, it started in the pitch black but the sun came up quickly and it looked like a great day!

AA dropped me at the high school and I went in to get my packet. They had run out of shirts so they are supposed to mail it to me, hopefully! We parked, and brought over my gear to the transition area. I realized my two reusable grocery bags probably aren’t the best, as I saw everyone with sweet tri bags. O well. There were 6 racks in the back designated for the Sprint Race, and the remainder were for the Olympic race. The transition quickly cleared out as the Olympic athletes started the waves at 6:30 AM. We took some more time and headed down to the beach to see some of them take off! My wave was scheduled to start at 7:19 AM.

Bike in transition area!

The lake was gorgeous. There was a sea of athletes in funny looking wet suits, pretty fun. The waves went off, and it was neat to see the washer machine begin and they made their way around the 1,500m course. In around 20 minutes, the elites were already out of the water – we went and cheered a few on as they ran and stripped off the top of the wet suit. I wasn’t too nervous, but was excited to get started.

Watching the Olympic waves take off

7:15 came before I knew it and then men’s wave was off! The women’s wave hopped in the water. It was a wide start, I opted for the middle near the back. We were off! 

Women's Sprint Wave in the water

There were two turns around buoys back to the shore, which all seemed to be about the same length. The first leg was pretty uneventful, my breathing was on and I wasn’t feeling panicked. I tried hard to spot, and kept my eye on the big orange buoys. Surprisingly, there wasn’t too much of a log jam at the first buoy and I easily spotted to the second. I tried to stay on course. 

As we neared the second buoy though, there was a traffic jam of swimmers and it started to get messy. There were swimmers on each side of me, both swimming towards me. I definitely had to fight my way for space. To make it harder, it was nearly impossible to sight the big orange buoy so I wasn’t exactly sure where my end point. I fought for my spot, and one time literally stopped and went behind some chick because she was totally swimming across the path for the buoy. Every time I came up for breaths there were swimmers around me, it kept my pace up. The space didn’t free up the whole time – I made it towards the beach and hopped up. I noticed a lot of swimmers were walking, but I jogged through the area and up to the beach. I spotted AA as he was snapping pictures, and it put an even bigger smile on my face.

Here I come!

750 m swim time: 15:42

Average for my AG: 16:18

Rank: 5 of 8

Note: AG is Female 25-29 with 8 athletes

It was a ¼ mile to the transition area. My spot was right near the entrance. I put on my helmet and tried to get my thoughts in place. I started my watch satellites and began drying my feet and putting on my socks. During this time I also put on my sunglasses, clipless shoes, and almost forgot my bib. I stalled a minute to see if I had forgotten anything and then grabbed my bike and jogged out of the transition area.

Transition time: 2:13

Average for AG: 2:16

Rank: 5 of 8

I clipped in my right pedal, hopped on the bike, and got my other pedal in fine, success! I was definitely breathing heavy from the swim and it took a mile or two to calm it down. We headed out of the high school and there were lots of volunteers directing us where to go. It was a big square-ish route of the route. On the first mile stretch about 3 bikes passed me. I got in to the grove, and I wasn’t passed until about mile 4 or 5, but it was someone in my AG unfortunately. 

Route around Loveland

The ride was really pretty, along  semi-busy roads, but it was all coned off with volunteers at every turn. I saw someone having to change a flat tire, and I spent most of the ride trying to avoid anything, praying I wouldn’t get a flat…since I had zero gear or knowledge to fix it! The course was really flat compared to the Evergreen course. There were some rolling hills, but I stayed in my middle ring the whole time. It was a gorgeous day out and I was really enjoying it. 

The sprint course met back up with the Olympic course during the last 4 or so miles, I could hear the tri bikes zooming by me. We made our way back in to the high school area – I was excited to have made it under an hour for the 15 miles!

15 mile bike time: 53:18

Average for AG: 51:03

Rank:  5 of 8

It is interesting looking at results – for the bike there is a clear division in times for top 4 and bottom 4

Average for top 4: 47:16

Average for bottom 4: 54:50

I unclipped and headed in to the transition area. I spotted AA near the back where my station was. I took off the shoes and put on my sneakers, grabbed my hat, a sip of water and I was off!

coming in to the transition, hi AA!

sneakers...on!

Transition time: 1:15

Average for AG: 1:24

Rank: 3 of 8

We headed down the field and made our way to the pavement.  I didn’t put in my iPod and just got to listen to my heavy breathing :-)

Ready to run!

It was sunny out, so I was very happy to have my hat on. I kept glancing down at my watch during the first mile and it was reading 9:20ish min/mile pace. I was wondering if I should slow it down, but it felt good! I thought maybe my watch was off. 

There was water and Gatorade at every mile, the support and volunteers for this race were great! The course went through some neighborhoods and eventually made its way around Lake Loveland.  I could tell a lot of the runners near me were the Olympic racers, and clearly really good ones! I cheered on what appeared to be the top 3 women and they made their way back from their run. 

Around Lake Loveland

I felt good pretty much the entire run. Since we split off from the Olympic distance after 3 miles, I wasn’t sure how much support their would be. The mile 3 was totally mismarked, my watch read 2.6 miles, but the rest seemed to be on point. There was another way station about 3ish miles, so the last 1.3ish would be without water. Around this time, a girl from my AG passed me and I was pretty bummed, but kept it going. 

We rounded the lake, in to this little park place, and looped around for the finish. There was great support coming in to the finish and I kept my eyes peeled for AA, spotted him! I made my way through as they announced my name. It felt great!!

Coming down the stretch!

Final haul

Run time: 41:32

Average for AG:  41:19

Rank:  6 of 8

Timing...but pace is off!

The girl that passed me ended up beating me only by 15 seconds overall! I had her on the first 2 events, but she ran about 45 seconds faster on the run! Darn it all! I had her by 6 minutes on the swim, but got back about 5 minutes of that on the bike. Officially I had a 9:40 pace, my watch said 9:25 so the distance must have been off. I am super happy with that pace!

As I am studying the results, I think the girl with the flat tire was in my age group. Her bike time was super high, 56:57, but the other 2 events were stellar. She had a 7:48 running pace, 2^nd in the swim and 2^nd in the run. Poor girl! If she were on pace with first place, she lost 10-13 minutes from that. I really need to learn how to change a flat!

So all in all, I was so happy with how the race went! It helped the bike wasn’t hilly. I am feeling okay for the Olympic, but am scared of the bike the most (and in turn how tired I’ll be for the run). I am doing the aquaman race tomorrow at Cherry Creek, and I’ll do the 1 mile swim then the 5K run. I think this will be good to see how the longer swim feels in a race setting. I’ll do it the following week, as well.

Looking at the results, I am pretty happy with the my swim time, always room for improvement though. As I mentioned on the bike portion, there was a divide between the top 4 and bottom 4. I definitely need to improve on the bike. The run, as always, is a bit slow, but I don’t ever see myself as a super fast runner, so I’ll just continue to train and improve on this!

All in all, a great day. It was great to have AA there to support me along the way!!!!