SheROX Triathlon: October 16, 2011.  I don’t have any issue with doing mixed triathlons, but there was something appealing about the idea of doing an all women’s race. I knew there would be tons of first-timers out there, and even though that poses its own set of challenges I thought it would be fun. This race didn’t disappoint.

It was dark and cold when we got to transition in the morning. I had about the luckiest spot I could have been given, super close to all transition ins/outs. Yay! It took me about 2 seconds to get my spot set up. And then I waited. And waited. And waited.

There were SO may racers hanging out at the swim start. I was ready to go pretty early so I just hung around in the corral waiting for my wave. We had a floating start. I tried my best to get up towards the front of the herd, but still ended up being about in the middle. When the horn went off there was absolutely nowhere to go. It took probably a good 25 yards before there was even enough room to put my head down and really start swimming. There was a lot of bumping, yelling, back-stroking and assorted other crazy shit going on all the way to the first buoy. I tried not to let any of it bug me and just kept on plugging away. I had a super hard time seeing the buoys which I know sounds weird. But between the overcast, the early start, the fogged goggles and being right at water level it was pretty tough to see. I made it in no problem but my time was pretty slow. Oh well.

I didn’t have any trouble finding my bike this time, so I had a super fast transition. Once I realized that I decided I may as well go for it. So I was off and hammering on the bike as hard as I could. There was a lot of traffic and a brutal headwind on the bike course, but everything went pretty well. It wasn’t the most impressive time ever but I passed a ton of people out there.

I was off the bike and back out on the run before most of my entourage could make it across transition to take pictures. I felt awesome so I took off. The concrete run route felt a little rough on me. Since it was a short double-loop, it was also very crowded. But I plowed my way through pretty well. It was nice to run into Shannon (of ToughChik fame) out on the run. I we gave each other a little shout-out while I blew by. On the second run lap I could see a few from my age group up ahead. I was able to run them down, one just before the finish line. I really had a spectacular run. I’m still shocked by how my faster I’ve gotten this year. Thanks, Tanja!

This was another really strong race for me with a rather lackluster sounding result. I came in 13th out of 121 with at time of 1:18:21.