Jeanine Murphy-Morris – Bear Triathlon-Olympic – Sunday, May 20, 2018

I had a great time at Bear. Glad the weather broke on Sunday, though of course we had to have a 5 minute sprinkle on our gear after the transition area was closed! ______________________Swim: Felt really relaxed. The most relaxed I've been in a race swim. I think part of it is that my coach Suzy (yay, Ripit!) has had me doing the longest swim sets I've ever done before. Sighting was easy, there was very little contact, and I held a good line. Official results say 32:40 for 1500m, or 1:59.5/100yd. T1 3:32. My Garmin added more of the run in to the swim time. _______________________Bike: 1:28:29. Started conservatively, though my heart rate never got very high later. Felt fairly comfortable, neck was getting sore toward end. Legs did get a little tight. Had 350 cal carbo Pro, 2 Gu’s. Ran out of water 🙁 The little breather hole in my aero bottle popped off and water was splashing out. I should've used added another bottle in down tube as a back-up. T2 was 1:59 _________________________Run 57:07 Felt good off the bike. It must be all that biking I've been doing lately. I ran out of T2 and went to press my lap button, but, there was watch. Doh! Left it on my bike. First time I've used a quick release and I forgot it, even though I practiced it the day before. It made the run seem long because I wasn't sure how far I had gone, and was worried I had run the "dog park," or whatever that circle of confusion was called, too many times. I went by feel and it came out okay. My pace ended up a bit faster than I thought it would be, so I was happy.___________ ______I was over my Olympic P.R. by just over a minute, and that was set five years ago, so I'm happy that my training has brought out some of the speed still left in me. Overall, I enjoyed the race a lot. Ripit said they'd fix the circle thing next year. I loved the venue, and the organization was superb. My hubby sherpa enjoyed the venue too. I'm sure we'll be back next year.