I just completed the Couples Triathlon in Austin, TX! My first tri was 3 years ago, so this is my second. I’m off to a good start this season, and now I’m excited to train for the next one.
Couples is a 800 meter swim / 11.2 mile bike / 3.1 mile run, which makes it a sprint distance tri. It was at Walter E. Long park at Decker Lake here in Austin, TX this year.
I was 478/706 overall, and completed the race in 1:42:07. I’m happy with that. My goal was just to complete. We had a deployment at work, so I was there the night before. So 5 hours of sleep before the tri wasn’t ideal, bit really it worked out OK.
Triathlons are fun! You get to go do something physical, see other triathletes – over time you meet more people and it’s a pretty close community of people, families and businesses. Accelerade, and Clif Bar were there, and a Doctor and his people doing a type of therapy related to massage. I don’t remember what it was called now, but it was like active stretching or something like that.
It’s so worth it for the sense of accomplishment, and the high you get after you recover a bit. You meet some motivated friendly people who are good at lots of other things in life too.
Everything went well and was pretty comfortable. The run was brutal. Must have been 100% humidity/ 90 degrees. The course was fun though. The water was warm at 80 degrees or so, which I really liked. It was just really comfortable. The roads were shut down for the bike, so it was just us out there going up and down hills in typical Texas hill country terrain. And the run was on grass, so it was easy on the body. I had to stop a few times on the run as I was starting to overheat.
Now I’ve got to get with Matt and plan our trip to Chicago for the next one! Matt inspired me to sign up when we were crossing the finish line at the MS 150 this year. How’s the training Matt?
Training is going well. The swimming which should be the easiest for me, due to my history with it, has actually been the most difficult because of my asthma. I am looking to start running by the end of July once my ankle can handle the punishment, either that or I run the tri with a nice ankle brace, which is an option. My absolute worst goal is to finish in 1:30:00, but looking to get closer to 1:20 if possible. My breakdown is about 10-13 minute swim, 40 min bike, 25 min run